Technostress in Work-Related Use of Social Virtual Reality

Abstract

he global virtual reality market is undergoing substantial growth, and within this landscape, social virtual reality has emerged as a key communication platform by offering features like shared spaces, avatar-based interactions, and tools for remote collaboration. Despite the increasing integration of virtual reality and social virtual reality in organizational contexts, a notable gap exists in our understanding of the stress experienced by users within social virtual reality environments. This paper addresses this gap by applying the concept of technostress. While existing literature has explored challenges and stress-inducing conditions and their consequences (i.e., strains) in organizational and virtual reality settings, little is known about the emergence of technostress in users of social virtual reality for work purposes. A qualitative analysis was employed in this paper to highlight the stress-creating conditions and consequent strains related to using social virtual reality in the organizational context—paving the way for further research in this field. Keywords: Technostress, Social Virtual Reality, Metaverse, Organizational Context.