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People leverage avatars to communicate nonverbal behaviors in immersive virtual reality (VR), like interpersonal distance [2, 6] and virtual touch [5]. However, violations of appropriate physical distancing and unsolicited intimate touching…
Identification within media, whether with real or fictional characters, significantly impacts users, shaping their behavior and enriching their social and emotional experiences. Immersive media, like video games, utilize virtual entities…
Creating human digital doubles is becoming easier and much more accessible to everyone using consumer grade devices. In this work, we investigate how avatar style (realistic vs cartoon) and avatar familiarity (self, acquaintance, unknown…
Digital tools have long been used for supporting children's creativity. Digital games that allow children to create artifacts and express themselves in a playful environment serve as efficient Creativity Support Tools (or CSTs). Creativity…
Millions of people have seen their daily habits transform, reducing physical activity and leading to mental health issues. This study explores how virtual characters impact motivation for well-being. Three prototypes with cartoon, robotic,…
Virtual space offers innovative ways for individuals to engage with one another in a digital setting. Prominent virtual social platforms, such as Facebook Spaces, VR Chat, and AltspaceVR, facilitate social connections, allowing users to…
Social media platforms regularly track, aggregate, and monetize adolescents' data, yet provide them with little visibility or agency over how algorithms construct their digital identities and make inferences about them. We introduce…
Young people are major consumers of Augmented Reality (AR) tools like Pok\'emon GO, but they rarely engage in creating these experiences. Creating with technology gives young people a platform for expressing themselves and making social…
Creating games together is both a playful and effective way to develop skills in computational thinking, collaboration, and more. However, game development can be challenging for younger developers who lack formal training. While teenage…
This paper addresses the critical issue of deceptive design elements prevalent in technology, and their potential impact on children. Recent research highlights the impact of dark patterns on adults and adolescents, while studies involving…
Educating children and young people to be safe online is essential, especially as the metaverse, a next-generation internet blending immersive technologies, promises to reshape their interactions and amplify their experiences. While virtual…
This study examines the influence of perceived AI features on user motivation in virtual interactions. AI avatars, being disclosed as being an AI, or embodying specific genders, could be used in user-AI interactions. Leveraging insights…
This study explores the influence of environmental colors on human behavior, specifically focusing on aggressiveness and passiveness. Color is widely regarded as an influential environmental factor shaping human behavior, yet existing…
Self-awareness is a critical factor in social human-human interaction and, hence, in social HCI interaction. Increasing self-awareness through mirrors or video recordings is common in face-to-face trainings, since it influences antecedents…
This paper investigates how risk influences the way people barter. We used Minecraft to create an experimental environment in which people bartered to earn a monetary bonus. Our findings reveal that subjects exhibit risk-aversion to…
Social Virtual Reality (VR), where people meet in virtual spaces via 3D avatars, is used by children and adults alike. Children experience new forms of harassment in social VR where it is often inaccessible to parental oversight. To date,…
Building on game design and education research, this paper introduces narrative-focused role-playing games as a way to promote visualization literacy in young children. Visualization literacy skills are vital in understanding the world…
Young people are among the fastest adopters of generative AI, yet research emphasises adult-designed tools and experiments rather than playful, self-directed youth use. We analysed discourse from 4,172 users in Character.AI's official…
In video games, virtual characters' decision systems often use a simplified representation of the world. To increase both their autonomy and believability we want those characters to be able to learn this representation from human players.…
Social robots are increasingly introduced into children's lives as educational and social companions, yet little is known about how these products might best be introduced to their environments. The emergence of the "unboxing" phenomenon in…