An Exploration of Virtual Reality User Profiles and Their Relationship with Symptoms of Addiction

Previous research on digital media and well-being showed that the impact of media technologies on users largely depends on specific usage characteristics, context, and individual user factors. This research report explores the existence of distinct user profiles in virtual reality (VR), using an existing dataset and applying latent class analysis. The results point to the existence of three classes: two of them primarily include VR game users, who differ in the intensity of their psychological engagement (sense of presence) during gameplay, and a third class that includes users of social VR platforms, who report a relatively very high level of engagement with these platforms. The three groups differ in symptoms of addiction to the technology. These results provide valuable proof of concept for the usefulness of identifying usage profiles as a way to reveal how the relationship between VR and well-being might vary across different usage situations.