Virtual bridges of intimacy : designing and evaluating a virtual reality application for loving-kindness meditation in long-distance relationships

Abstract

Loving-kindness meditation (LKM) has long been recognized in clinical psychology as a powerful tool for enhancing couples’ bonding. However, physical isolation, especially in long-distance relationships, can increase relationship tension and obstruct traditional LKM. Although virtual reality (VR) technology offers possible solutions for immersive online LKM experiences, there are currently no suitable commercial VR applications for couples to engage in LKM activities while they are long-distance.

To address this gap, we organized a series of participatory design workshops to understand the needs of long-distance couples. These workshops allowed couples to imagine and co-design their ideal VR-mediated LKM experience. Through analysis of participant design work, coupled with semi-structured interviews, we extracted key design considerations for making VR LKM apps. Guided by these insights, we developed a prototype VR application that specializes in intimate LKM sessions for couples separated by distance. To validate our design, we conducted a comparative study in which couples conducted LKM sessions using our VR prototype and traditional video conferencing tools. While both had a positive impact on intimacy, the VR prototype emerged as the preferred option for many participants, especially when considering long-term use. We believe our experience can inform future researchers.

Date of Award	2023
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Supervisor	Pan HUI (Supervisor) & Mingming Fan (Supervisor)