Qijia Chen defends his PhD thesis on From Presence to Practice in Social Virtual Reality

M.Des. Qijia Chen defends his PhD thesis "From Presence to Practice: Need Satisfaction, Usage Behaviors, and Emergent Practices in Social Virtual Reality" on Monday the 10th of November at 13 in the University of Helsinki Porthania building, Suomen Laki Hall (Yliopistonkatu 3, 1st floor). His opponent is Professor Julie R. Williamson (University of Glasgow, United Kingdom) and custos Professor Giulio Jacucci (University of Helsinki). The defence will be held in English.

The thesis of Qijia Chen is a part of research done in the Department of Computer Science and in the Ubiquitous Interaction group at the University of Helsinki. His supervisors have been Professor Giulio Jacucci (University of Helsinki) and Associate Professor Andrea Bellucci (Universidad Carlos III de Madrid, Spain).

From Presence to Practice: Need Satisfaction, Usage Behaviors, and Emergent Practices in Social Virtual Reality

Social Virtual Reality (VR) platforms such as VRChat, Rec Room, and Horizon Worlds have evolved into persistent, user‐driven social spaces where people meet, collaborate, and form communities through immersive, avatar‐mediated interaction. While early VR research in Human–Computer Interaction (HCI) was often conducted in controlled settings, Social VR offers an open, ecologically valid context in which user experience is shaped not only by technical affordances but also by factors such as personal goals, motivations, and social interactions.

This dissertation investigates VR in the context from two perspectives. First, it examines how presence, including spatial, social, and self-presence, supports users’ psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness, and how real‐world usage patterns (i.e., frequency, session duration, years of experience) shape presence. Second, it explores the emergence and impact of novel social behaviors (i.e., mirror dwelling, drinking in Social VR, and phantom tactile sensation) on both participants and bystanders.

We adopted a mixed‐method approach that combined two large‐scale surveys with qualitative analyses of Reddit posts. Findings show that social presence is the strongest and most consistent predictor of need satisfaction, while self‐presence also supports competence and relatedness; spatial presence plays a minimal role. Usage intensity predicts presence more strongly than tenure, with synergistic effects among frequent, long‐session, experienced users. Emergent practices arise from the interplay between platform affordances, technological constraints, and human social needs, offering both benefits (e.g., embodiment, bonding, immersion) and challenges (e.g., consent, safety).

Avail­ab­il­ity of the dis­ser­ta­tion

An electronic version of the doctoral dissertation will be available in the University of Helsinki open repository Helda at .

Printed copies will be available on request from Qijia Chen: .