The Metaverse: Investigating the Motivations and Experiences of Early Adopters in RecRoom

Recent technological developments in the metaverse have made this immersive landscape an imminent reality. Limited existing metaverse research focuses on the adoption of metaverse technologies, but little research has been conducted to understand the experiences of early adopters and the motivators and inhibitors which affect their adoption and continued use, despite their role in widespread adoption. This research highlights the motivations of early adopters in using metaverse technologies, with a primary focus on the experiences of early adopters in using social metaverse applications. A qualitative, inductive approach was employed for research, given its strengths in exploring unforeseen themes and allowing early adopters to raise issues which matter most to them. Research was conducted in the metaverse application, RecRoom, with semi-structured interviews taking place between avatars (n=8). The results suggested that motivations for adopting and using the metaverse at this stage were overwhelmingly hedonic, with networks, interest and COVID-19 playing a key role in adoption. The affordances of socialisation, immersion and extended ability significantly affected enjoyment, while harassment and privacy attitudes emerged as inhibitors to continued use. Alongside capturing attitudes of early adopters at this juncture of metaverse development, this research provided suggestions for metaverse researchers and developers for the next stage of innovation.