Abstract
While social interaction and play in a VR environment are becoming ever more popular, little is known about how social VR games affect users. The purpose of this study was to elucidate the role of several contingent factors in social VR games by modeling the relationships between involvement, well-being, depression, self-esteem, and social connectedness. A conditional process-moderated mediation model of the measured variables was analyzed with 220 pieces of collected data. The result showed that: (1) the direct effect of involvement on well-being was significant, and (2) the index of moderated mediation involving depression, self-esteem, and social connectedness was significant. We conclude that high levels of involvement in social VR games by socially isolated users with low self-esteem can negatively affect their well-being. The findings of this study contribute in several ways to our understanding of the effect of social VR games upon users and provide important practical implications.
Highlights
Social connection through new and improved technology-mediated communication has become a mainstay in an ever-changing society, and innovative extended reality technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), have the potential to advance social connection from face-to-face and 2D interfaces into a lively and interactive 3D virtual environment
We considered self-esteem to be a moderator between involvement in social VR games and depression, based on the assumption that when involvement in social VR games evokes a feeling of depression, the perceived depression decreases if self-esteem is high
We suggest social connection as an additional moderator, inferring that the relationship between involvement in social VR, depression, and well-being differ by the level of self-esteem and social connection
Summary
Social connection through new and improved technology-mediated communication has become a mainstay in an ever-changing society, and innovative extended reality technologies, such as augmented reality (AR) and virtual reality (VR), have the potential to advance social connection from face-to-face and 2D interfaces into a lively and interactive 3D virtual environment. The development of new multi-user interfaces is expected to accelerate social connection via virtual environments. Lack of social connection is a risk factor for social isolation, depression, and premature mortality (Cacioppo et al, 2010; Matthews et al, 2016). When it comes to new media environments, social relationships are not without their risks.
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