Younger children engage more while adolescents feel more excluded in social interaction in VR: evidence from two controlled experiments

Introduction: Recent advances in virtual reality (VR) have positioned immersive technologies as powerful tools in educational psychology, offering controllable and engaging environments for studying social and cognitive processes. The youth population is frequently at the center of this research domain; however, how developmental stage shapes children’s and adolescents’ experiences within VR remains insufficiently explored. Therefore, this study investigated the relationships between age and key experiential factors in VR, including perceptual engagement (immersion, perceived realism, involvement, and presence), usability, simulator sickness, and subjective feelings of social exclusion. Method: Based on the renowned Cyberball ostracism framework, we designed and developed custom VR conversational scenarios to simulate social exclusion with appropriately interactive mechanisms. Two controlled experiments with Italian school students (total N = 313; ages 8–16) were conducted with proper consents and ethical approvals. The VR application was refined based on feedback collected from the first study. During the experimental sessions, participants interacted with virtual peers in a virtual classroom and subsequently completed questionnaires assessing the target constructs. The acquired data were analyzed using group comparisons, correlation analyses, and multiple regression models. Results: Across both studies, younger participants (age <13) consistently reported higher levels of perceptual engagement as well as higher usability ratings. In contrast, older participants experienced significantly greater subjective social exclusion within the VR scenario. Simulator sickness scores did not differ significantly by age and showed no systematic developmental trend. Regression analyses confirmed that age negatively predicted perceptual measures and usability, and positively predicted exclusion, while perceptual realism and presence strongly contributed to usability judgments. Discussion: Findings demonstrate that developmental stage substantially influences how youth experience VR. In particular, younger children responded more positively to perceptual and usability aspects, whereas adolescents showed heightened sensitivity to social dynamics. Based on our empirical insights and established developmental theories, we propose a conceptual framework outlining the interplay among these factors and key design considerations for effective research in youth-centered VR applications.