Young Skeptics: How Gen Y and Gen Z look at Virtual Worlds and the Metaverse
Who woud have thought that younger users from gen Z are more skeptical towards VR and the metaverse than older persons from gen Y? This is one of the surprising findings from my rescent research article, published in the journal Frontiers in Virtual Reality with my friend and colleague Matteo Zallio from the 英国剑桥大学 and my PhD-candidate Benjamin Schnitzer .
About a year ago, my colleague Daniel G?rlich and I established the new study program "Virtual Worlds and Game Technologies" at Hochschule Offenburg . Now we finally know, what we are up to...
We investigated in detail the perceptions of 115 younger people from generations Y and Z, the potential “power users” of virtual worlds. In addition, we looked at the differences in perception between non-academics and academics.
We focused on the following aspects: perceived knowledge, preferred usage scenarios, interaction with avatars and embodiment, perceived problems and challenges, personal worries, solutions for safeguarding, and institutions to drive safeguarding.
If you want to read more: The Open-Access article is available at:
Lecturer @ Henley Business School | AI Skills for Higher Results | VR and Web3 Specialist | Founder NewBusinessEdu
7 个月Thanks for sharing the article and anticipating findings. I have been offering VR experiences for the last 15 months, reached more than 1K people from all demographics, and the most engaged users are not from Gen Z. They are not as excited to experiment and try VR as their older counterparts. Maybe this behaviour is a symptom of technostress or the underlining benefits of VR are not sufficient to impress them? I will read the full paper.
Service Designer | Product Designer | Researcher | UX Strategist
7 个月It's interesting to see in the article participants' consideration of gaming as the primary activity, followed by entertainment and social connections, in virtual worlds. I believe this closely aligns with the main leisure uses of the internet. I think an important factor for the metaverse to gain more prominence in people's general perception is the potential impact it could have by changing some traditional work or training models. In situations where immersion could lead to greater productivity, this becomes particularly relevant. Of course, this will depend on each specific use case for which it is presented.
Researcher
7 个月A pleasure to work with you!