The purpose of this study is to help scholars sort out and clarify the
evolution of the main application fields of the social presence theory and its
application status in different fields. This study conducted a detailed search
and literature review of the studies that using social presence theory,
systemically summarized the main application fields of social presence theory,
the evolution of the main application fields and its application status,
proposed the existing shortcomings, the future research directions and
appliaction fields. It is found that the communication field is social presence
theory’s birthplace and its earliest application field. Later, it gradually
expanded into the field of online learning and its application in this field is
relatively mature. The e-commerce is a rising star in
all application fields, and its application in human-computer
interaction is enduring and has a better outlook with the artificial
intelligence boom. There are some shortcomings in existing researches, such as,
the research on emerging communication methods is not enough, and there is no
conclusion that uniform regularity is formed, the attention to the mobile
terminal is not enough, and so on. Mobile learning performance, the design and
optimization of mobile end systems and platforms, social e-commerce, AI applications, new crossing areas etc. are important
topics and fields for the future application of social presence theory.
