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- Pubmed Central
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- © Eun-Ju Lee et al., 2023; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc.
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- 2152-2715
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- 2152-2723
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- 10.1089/cyber.2022.0164
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Abstract
Despite the hype surrounding the metaverse, there is scant empirical research that examines who uses the service, for what specific purposes, and with what consequences. Based on a survey of current Zepeto users (N = 200), a popular metaverse application that enables people to create avatars and socialize while exploring the virtual spaces, we investigated (a) the key motives of Zepeto use, (b) how Big Five personality traits predict specific motives of Zepeto use, and (c) how specific motives of Zepeto use are associated with users’ psy- chological well-being. Overall, users were largely driven by the desire to explore the virtual world and enjoy unique experiences, but such a tendency was stronger among those higher on openness and agreeableness. Extroverts were more likely to use Zepeto for functional purposes, while those higher on neuroticism turned to Zepeto to escape from reality. As for psychological consequences, while those using Zepeto for functional and escaping purposes reported higher levels of loneliness, those who used Zepeto for social and experiential goals were less lonely. The experiential and escape motives predicted perceived social support in the opposite directions. Moreover, by comparing Zepeto users’ responses with those of non-users (N = 200), we found that (a) non-users overestimated users’ motives of Zepeto use, especially social and escape motives, (b) Zepeto users were higher on extraversion and openness than non-users, and (c) users reported higher levels of loneliness than non-users with no significant difference in perceived social support. Implications of the findings and future directions are discussed. Keywords: Big Five personality traits, loneliness, metaverse, social support, uses and gratifications, Zepeto Introduction Zepeto). While big technology companies like Microsoft and Meta are betting their future on the metaverse, less enthusi- lthough there is no agreed-upon definition of what astic, if not entirely pessimistic, prospects co-exist, often A it is, there certainly exists all the hype about it—the referring to the apparent failure of its earlier forms, such as metaverse. Heralded as the future of the internet or the in- Second Life. ternet of the future, the notion of metaverse has demanded No matter how we predict the future trajectory of the much public attention, whether it takes the form of virtual metaverse, the COVID-19 pandemic has certainly acceler- meeting places (e.g., Gather), online games (e.g., Roblox), or ated its adoption. With significant restrictions on face-to-face a virtual social world where avatars meet and chat (e.g., interactions during the lockdown, people turned to various Department of Communication, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. Graduate School of Culture Technology, Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST), Daejeon, Republic of Korea. Institute of Communication Research, Seoul National University, Seoul, Republic of Korea. ª Eun-Ju Lee et al., 2023; Published by Mary Ann Liebert, Inc. This Open Access article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons License [CC-BY] (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. 161 162 LEE ET AL. metaverse platforms, such as Zepeto, a popular metaverse had inverse relationships with those motives. Considering application that has attracted over 300 million users world- that Zepeto is often equated with games, offering various wide since its launch in August 2018. Despite its fast- features that cater to users’ diverse needs, we explored (a) growing popularity, however, little is known as to how how personality traits as relatively stable individual differ- people understand the service, what specific motives drive its ences lead people to seek different gratifications in the me- usage, what dispositional traits predict such motives, and taverse and (b) if certain personality traits differentiate what social psychological consequences follow its usage. In between Zepeto users and non-users. particular, how does the use of a social metaverse platform RQ2a-b: (a) How do users’ Big Five personality traits predict affect users’ mental well-being, which has significantly their motives of Zepeto use? (b) Do Zepeto users and non- worsened worldwide amid the global health crisis? Using an users exhibit different personality traits? online survey of Zepeto users and non-users, this research Among possible consequences of metaverse use, we fo- addresses these questions. cused on psychological well-being, which has become a critical issue around the globe amid the COVID-19 pan- The Current Study demic. In a Pew Research Center’s survey in February 2021, 21 percent of U.S. adults reported high levels of According to the use and gratification model, individuals psychological distress, a composite measure of anxiety, choose to use media (among other alternatives) as a means to sleeplessness, depression, loneliness, and physical symptoms fulfill their unmet needs. Research on social virtual world of distress. In particular, young adults 18 to 29 years of age identified various motives of use, such as friendship, escap- were more likely to report anxiety, depression, or loneliness ism, role-playing, achievement, relationship, and manipula- 6 7 than those 30 years of age and older (45 percent vs. 28 tion. Based on an open-ended survey, Zhou et al extracted percent). Similarly, a national survey in South Korea found a three types of needs that drove Second Life use: utilitarian significant increase in those indicating high levels of de- needs (e.g., learning, shopping, creating, making money), pression from 3.2 percent in 2019 to 18.1 percent in 2021. hedonic needs (e.g., exploring, diversion, vicarious experi- In particular, we examined loneliness and perceived social ence, escapism), and social needs (e.g., socializing, ro- support, which are directly associated with social interaction. mance), which were later referred to as functional values, Given that restrictive COVID-19 measures such as social experiential values, and social values, respectively. distancing and lockdowns have deprived individuals of the While uses and gratifications research focuses mostly on heretofore taken-for-granted opportunities to interact and the current users’ motivations of media use and its conse- socialize and that social isolation is a common cause of quences, for an emerging service like the metaverse, it is loneliness, it is no surprise that overall levels of loneliness important to understand how non-users conceive of the ser- heightened during the pandemic. With face-to-face inter- vice. By examining lay people’s beliefs about what primary personal encounter being severely limited, those who used functions the metaverse service can fulfill (e.g., folk theo- Zepeto especially for social interaction while navigating the ries), we can better predict users’ behaviors and experiences virtual world, might have experienced less loneliness and felt in the virtual world, and moreover, design more effective and increased social support. However, those who spend as much gratifying services by enhancing the task-media fit. To that time in the metaverse for different purposes, for instance, to end, we (a) measured both Zepeto users’ own motives of use buy and sell virtual goods or to escape from real life prob- and their perceptions of other users’ motives and (b) com- lems, might not have experienced equivalent changes. pared Zepeto users’ responses with those of non-users. Given mixed findings concerning how online social in- RQ1a-b. (a) What are the primary motives of Zepeto use? (b) teractions, especially those using social media, affect users’ Why do users and non-users think others use Zepeto? psychological well-being (see a recent comprehensive re- 19 20 view and a meta-analysis ), however, we proposed the At the same time, a host of individual differences shape following research questions to elucidate the potential ben- individuals’ specific media use as well as the motives un- efits of metaverse experiences (or the lack thereof ): derlying it. Most notably, although Big Five personality traits (openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, RQ3a-b: Do Zepeto users and non-users report different neuroticism) were not associated with the overall frequency levels of (a) loneliness and (b) perceived social support? of social network site (SNS) use, they tend to predict RQ4a-b: How are the motives of Zepeto use associated with specific SNS behaviors. According to a meta-analysis, ex- the users’ levels of (a) loneliness and (b) perceived social traversion was related to more interaction on SNS and more support? SNS friends, while openness predicted information seeking, playing games, and status updates. In terms of motives of use, those higher on agreeableness were more likely to use Methods Facebook to connect with and be accepted by others, but less Participants likely to seek attention. Significant associations were also found between person- Two hundred Zepeto users (65 men and 135 women, ality traits and motives of game play, such that while both M = 22.82, SD = 6.59) and 200 non-users (65 men and 135 age extraversion and agreeableness were positively related to women, M = 22.77, SD = 6.10) were recruited by a survey age adventure, escapism, and achievement motives, it was only company in South Korea. Considering that the 6- to 24-year- agreeableness that predicted the relationship motive. In a old cohort (Gen Z) accounts for more than 80 percent of recent study, neuroticism positively predicted escapism and Zepeto users, the sample consisted of 50 percent in their fantasy motives of game play, whereas the other four traits teens, 35 percent in their 20s, and 15 percent in their 30s for WHAT IS THE DRAW OF THE METAVERSE? 163 users and non-users, respectively. Gender imbalance also Table 2. Discriminant Validity of Measures of Zepeto Use Motives reflected the reported dominance of female users. This study was approved by the IRB at Korea Advanced Institute Functional Social Experiential of Science and Technology. motive motive motive Social motive 0.63 Measures Experiential motive 0.50 0.63 Escape motive 0.41 0.59 0.43 All items were measured using a 7-point scale (1 = Strongly disagree and 7 = Strongly agree), unless noted N = 200. Cell entries are HTMT values. otherwise. While adopting items from Zhou et al (func- HTMT, heterotrait-monotrait ratio of correlations. tional, social, and experiential values), we distinguished between experiential and escape motives, for each represents from my family’’ and ‘‘I can count on my friends when conceptually different gratifications sought and removing things go wrong’’ (a = 0.92, M = 5.13, SD = 1.21). the escape motive item slightly heightened the reliability Users were also asked how often they accessed the Zepeto score of the experiential motive. Moreover, the motive mea- application last month (1= Never and 9 = Several times an sures demonstrated acceptable convergent validity (com- hour; M = 3.37, SD= 2.02) and how much time per day they posite reliability >0.73 and average variance extracted >0.45; spent using Zepeto (weekdays: M = 67.95 minutes, SD= 65.02, Table 1) and discriminant validity (heterotrait-monotrait weekends: M = 105.25 minutes, SD= 89.07; overall M = 1.31 ratio of correlations <0.64; Table 2). hours, SD = 1.10). For perceived motives of (other) users, participants were presented with the same list and asked why they thought Results (other) users would use Zepeto. For non-users who might not RQ1a concerns the primary motives of Zepeto use. Zepeto be familiar with the Zepeto service, a short description of users were most likely to use the service for experiential Zepeto was presented and they could choose ‘‘Don’t know.’’ purposes, with the social motive being the distant second, Big Five personality traits were captured by ‘‘extraverted, followed by the escape and functional motives (Table 3 and enthusiastic’’ (extraversion: M = 3.69, SD = 1.81), ‘‘sympa- Fig. 1). Paired-sample t tests confirmed that, except for the thetic, warm’’ (agreeableness: M = 4.87, SD = 1.36), ‘‘de- difference between the functional and escape motives, pendable, self-disciplined’’ (conscientiousness: M = 4.11, t(199)=-0.20, p = 0.840, the differences between any two SD = 1.51), ‘‘anxious, easily upset’’ (neuroticism: M = 3.97, motives were statistically significant, all ts > 2.90, ps < 0.005. SD = 1.64), and ‘‘open to new experiences, complex’’ 25 To address why Zepeto users and non-users think other (openness: M = 4.69, SD = 1.45). people use the service (RQ1b), independent-samples t tests For loneliness, participants responded to six items asking and paired-sample t tests were conducted (Table 3 and how often they felt connected with people around them Fig. 1). First, there was no significant difference between (reverse-coded) and left out from others (e.g., ‘‘I feel alone’’; 26 Zepeto users’ and non-users’ perceptions of how strong 1 = Never,7 = All the time; a = 0.85, M = 2.85, SD = 1.09). others’ functional and social motives are. For the experiential Perceived social support was measured by eight items tap- and escape motives, however, non-users estimated them ping how supportive they thought their family and friends higher than users. Next, we compared Zepeto users’ own were, including ‘‘I get the emotional help and support I need motives with non-users’ perceptions of users’ motives to gauge how accurately non-users conjecture the actual users’ motives. For all four Zepeto use motives, non-users over- Table 1. Zepeto Use Motives estimated the actual users’ motives. Finally, Zepeto users’ own motives and their perceptions of other users’ motives ‘‘I use Zepeto to.’’ were compared. Without exception, they perceived other Functional motive (CR = 0.73, AVE = 0.48, a = 0.71, users to have stronger motives than they themselves did. M = 3.37, SD = 1.42) RQ2b asks if Zepeto users and non-users differ in per- (a) Shop/purchase goods, (b) sell virtual goods, (c) create sonality traits. As shown in Table 4, Zepeto users were more objects/design virtual items extraverted and open to experience. Likewise, we examined Social motive (CR = 0.89, AVE = 0.72, a = 0.88, M = 3.70, whether Zepeto users and non-users experienced different SD = 1.54) degrees of loneliness (RQ3a) and social support (RQ3b). (a) Interact with people from all around the world, (b) Zepeto users were more lonely compared to non-users, but maintain relationships with people that they already perceived no less social support (Table 4). know, (c) build communities with similar others To assess the relations among Zepeto users’ personality Experiential motive (CR = 0.78, AVE = 0.46, a = 0.77, traits, their motives of Zepeto use (RQ2a), and mental well- M = 4.90, SD = 1.18) being (loneliness and perceived social support) (RQ4a-b), (a) Explore the virtual world, (b) have fun, (c) pass time/overcome boredom, (d) engage in new experiences controlling for sex, age, and Zepeto usage (frequency and that cannot be gained in the real world amount), we fitted a structural equation model with maxi- Escape motive (M = 3.40, SD = 1.62) mum likelihood estimation. Specifically, we estimated a just- (a) Escape from real-life problems and pressures identified model, generating a perfect fit to the data, v (0) = 0, comparative fit index = 1, root mean square error of ap- N = 200. proximation = 0, and standardized root mean squared re- AVE, average variance extracted; CR, composite reliability; SD, standard deviation. sidual = 0 (Table 5). 164 LEE ET AL. Table 3. Zepeto Users’ Motives, Users’ Perceptions of Other Users’ Motives, and Non-Users’ Perceptions of Users’ Motives t value for the equality to Users’ perceptions of Non-users’ perceptions Zepeto use motives NM SD other users’ motive of users’ motive Functional Users’ motive 200 3.37 1.42 -8.62*** -5.20*** Users’ perceptions of other users’ motive 200 4.17 1.37 0.32 Non-users’ perceptions of users’ motive 189 4.12 1.42 Social Users’ motive 200 3.70 1.54 -11.65*** -9.10*** Users’ perceptions of other users’ motive 200 4.91 1.30 -0.41 Non-users’ perceptions of users’ motive 196 4.97 1.19 Experiential Users’ motive 200 4.90 1.18 -7.81*** -6.98*** Users’ perceptions of other users’ motive 200 5.37 1.13 -2.77** Non-users’ perceptions of users’ motive 198 5.67 1.00 Escape Users’ motive 200 3.40 1.62 -8.49*** -8.09*** Users’ perceptions of other users’ motive 200 4.40 1.59 -2.28* Non-users’ perceptions of users’ motive 178 4.78 1.70 *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. ‘‘Don’t know’’ responses were treated as missing. For RQ2a, while extraversion only predicted the func- liness by heightening the functional motive of Zepeto use tional motive, agreeableness was positively associated with (Table 6 and Fig. 2). By contrast, agreeableness, neuroticism, both social and experiential motives. Neuroticism positively and openness reduced loneliness by either increasing the predicted the escape motive, whereas it had a negative asso- social (agreeableness) and experiential (agreeableness and ciation with the functional motive. The higher the openness, openness) motives or decreasing the functional (neuroticism) the stronger the experiential motive, but conscientiousness had motive. Neuroticism also had a positive indirect effect on no significant relationship with any of the motives. loneliness by elevating the escape motive. Both agree- The functional and escape motives positively predicted ableness and openness increased perceived social support loneliness, whereas the social and experiential motives had through the experiential motive, whereas neuroticism de- negative associations with loneliness (RQ4a). For perceived creased it by fostering the escape motive. social support, the experiential motive was a positive pre- dictor, whereas the escape motive was a negative one Discussion (RQ4b). Tests of indirect effects of personality traits through This research addresses emerging questions related to the Zepeto use motives revealed that extraversion increased lone- metaverse, such as why people are attracted to the metaverse, FIG. 1. Means and 95 per- cent confidence intervals of users’ motives, non-users’ perceptions of users’ mo- tives, and users’ perceptions of other users’ motives. WHAT IS THE DRAW OF THE METAVERSE? 165 Table 4. Personality Traits, Loneliness, and Perceived Social Support of Zepeto Users and Non-Users Users, Non-users, M (SD) M (SD) t(398) Extraversion 3.93 (1.78) 3.45 (1.80) 2.68** Agreeableness 4.93 (1.27) 4.81 (1.45) 0.88 Conscientiousness 4.19 (1.50) 4.03 (1.52) 1.06 Neuroticism 4.09 (1.58) 3.86 (1.70) 1.44 Openness 4.93 (1.40) 4.45 (1.47) 3.38*** Loneliness 3.02 (1.13) 2.68 (1.03) 3.14** Perceived social 5.06 (1.19) 5.20 (1.22) -1.18 support N = 400. **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. what personality traits shape their motives of use, and how their psychological well-being varies as a function of those motives, by focusing on a specific metaverse platform, Zepeto. In so doing, we compared Zepeto users and non- users to see if there are distinct dispositional attributes that characterize Zepeto users. Overall, Zepeto users turned to the service mostly to ex- plore the virtual world, have fun, and engage in new expe- riences (i.e., experiential motive). Although the platform boasts itself as ‘‘an ultimate social platform,’’ meeting people from all around the world and maintaining existing relationships was a distant secondary motive. Indeed, when non-users’ perceptions of why people use Zepeto were compared against the actual users’ motives, non-users overestimated the strength of all four motives, but the dis- crepancy was particularly evident for the social and escape motives. Such findings suggest a gap between the public’s perception of the service and the actual users’ experiences. Zepeto users were more extraverted and open to experience than were non-users, which is not surprising given the early adoption stage of the service. More intriguing is how each personality trait predicts specific motives of Zepeto use. No- tably, while those more agreeable and open to experience expressed a stronger desire to seek novel experiences and have fun in the virtual world, those higher on neuroticism were more prone to escape from reality into the metaverse. Extra- verted users turned to Zepeto for business purposes, but consciousness had no significant association with any of the motives. Moreover, experiential and escape motives each predicted mental health outcomes in the opposite directions. Although actively engaging in the unique offerings of the metaverse lowered loneliness while enhancing perceived so- cial support, passively retreating into the cyberspace to avoid real-life issues worsened the user’s psychological well-being, suggesting that these two motives should be distinguished. Previous research yielded mixed findings as to how social media use predicts loneliness. In this study, while those driven by stronger functional and escape motives exhibited higher levels of loneliness, those who used Zepeto for social and experiential purposes were less lonely. Neither the fre- quency nor the amount of Zepeto use was significantly re- lated to loneliness. Although we cannot unambiguously determine the causal direction using our cross-sectional data, it is not the sheer amount of metaverse usage, but specific Table 5. The Effects of Personality Traits on Zepeto Use Motives, Loneliness, and Perceived Social Support Functional motive Social motive Experiential motive Escape motive Loneliness Perceived social support Extraversion 0.148* (0.068) 0.135 (0.072) -0.032 (0.054) -0.053 (0.077) -0.133** (0.046) 0.198*** (0.051) Agreeableness 0.044 (0.084) 0.222* (0.090) 0.267*** (0.067) 0.029 (0.095) -0.055 (0.058) 0.246*** (0.063) Conscientiousness -0.052 (0.081) 0.036 (0.086) 0.024 (0.064) 0.063 (0.091) -0.048 (0.053) 0.014 (0.058) Neuroticism -0.127* (0.064) -0.0003 (0.068) -0.041 (0.051) 0.223** (0.072) 0.171*** (0.045) -0.096 (0.049) Openness -0.077 (0.081) -0.010 (0.086) 0.133* (0.065) 0.145 (0.091) -0.067 (0.054) -0.012 (0.060) Functional motive 0.149** (0.054) -0.052 (0.060) Social motive -0.133* (0.060) 0.091 (0.066) Experiential motive -0.270*** (0.071) 0.201* (0.078) Escape motive 0.218*** (0.050) -0.112* (0.056) Use frequency -0.019 (0.042) -0.002 (0.046) Use amount 0.038 (0.063) -0.120 (0.069) Male 0.334 (0.212) 0.370 (0.225) -0.159 (0.169) 0.592* (0.238) 0.098 (0.143) 0.101 (0.157) Age 0.026 (0.015) 0.033* (0.016) 0.024* (0.012) 0.035* (0.017) 0.015 (0.011) -0.0001 (0.012) R 0.076 0.119 0.161 0.105 0.393 0.334 N = 200. Cell entries are unstandardized regression coefficients and standard errors in parentheses obtained from structural equation modeling with maximum likelihood estimation. The residual correlations among the four motives and those between the two mental well-being variables, as well as the correlations among the predictors were also estimated, but not shown here for brevity. *p < 0.05; **p < 0.01; ***p < 0.001. 166 LEE ET AL. Table 6. Indirect Effects of Personality Traits on Psychological Well-Being by Zepeto Use Motives Independent variable Mediator Dependent variable (personality traits) (use motives) (mental well-being) Indirect effect Extraversion Functional Loneliness 0.022 [0.003 to 0.061] Agreeableness Social Loneliness -0.030 [-0.078 to -0.002] Experiential Loneliness -0.072 [-0.148 to -0.020] Experiential Social support 0.054 [0.007 to 0.127] Neuroticism Functional Loneliness -0.019 [-0.058 to -0.001] Escape Loneliness 0.049 [0.015 to 0.100] Escape Social support -0.025 [-0.069 to -0.003] Openness Experiential Loneliness -0.036 [-0.087 to -0.005] Experiential Social support 0.027 [0.002 to 0.078] N = 200. Cell entries are unstandardized indirect-effect coefficients and 95 percent bias-corrected bootstrap confidence intervals (based on 5,000 bootstrap samples) in brackets. motives of metaverse use that account for the changes in use, thereby foregoing an opportunity to identify newly loneliness. Taken together with the finding that Zepeto users emerging motives unique to the metaverse. It would be in- were lonelier than non-users, it seems reasonable to conclude teresting to explore what gratifications are sought and ob- that although lonely people are more attracted to the meta- tained in the metaverse in an unrestricted manner, and verse service, it is what they actively seek within that space furthermore, how they vary as a function of demographic that determines the psychological consequences they expe- variables, dispositional traits, and social and psychological rience as a result. needs. Relatedly, measuring the escape motive with a single On the other hand, the significant associations between item was less than desired. Although the escape motive is Zepeto use motives and perceived social support were found fairly unambiguous and narrow in scope, and thus relatively only for the experiential and escape motives. This might well-suited for a single-item measure, its reliability should be have to do with the way perceived social support was oper- validated using multiple items. ationalized. Using standardized scales, we asked about the Second, due to the inherent challenges of defining the participants’ relationships with friends and family. As such, Zepeto user population, we relied on a convenience sam- unless they had interacted with their friends and family in ple. Although this is a common issue when researching the Zepeto, Zepeto use was unlikely to alter the amount of users of specific media platforms and services, more ef- support they receive from existing ties. By expanding the forts should be expended to comprise a representative boundary of social support network, future research should sample that adequately reflects key characteristics of the attempt to fully capture potential effects of metaverse use on actual user base. mental well-being. Again, it merits note that those fre- Third, our results are based on cross-sectional data, and quenting Zepeto to explore the novel experiences reported an thus subject to alternative interpretations. To disambiguate increase in social support, whereas those using Zepeto to the causal directions between motives of Zepeto use and escape from reality indicated reduced social support. psychological well-being, for instance, a longitudinal study Some limitations of this research deserve note. First, is called for that addresses how individuals’ metaverse ex- drawing upon the previous research on the virtual social periences alter their psychological state over time, preferably 7,8 world, we provided a predefined set of motives of Zepeto beyond loneliness and perceived social support. FIG. 2. Path diagram of Zepeto users’ personality traits, Zepeto use motives, and mental well-being. N = 200. 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Journal
Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking – Pubmed Central
Published: Mar 6, 2023