User traits mosaic: Understanding the multifaceted landscape of social VR users

Abstract Social virtual reality (SVR) allows real individuals to communicate and engage in simulated physical environments and activities. These systems simultaneously afford social and physical presence. However, the precise nature of various presence states in SVR is unclear. This study addresses this conceptual gap through interviews with SVR users and interpretative phenomenological analysis of the individual responses. This research shows that physical and social presence are only occasionally co-experienced; presence in SVR often depends on the individual experiences/backgrounds, perceived affordances, or specific goal of technology use. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of presence and its dynamic nature in SVR shaped by the users’ individual experiences. This facilitates how we will study and measure presence in SVR in the future.

Social Virtual Reality (SVR) allows users to meet and build relationships through embodied avatars and real-time interaction in virtual spaces. While embodiment can strengthen social connections and presence, it can also intensify negative encounters, making SVR particularly vulnerable to harassment. Despite frequent reports of verbal, visual, and "physical" violations in SVR, little is known about how harassment reshapes users' self-perception, including their sense of embodiment, self-identification, closeness, and avatar customization preferences. We conducted a controlled experiment with 52 participants who experienced either a neutral or a harassment condition in a scenario modeled after real SVR incidents. Participants perceived the harassing peer as significantly more negative, annoying, and disturbing than the neutral peer. Contrary to prior reports, harassment did not significantly affect well-being measures, including emotional state, self-esteem, and physiological arousal, within this controlled scenario. However, participants reported stronger bodily change, attributed more of their own attitudes and emotions to their avatars, and increased interpersonal distance when personal space was invaded. Self-reported coping strategies included ignoring, stepping back, using humor, and retaliating. Notably, avatar customization preferences shifted across conditions. Participants in the neutral condition favored personalized avatars, whereas those in the harassment condition more frequently preferred anonymity in public spaces. Together, these findings demonstrate that harassment in SVR not only exploits embodiment but also reshapes self-perception. We further contribute methodological insights into how harassment can be ethically and reproducibly studied in controlled SVR-like experiments.

ABSTRACT As social virtual reality (social VR) platforms increasingly captivate users worldwide, questions arise about how digitally mediated self-representation affects psychological health. This study investigates how avatar characteristics—specifically perceived avatar appearance similarity and perceived attractiveness—shape users’ well-being in social VR, with a focus on the mediating role of avatar identification. Drawing on two-wave longitudinal data collected over a three-month period from 486 VRChat users, the findings reveal that perceived avatar attractiveness was positively associated with users’ satisfaction with virtual life through enhanced avatar identification. However, perceived similarity did not exert a significant positive influence. Notably, while identification with attractive avatars supported virtual well-being, avatar attractiveness was also negatively associated with self-acceptance, suggesting a complex relationship between virtual self-presentation and mental health outcomes. These results highlight the critical psychological processes through which virtual identity communication is associated with users’ well-being and self-perception. This study calls for greater attention within health communication research to the ways avatar-mediated interactions in emerging digital environments can both support and challenge mental health.

Academic on-site conferences are vital for scholarly exchange and knowledge advancement, yet they contribute significantly to environmental burdens. Considering global sustainability challenges and the limitations of videoconferencing, Social VR offers an immersive alternative that replicates physical conference settings and enables avatar-based interaction. While existing pilot studies have explored perceived benefits and limitations of Social VR, empirical research comparing conference formats with respect to ecological, social, and economic sustainability remains scarce. To address this gap, a mixed-methods study was conducted with participants (N = 32) of an academic conference held in a Social VR environment. Data was collected via questionnaires combining validated scales and open-ended items. Results show that 43.8% of participants preferred on-site conferences, 40.6% preferred Social VR, and only 15.6% favored videoconferencing. Reported advantages of Social VR included ecological and economic benefits with socially favorable interaction conditions. These included a stronger sense of presence, more inclusive participation, and greater comfort in communication than conventional videoconferencing. Overall, the findings indicate that Social VR is a promising intermediate option, combining ecological and economic advantages with socially acceptable interaction quality, while leaving specific gaps in informal networking and nonverbal richness to be addressed by future technological and organizational design.

Social Virtual Reality (Social VR) has become a crucial space for LGBTQIA+ individuals, fostering self-expression, representation, and community-building. Platforms like VRChat provide a digital refuge, enabling identity exploration and social connection through immersive interactions and customizable avatars. While existing research has primarily examined embodiment and community dynamics, little attention has been given to the digital media productions created by LGBTQIA+ users in Social VR. This study employs a digital and media ethnographic approach to analyze queer media content in VRChat, including documentaries, performances, tutorials, music videos, and erotic role-playing. Through content analysis, documental analysis, and interviews with queer creators, this research explores how VRChat functions as a site for queer worldmaking, documenting LGBTQIA+ experiences and expanding visibility. VRChat is a vital tool for "Embodied Visibility," where queer users utilize virtual embodiment to construct and express identities that may not be possible in offline spaces. Media productions within VRChat, categorized as "machinima" or "metaverse films", serve as archival records of queer life, resisting systemic erasure and affirming LGBTQIA+ existence. As LGBTQIA+ rights encounter growing threats, these digital productions emerge as forms of cultural preservation and resistance. By capturing and amplifying queer narratives in Social VR, creators challenge and disrupt dominant discourses through queer worldmaking, offering representation and visibility while shaping digital spaces.

Sex is not a seamless experience. It involves moments of rupture, disconnection and failure. Even more so when it is digitally mediated. Sexting, phone sex, or long-distance intimacy via cameras and tele-dildonics all intertwine pleasure with the quirks of technology—unpredictable internet connections, lag, latency, glitches. Yet in mainstream depictions, sex is stripped of these interruptions and is portrayed as an effortless choreography: bodies meeting flawlessly, fluids exchanged with precision at the right moment, the penis always erect… Today, in social VR platforms such as VRChat, thousands of users put on their VR headsets and body trackers to engage in what is called “erotic role play” through 3D avatars. They don different avatars ranging in aesthetics from the anime and animals to objects like toothbrushes. Drawing on the author’s digital ethnography in VRChat, this paper will examine how users negotiate desire, intimacy and sex during these immersive encounters. Central to this examination will be the moments of rupture, disconnection and glitches that users often experience in their avatarial embodiments. For example, when tracking fails, the user might end up having their avatarial body parts dislocated or see their partner slower than usual in case of latency. Building on queer theory and glitch feminism (Russell, 2020; Sundén, 2015), this paper will argue that these ruptures might subvert cis-heteronormative and ableist frameworks around sex and intimacy. By embracing imperfection and subverting normative assumptions around pleasure, these disruptions can open possibilities for reimagining intimacy in playful, experimental, and non-normative ways.

The EduSync Project: Exploring the Potential of Social VR for Online Collaborative Learning.

Social virtual reality (VR) is the experience of a shared virtual space populated by virtual representations of each individual, allowing them to communicate, collaborate and interact with each other not unlike the real world. Conventional avatars generally mirror factors like an individual’s appearance, speech, movement, and so on, yet a VR can offer many more possibilities to represent a person beyond what reality can offer. One such representation is that of emotions and empathy. To that regard, we propose Bioresponsive Avatars, an avatar system that predicts user emotional states and represents them visually via their avatar appearance. To achieve this, we first conducted an avatar design workshop to understand how user’s imagine emotional states to appear on an avatar. Then, we performed an in-the-wild demonstration of a social VR prototype where dyadic users are presented with affective topics to communicate while their avatars adapt based on their predicted emotions. • Developed bioresponsive avatars to map emotions into Valence–Arousal model. • Implemented a real-time avatar using physiological sensing and ML in social VR. • Conducted an in-the-wild study with 55 participants, noting patterns of empathy in VR.

This study illustrates how recruitment and assistance unfold in social virtual reality. Using conversation analysis, the study examines audio-visual data of peer interaction on the social VR platform Rec Room. Novice users’ actions are examined as they familiarise themselves with the virtual environment and seek assistance from their peers. The findings show that participants orient to explicit requests as recruitment and respond to them with advice, whereas embodied trouble displays do not elicit assistance from the recipient. In turn, the examined advice turns show how participants avoid taking an expert position, and their turns are framed as suggestions. Recruitment and assistance make visible asymmetries of access to virtual and physical interactional resources and different perspectives in social VR.

This study explores virtual reality platforms as new sites to make documentary photos and tell news stories, with an emphasis on the ethical standards that regulate consent, identity protection, intellectual property, and accountability. The paper utilises images taken by users, semi-structured interviews with active VR photographers, and readings of platform governance documents to give practice-based guidance based on a multi-case study of VRChat, No Man's Sky VR, and AltspaceVR. The results suggest that getting digital consent in immersive places is a process that happens over and over again, not just once. They also indicate that platform developers, world creators, avatar authors, and photographers all share authorship and ownership. Finally, they show that protecting someone's identity needs to achieve a balance between keeping their story true and not revealing their identity. The results illustrate even more how crucial it is to have complete systems in place that deal with ethical risks and give individuals actual ways to be safe. The idea of shared accountability puts these principles together. In this theory, photographers and platforms work together to ensure that ethical standards are met. The conclusion talks about how to make the rules for immersive journalism more consistent, how to make virtual photography archives, how to report on different platforms, and how to put together hybrid exhibitions that show real-world photojournalism and virtual documentary photos side by side.

Social Virtual Reality (VR) enables shared media experiences between remote people inside immersive and realistic 3D spaces, providing richer and more natural interactions than in classical 2D social conferencing tools. Likewise, the benefits and engagement can even be magnified by integrating realistic and volumetric user representations (i.e., 3D holograms) in these virtual environments rather than synthetic avatars. This paper presents the design and evaluation of an interactive Social VR scenario for a joint and collaborative exploration of a catalogue of professional video clips by a broadcaster. On the one hand, the scenario includes a control panel to select the desired year and clip. After the year selection, a time travel through a lift effect is enforced to teleport users through a multi-level semi-open building in which each level / floor represents one year, and its look-and-feel is customized to resemble that year. On the other hand, the scenario allows the integration of up to four users represented as 3D holograms (full-body and full volume Point Clouds), each one with his/her own screen for video consumption, and arranged in a cross 360<sup xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">∘</sup> shape to allow for a natural visual interaction among themselves. The evaluation results with <italic xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">N=48</i> professionals of the broadcast sector not only provide relevant insights about the technical requirements and obtained performance, but confirm the satisfactory user experience (in terms of presence, togetherness, quality of interaction) provided by the presented technology and VR scenario and, most importantly, reveal and contribute to identifying the potential and opportunities of Social VR in the broadcast / video consumption landscape.

Virtual reality (VR) has been used to treat pain for decades, but improvements in the cost and accessibility of consumer devices open up new opportunities for increasing its efficacy; for example, by adding a social element to virtual experiences. Previous research on the effects of social interaction on pain thresholds in induced pain tasks indicates that even social interaction with a stranger has the potential to increase the effectiveness of VR for pain. In addition, interacting with friends or family members through media can offer social support, and conducting these interactions in immersive virtual reality may have an additive effect. Pre-registered, within-participants experiment examining effects of 4 conditions on pain threshold. Academic research laboratory. Participants (N = 70) completed a series of induced pain tasks under four conditions: (1) connecting with a companion (friend or family member) in VR, (2) connecting with a companion via Zoom, (3) connecting with a stranger in VR, and (4) alone in VR. Social interaction increased participants' pain thresholds in VR. Participants preferred interacting with their companions in social virtual reality to all other conditions. No statistically significant difference in pain thresholds was found between interacting with a stranger or a companion in VR. These findings suggest that social interaction, especially in VR, can enhance pain thresholds, with a preference for interacting with companions and demonstrate the potential for social VR to improve pain management.

Mitigating stress and anxiety in a social VR-based Trier Social Stress Test: The role of trait anxiety in cognitive and mindfulness interventions.

Black immersive virtuality: Racialized experiences of avatar embodiment and customization among Black users in social VR

Social Virtual Reality (Social VR) has evolved from a theoretical concept to a sophisticated communication medium over the past two decades. This systematic literature review synthesizes 78 peer-reviewed studies published between 2004-2024 to examine the development of Social VR as an interpersonal communication platform. The research employs a PRISMA-guided methodology to investigate five key research questions covering avatar-mediated communication, non-verbal cues, collaborative applications, ethical challenges, and inclusivity aspects. The findings reveal that Social VR has transcended its initial perception as an isolating technology to become a rich, multimodal communication medium that supports embodied presence and immersive interactions. Avatar-mediated communication demonstrates the Proteus Effect, where digital representation influences user behavior and self-perception. Non-verbal cues including gestures, spatial proximity, and gaze direction significantly enhance co-presence and emotional expression beyond traditional video conferencing. Collaborative applications in scientific research, education, and professional settings show improved engagement and knowledge retention through 3D immersive environments. However, significant challenges persist including limited facial expression tracking, inadequate real-time moderation systems, and ethical concerns regarding virtual harassment and privacy. The review identifies accessibility barriers related to device costs, digital literacy, and geographic disparities in research representation. Despite these challenges, Social VR demonstrates remarkable inclusive potential, particularly benefiting elderly users, neurodiverse individuals, and non-verbal communicators who adapt gesture-based and emoji-mediated interactions. The thematic synthesis reveals five primary domains shaping Social VR development: avatar communication, non-verbal interaction, virtual collaboration, ethical considerations, and inclusivity. Future research directions emphasize the need for longitudinal studies on team trust, cross-cultural trials in diverse contexts, AI-enhanced moderation systems, and standardization of expressive avatar technologies. The study concludes that Social VR holds transformative potential for reimagining human connections in digital spaces, contingent upon responsible development practices that prioritize safety, accessibility, and ethical design principles.

ABSTRACT In recent years, digital and virtual ethnography have been the primary ways of engaging remotely with users in VR spaces. In the same context, co-design has been a methodology that, despite its democratic premise, has been accessible only to a few researchers due to socio-economic reasons. This raises practical and ethical questions about using co-design in social VR (sVR) contexts, challenging design researchers to creatively address these issues. In this article, we investigate how we can use the participatory design principles as a lens to understand users’ practices in VRChat in designing more just and equitable virtual environments. We conducted interviews with 26 participants. We found that self-expression and community dynamics are interwoven, presenting a democratic environment of exchange; VR users perform mutual learning by developing their own social cues; there is a need for justice and transparency in the context of identifying vulnerable groups; and that sVR may support alternative technological futures unique to the medium’s social practices. We discuss design directions and critically reflect on the ethical implications of designing for virtual environments.

IntroductionVirtual reality (VR) is typically considered a single-user experience. However, since the early 1990s, systems have been developed and studied that allow multiple people to simultaneously inhabit the same virtual space, with each person represented by a virtual body that responds to their movements in real time through head and body tracking. Corresponding to this technical capability the concepts of copresence (the sensation of being with others) and social presence (the psychological correlates of being and interacting with others) have been studied. One important contributor to the outcome of a virtual meeting may be the prior relationship between the individuals. Just as in real-world meetings, the dynamics of social interactions may differ depending on whether the participants are friends or strangers.MethodsIn this paper, we report on a study with 50 participants, each in one of 16 groups of 3–4 people and a moderator, where eight of the groups consisted of friends and the other groups consisted of strangers. Each participant had a virtual body that resembled themselves. They engaged in a moderator-led discussion lasting approximately 17 min. We collected data through questionnaires measuring presence and copresence, and carried out sentiment analysis of participant post-experience essays, analysis of speaking time and turn-taking, and social network analysis.ResultsWe found that groups of friends reported higher copresence, showed more positive sentiment, and engaged more frequently in behaviors such as dyadic turn-taking than the groups of strangers.DiscussionWhen designing and deploying immersive social encounters, prior relationships between participants should be considered where possible since these can significantly alter the dynamics of social interaction.

Digital twin technologies have become increasingly relevant in virtual reality, offering precise 1:1 mapping between physical environments and their virtual counterparts. While previous work has focused on object interaction through passive haptics, little attention has been given to how such environments can support social and embodied interactions that feel natural and expressive. In this work, we extend the digital twin paradigm by integrating full-body avatars, hand tracking, and voice-driven facial animation into a location-based VR environment. To explore the interactive potential of this dual-realm environment, we propose three categories of cross-realm embodied interaction: (1) Tangible interaction, exemplified by spatially aligned object manipulation; (2) Social gesture, supported through expressive hand and body movement; and (3) Social touch, including co-located tactile actions such as handshakes and hugs. We developed a prototype system showing all three embodied interactions, supported by passive haptics, precise spatial alignment, and real-time multiplayer synchronization. We also introduced a low-cost, Wi-Fi-based motion tracking prototype to enhance interaction with movable physical elements. We evaluate the system through expert interviews, identifying key themes related to spatial trust, tactile realism, and interpersonal presence. Our findings suggested that precise alignment and embodied social cues significantly enhance immersion and social connectedness. This work contributes towards a replicable framework for designing socially immersive digital twin experiences and opens new directions for location-based VR in collaborative and educational contexts.

Social VR's focus on embodied and immersive experiences has led to intensified and more physicalized forms of harassment than other online contexts. Therefore, a growing body of HCI and CSCW work has explored multiple strategies and mechanisms to prevent and mitigate harassment risks in social VR. However, existing works have also highlighted a fundamental challenge in mitigating harassment in social VR - the apparent lack of consensus among social VR users on how to explicitly define harassment and what behaviors should be considered harassing in social VR. In this work, we aim to offer new knowledge on the uncertainty about how harassment is defined and perceived in social VR, particularly by learning from social VR users who have experienced both sides of harassment accusations . Based on interviews with 12 participants with diverse identities who have both been harassed by others and been accused of harassing others in social VR, we unpack how people justify and reflect on their behavior given their prior experiences of both being victims of harassment and being called a harasser. We thus offer unique insights into the complexity of harassment in social VR by highlighting cases of "gray areas" and critical ethical implications in such harassment accusations, which are understudied in the existing literature. We also propose two high-level design principles for new strategies and approaches to foster safe social VR spaces based on people's unique experiences of both sides of harassment accusations in social VR.