This project investigates how individuals relate to self-avatars in immersive collaborative virtual environments and if that impacts their mental well-being.
It received generous funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC/UKRI) under the call for New Investigator grants and will span across 2.5 years, starting in March 2024.
We are witnessing an increase in the popularity of immersive collaborative virtual environments. These environments – such as Roblox and Decentraland – are associated with the ideas of the metaverse envisioned to integrate physical and virtual interactions in a novel manner. Young people in particular are now using them for social interactions, entertainment, fashion, education and commercial activities, embedding them in everyday life. Importantly, users in these environments represent themselves via self-avatars which can vary greatly in terms of their resemblance to the users’ offline appearance and offer new means for experimenting with their identity and expressing the self virtually.
There is a growing sense of urgency to understand the consequences of online platforms for mental well-being, as evidenced by the calls for further research issued by the Oxford Internet Institute and the World Economic Forum’s Global Future Council on Augmented and Virtual Reality. Related topics are also discussed by UK parliament, for instance in relation to the Digitally Altered Body Bill, highlighting the need for new legislation that would protect users of online platforms from mental health harms. The latest developments of virtual environments open up new possibilities, requiring new understandings into how people relate to their avatars and how that might affect their mental health.