The sheer number of XR publications obscures how little focus is currently placed on social forms and applications of XR. Last year (2022), over 27,000 scientific articles were published on Augmented Reality (AR), and over 20,000 on Virtual Reality (VR). Mixed Reality (MR) was significantly weaker with just under 1,400 scientific publications.

However, if we search for publications on socially focused XR paradigms, there was a maximum of merely 130 on Social VR (in 2021) and a maximum of 36 publications (also in 2021) on publicly experienceable Spatial Augmented Reality (SAR). Other paradigms such as Social XR with just 3 publications each in 2021 and 2022 and Augmented Sociality have hardly been taken up. Others, such as Transmogrified Reality, have already fallen into oblivion.

It is obvious that social forms and applications of XR have been researched too little so far. The vision of the Societal XR is intended to help close this gap.