Stress and coping in VRChat: A mixed-method case study of the use of VRChat as a coping tool during the COVID-19 pandemic
doi:10.1016/j.chbr.2025.100843
FIG. 1 — THE ONLINE CROWD
Bringing methods to the places people live online.
A crowd is not noise. Move through it — presence changes how it flows.
move your cursor · you are a presence in the field
The framework — what AURA studies
Avatars. Users. Relationships. Affect.
How people show up when the body is rendered — embodiment and self-presentation in VR and virtual worlds.
UsersWho is in the room, and who gets left out — audiences, communities, identity tagging, and inclusion.
RelationshipsHow connection forms across a screen — parasocial and interpersonal ties in mixed sync / async spaces.
AffectWhat it feels like, measured honestly — emotion, presence, and well-being at corpus scale.
Recent
What's been published.
Balancing fun and professionalism in game development: The dark and light side of play in virtual meetings
doi:10.3389/fcomm.2025.1609776
Time matters in VR: Students benefit from longer VR class duration, but certain outcomes decline after 45 minutes, with large individual variance
doi:10.1016/j.compedu.2025.105328
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The first conversation is short.
Students and researchers — at SIUE and anywhere else — are welcome to bring a question, an interest, or a dataset. The first conversation is about whether a project is workable and where the friction will be, not about whether the idea is good enough.