Understanding and Mitigating New Harms in Immersive and Embodied Virtual Spaces: A Speculative Dystopian Design Fiction Approach

Abstract

Seeking novel approaches to understand and mitigate emerging and understudied new harms in immersive and embodied social spaces is a critically needed HCI and CSCW research agenda for achieving safer online environments in the future. In this work, we present and discuss the results from a CHI 2024 workshop in which 26 experts engaged in a speculative dystopian design fiction activity. Through the structured design fiction exercise, our participants collectively created six design fictions along four main themes highlighting our shared concerns in this problem space. We contribute to CSCW and HCI research by demonstrating the novelty and value of using speculation and design fiction as a methodological tool to engage with research in this emerging problem space. The identified themes and created design fictions also help us speculate plausible and desirable futures regarding new harms in embodied and immersive virtual spaces in the first place, which will inform our future research on envisioning and identifying potential solutions to prevent these harms from becoming reality.