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social interactions in the metaverse: an exploration of social practices in virtual reality

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Overview

The metaverse, a virtual world where users can interact and engage in social activities, is rapidly gaining popularity. This master's dissertation aimed to explore the nature of social interactions in the metaverse, including the effects of avatar design, safety in virtual environments, and factors that increase immersion for social behavior. Utilizing a thematic analysis of user interviews with current and lapsed users, the project examined how users form and maintain relationships, communicate, and express themselves in the metaverse.

 

This dissertation also investigated the potential implications of the metaverse on real-world social interactions and the implications for the future of virtual reality technology. The resulting recommendations from the research aim to provide valuable insights into the social dynamics of the metaverse and inform the design and development of future virtual environments.

Research Questions

  1. How do users carry out social interactions in the metaverse? 

  2. What do users value in their social interactions in the metaverse? 

  3. Do users feel safe interacting with others in the metaverse? 

  4. Are there any tools or factors that facilitate interaction in the metaverse? 

  5. How can designers and developers create space for social interactions that appeal to multiple types of users in the metaverse? 

Research Outcomes

The research resulted in a set of 15 recommendations for VR developers and innovators to incorporate into their platforms to improve user experience, grouped into 5 themes: 

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  • Social Interaction in Virtual Reality 

  • Factors of Immersion

  • Avatars as a Tool for Facilitating Interaction

  • Activities in Virtual Reality

  • Barriers to Virtual Reality

PROJECT PROCESS & DETAILS

METHOD & APPROACH

These questions were addressed by gathering data using three research methods: 

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  1. Literature Review—the literature review defined the landscape of virtual reality and the metaverse. It explored virtual reality in pop culture and media, gaming in virtual reality, public perception of the metaverse, social dangers and safety issues in the metaverse, and innovations happening in virtual reality. 

  2. Observations—Part of my research involved personal ethnographical explorations into the metaverse, where I immersed myself into the virtual worlds offered by Meta. Using a Meta Quest 2 headset, I spent a total of 10 sessions in the metaverse before data collection began so I could be familiar with the space and better understand and relate to the experiences of my participants. These sessions involved creating an avatar, exploring virtual worlds, attending events like concerts and presentations on crypto, and playing movement-based games like Beat Saber, mini golf, and archery. These explorations helped me to be better prepared for my user interviews and informed the questions asked my participants throughout the data collection process.

  3. Surveys—surveys were sent out via social media including channels, LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook, and Reddit. The survey aimed to capture how users participated in the metaverse, who they interacted with, and what activities they enjoyed. The survey gathered 131 responses, and 12 of those respondents were asked to be interview participants. 

  4. User Interviews—in total, 12 users participated in a 1 hour interview about their activities in the metaverse. The participants were grouped into 2 categories: (1) lapsed—those who used to participate in the metaverse but don't anymore, and (2) current—those who participate in the metaverse frequently. Participants were asked about their activities in the metaverse, how they used avatars, who they interacted with, what they liked and disliked about their interactions, and what they liked and disliked about their experiences in the metaverse. Personas were developed to represent each of these user groups. 

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THEMATIC ANALYSIS

The project implemented and adapted Braun and Clarke’s 6-step framework for approaching thematic analysis. This process resulted in 5 themes with related insights and recommendations.​

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Thematic Analysis Phases

Phase 1: Familiarize yourself with the data

Phase 2: Generate initial codes

Phase 3: Search for themes

Phase 4: Review themes

Phase 5: Produce the report

Resulting Themes

  • Social Interaction in Virtual Reality 

  • Factors of Immersion

  • Avatars as a Tool for Facilitating Interaction

  • Activities in Virtual Reality

  • Barriers to Virtual Reality

In addition to coding the interview transcripts and coding responses, affinity mapping helped distill the data down into subsequent themes. 

Metaverse Social Interactions Affinity Map (3).png
Metaverse Social Interactions Affinity Map (2).png

PERSONAS

Once the themes were defined and resulting insights synthesized, they were used to inform personas that could act as a guide for VR designers and developers to reference when building virtual platforms. Two personas were developed that captured the targeted user groups of this project: a current user and a lapsed user.

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Lapsed persona.png

INSIGHTS & RECOMMENDATIONS

This project resulted in 15 insights with related recommendations, grouped into the 5 themes uncovered during data analysis:

THEME 1: SOCIAL INTERACTIONS IN VIRTUAL REALITY

  • Insight 1: Real-world connection is often a prerequisite to virtual interactions. 

  • Recommendation: Provide opportunities for users to find and connect with people they may already know from their real life (ie friend suggestions, contact lists, invite friends options, etc.). 

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  • Insight 2: Virtual reality allows users to develop meaningful relationships. 

  • Recommendation: Provide users with a selection of games that appeal to users of all ages, genders, etc. that have teamwork elements and a common goal to encourage interaction and facilitate relationships. 
     

  • Insight 3: Having a shared task or focus facilitates interactions in virtual reality. 

  • Recommendation: Continue to create games where users can share in an experience or gameplay together that allows them to have a common goal or interest. 
     

  • Insight 4: Younger demographics can negatively impact a virtual experience for other users. 

  • Recommendation: Provide limitations and age verification for activities and gameplay areas so users can safely engage with others. 
     

  • Insight 5: Users want to control their level of interaction with other users in the metaverse. 

  • Recommendation:  Provide users the means to block unwanted interactions without negatively impacting their own experience.

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THEME 2: FACTORS OF IMMERSION

  • Insight 1: Users seek to be immersed in virtual reality for multiple reasons, including escape, exploration, and interaction. 

  • Recommendation: Ensure worlds are fully built out, allowing users to explore the world without running out of scenery, activities, storylines, or game objectives too quickly. 

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  • Insight 2: Feeling immersed in VR is impacted by multiple factors, including small details, high-resolution graphics, unlimited movement and exploration of a virtual world, and unhindered movement in the physical world. 

  • Recommendation: Focus on implementing small aesthetic details carried over from the real world that can make a virtual world feel more real, like blowing wind, rippling water, moving shadows, etc. 

 

  • Insight 3: Users enjoy the collective feeling of virtually experiencing an activity or event with other real people.

  • Recommendation: Prioritize social gameplay experiences where players work alongside other real users. 

 

  • Insight 4: Users want to be able to openly move between different worlds and experiences in the metaverse. 

  • Recommendation: Allow movement between games, activities, and metaverse worlds without leaving the immersion.

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THEME 3: AVATARS AS A TOOL FOR FACILITATING INTERACTION

  • Insight 1: Realistic avatars help facilitate interactions between users, adding to feelings of immersion.

  • Recommendation: Incorporate elements of realism into avatars to achieve better immersion and connection.

 

  • Insight 2: Users tend to create representational avatars based on idealized versions of themselves. 

  • Recommendation: Provide users with a variety of customizable styles, looks, and features to create representational avatars. 

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THEME 4: ACTIVITIES IN VIRTUAL REALITY

  • Insight 1: Users want more variety in the types of games and activities available in VR.

  • Recommendation: Branch out from stereotypical types of games (eg MOBA, FPS) and focus on creating experiential games that appeal to a variety of users. 

 

  • Insight 2: Many users are interested in fitness and exercise in VR.

  • Recommendation: Focus on designing games that incorporate movement and exercise in an engaging way. 

 

  • Insight 3: Education is seen by many users as a compelling use case for VR. 

  • Recommendation: Provide users with educational opportunities to engage with subjects they want to learn about. 

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THEME 5: BARRIERS TO VIRTUAL REALITY

  • Insight 1: Cost is often a barrier to fully participating in the metaverse 

  • Recommendation: Avoid adding extra charges and fees within the games and experiences offered in the metaverse.

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LEARNINGS & IMPLICATIONS

In addition to implementing these recommendations into VR and metaverse development, there are other areas for further research that could benefit the space as environments continue to develop:

 

  1. While this research did not explore the impact of interactions in the metaverse, evidence of sexual harassment was uncovered in the literature review, making this an important area that needs to be researched further so that drivers of risk can be understood and mitigated. As researchers, we have a chance to influence how companies build out these new virtual worlds and become advocates for enabling a safe and enjoyable experience for all users. If we can guide contributors towards designing with such values in mind, we have the opportunity to establish a new space that’s morally superior to even our own physical world, or at least one that avoids the toxic antisocial pitfalls of Web 2.0.

 

  1. This project discussed the experiences and findings of current and lapsed users, with a heavy focus on users who participate in gaming. While gaming became an unexpected focus of the project, it was a worthy area to explore seeing as gaming is a leading activity in virtual reality today. In addition to gaming, I came across many unique use cases I had not previously associated with the metaverse, including eLearning and industrial engineering. Future research in the space could benefit from uncovering a more diverse array of metaverse experiences to see if preferences for metaverse interactions, immersion, and activities are similar to the results uncovered by this project, as well as whether results differ among the various subgroups.

Reflection

At the beginning of this project, I had planned to incorporate naturalistic observations as a research method in addition to my user interviews and surveys, However, recruitment proved difficult when finding participants who were willing to be observed in VR, let alone answer questions about their experience in an interview. However, naturalistic observations would have been a helpful addition to the research, and I do wonder how the results would compare between naturalistic observations and the results I uncovered through user interviews. Do people recount accurately? Observations would tell. 

 

While conducting user interviews is important to learn about a user’s feelings and reflections on what they do, it is only a piece of the puzzle. Should future research include naturalistic observations in VR, the following hurdles should be addressed when planning the project:

 

  • Capturing audio and video recordings in the metaverse.

  • Ensuring participants use the same operating system (i.e. headset) as the researcher in order to interact with each other, as the metaverse is not currently interoperable and headset platforms are not always compatible.

  • Determining the best method to analyze naturalistic observations. When observations were originally part of the scope of this project, Value Sensitive Design was designated as the approach for analyzing observation data. However, it might be useful to explore other options that could uncover insights beyond what users value in their interactions.

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