What's It Mean to "Be Social" in VR?

McVeigh-Schultz, Joshua; Segura, Elena Márquez; Merrill, Nick; Isbister, Katherine

doi:10.1145/3197391.3205451

Cited by 92 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…It can become possible to know whether students are paying attention and take action if not, be aware of and record each student's exact interaction in the system. VR has also opened up new avenues for harassment in social settings [28].…”

Section: Ethical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

LIVE: the Human Role in Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments

Simeone

Speicher

Molnar

et al. 2019

Symposium on Spatial User Interaction

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This work studies the role of a human instructor within an immersive VR lesson. Our system allows the instructor to perform "contact teaching" by demonstrating concepts through interaction with the environment, and the student to experiment with interaction prompts. We conducted a between-subjects user study with two groups of students: one experienced the VR lesson while immersed together with an instructor; the other experienced the same contents demonstrated through animation sequences simulating the actions that the instructor would take. Results show that the Two-User version received significantly higher scores than the Single-User version in terms of overall preference, clarity, and helpfulness of the explanations. When immersed together with an instructor, users were more inclined to engage and progress further with the interaction prompts, than when the instructor was absent. Based on the analysis of videos and interviews, we identified design recommendations for future immersive VR educational experiences. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → Virtual reality; • Applied computing → Interactive learning environments.

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Section: Ethical Implicationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

LIVE: the Human Role in Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments

Simeone

Speicher

Molnar

et al. 2019

Symposium on Spatial User Interaction

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Commercially available applications include: VRChat, Rec Room, AltspaceVR, High Fidelity, Facebook Spaces, Anyland, and Mozilla Hubs (to name just a few). As part of a diverse and rapidly evolving media ecology, social VR applications vary widely terms of purpose, aesthetics, theme, functionality, interaction mechanics, and emergent social norms [26,31]. Accordingly, each application reflects a different answer to the question, "what does it mean to 'be social' in VR?"…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Accordingly, each application reflects a different answer to the question, "what does it mean to 'be social' in VR?" [26]. Like traditional 2D social media forms on the web, different platforms privilege different dimensions of sociality and reflect different design approaches to social interaction.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…New fundamental questions arise, however, from the kinds of embodied and spatialized experiences that immersive presence in VR affords. For example, aspects of embodied presence magnify the experience of harassment in social VR [1,26]. And what may at first appear to be minor differences in mechanics can have a profound impact on the kinds of social interactions that emerge in a social VR environment.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These include a comprehensive set of guidelines for usability and playability in VR [11] as well as more popular media accounts from the VR design community, for example [17]. Aside from a few preliminary studies [26,31] however, less has been done, to draw design lessons about social interaction from commercial VR platforms. For example, how do affordances of personal space [42] and social proxemics [4,5] relate to issues of harassment in these platforms?…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Shaping Pro-Social Interaction in VR

McVeigh-Schultz

Kolesnichenko

Isbister

2019

Proceedings of the 2019 CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems

Self Cite

133

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Commercial social VR applications represent a diverse and evolving ecology with competing models of what it means to be social in VR. Drawing from expert interviews, this paper examines how the creators of different social VR applications think about how their platforms frame, support, shape, or constrain social interaction. The study covers a range of applications including: Rec Room, High Fidelity, VRChat, Mozilla Hubs, Altspace VR, AnyLand, and Facebook Spaces. We contextualize design choices underlying these applications, with particular attention paid to the ways that industry experts perceive, and seek to shape, the relationship between user experiences and design choices. We underscore considerations related to: (1) aesthetics of place (2) embodied affordances, (3) social mechanics, (4) and tactics for shaping social norms and mitigating harassment. Drawing on this analysis, we discuss the stakes of these choices, suggest future research directions, and propose an emerging design framework for shaping pro-social behavior in VR. CCS CONCEPTS • Human-centered computing → HCI design and evaluation methods; Human-centered computing → HCI theory, concepts and models; Human-centered computing → Interactive systems and tools

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Social VR: A Promising Platform for Enhancing Mental Wellness among College Students

You,

Bailey,

Won

et al. 2023

Proceedings of the Association for Information Science and Tech

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In recent decades, there has been an alarming increase in the number of university and college students struggling with intensifying psychological distress, which has become a mental health crisis on campuses. To address this issue, this study proposes social VR as a potential platform to promote social interaction and improve mental well‐ being for college students. In this study, 68 students explored a variety of social VR applications in a classroom setting. Results showed that a) virtual space, audio, avatar, communication types, and activities were key contributing features that facilitated social interaction among college students in social VR and have the potential to enhance mental wellness, and b) the anonymous nature, communicative cues, and designated private areas provided by social VR platforms were effective in facilitating self‐disclosure, indicating social VR's potential in delivering mental health services such as individual and group counseling and therapy. This study provides evidence that social VR can enhance social interaction and communication while serving as a platform for professional mental health care, a venue that has yet to be explored in previous studies.

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What's It Mean to "Be Social" in VR?

Cited by 92 publications

References 19 publications

LIVE: the Human Role in Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments

LIVE: the Human Role in Learning in Immersive Virtual Environments

Shaping Pro-Social Interaction in VR

Social VR: A Promising Platform for Enhancing Mental Wellness among College Students

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