Why Does It Always Rain on Me? Influence of Gender and Environmental Factors on Usability, Technology Related Anxiety and Immersion in Virtual Environments

Collaborative virtual environments and technical possibilities in general are still a growing and more and more important influence on everyday life. According to corresponding studies it seems that context conditions as well as individual factors such as gender play an important role in the experience of virtual environments (i.e. immersion and technology-related anxiety) and in the rating of the used technology (i.e. its perceived usefulness). Thus, the objective of the current study was to evaluate the above mentioned factors in a group of 14 women and 14 men using two different emotionally charged collaborative virtual environments. The corresponding results indicate that there are in fact gender differences: Women reported higher levels of technology-related anxiety and immersion. In general, participants in the rainy condition rated the usefulness of the virtual environment higher. Also, women in the rainy condition rated the perceived usefulness higher than women in the cheerful condition whereas in the group of men it was vice versa.

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