The Rise of Social Support in VR
By Nikki Rademaker
This paper was written for the Research Fundamentals course. The assignment asked each student to choose a research topic and summarize it using exactly seven academic sources. The topic had to be focused enough to allow a compact overview, and it had to be clearly academic, not technical or engineering-based.
I decided to explore how social support takes shape in Virtual Reality (VR). My report, titled "Feeling the Love in 360°", looks at how VR is used to build emotional connections and how it might help people feel supported, even through a virtual headset.
The assignment helped me improve my ability to summarize academic research and write in a clear, scientific style. It also made me practice finding good sources and understanding how different papers relate to each other.
The report is split into three parts. It starts by looking at how people can feel closer and more emotionally connected in immersive VR. Then it zooms in on the idea of social VR-platforms where people meet each other in virtual spaces and build support networks. I paid extra attention to how this plays out for LGBTQ+ users and during COVID-19 lockdowns. Finally, I explored some other ways VR is being used for support, like helping people with pain or aphasia.
I found that VR really is more than just gaming or fun. It can help people feel seen, reduce pain, and create new forms of therapy and support. However, it also raises questions about accessibility, safety, and inclusion.
You can download my full report here.