Meditating Together: Practices, Benefits and Challenges of Meditation on Social Virtual Reality

Meditation and mind-body practices offer many benefits for both mental and physical well-being. Recently, social virtual reality (VR) has emerged as a promising platform to support well-being activities. While Human-Computer Interaction (HCI) research has explored technologies for meditation, little is known about how users appropriate social VR for meditation, particularly group practice, and how it shapes their experiences. To bridge this gap, we interviewed 13 regular social VR meditators to explore their practices, perceived benefits, and challenges. We found that meditators utilized platform features to engage in community-driven group practices, manage session flow, employ avatars and body tracking for kinetic practices, and experiment with novel forms of meditation. Participants reported benefits and challenges related to the individual and social aspects of their meditation experiences. Based on these findings, we discuss the implications of using social VR for meditation, including how avatars and virtual others positively affect the practice, as well as emerging tensions and opportunities.