The Metaverse Paradigm: Social Foundations of Virtual Reality 元宇宙范式：虚拟现实的社会基础

The Metaverse Paradigm: Social Foundations of Virtual Reality

元宇宙范式：虚拟现实的社会基础

The emergence of the metaverse as a dominant paradigm in digital discourse represents far more than a technological novelty—it signals a fundamental reconceptualization of how human beings inhabit, construct, and derive meaning from digital spaces. When technologists and visionaries speak of the metaverse, they typically invoke images of immersive digital environments where users interact through photorealistic avatars, conduct economic transactions, and build social relationships with a richness that rivals physical world interactions. Yet beneath these popular imaginings lies a complex theoretical edifice that draws upon decades of research in computer-mediated communication, social psychology, human-computer interaction, and the philosophy of presence. This book opens with an examination of these foundational concepts precisely because understanding the metaverse requires more than familiarity with specific platforms or technologies—it demands comprehension of the social architectures that give virtual worlds their meaning and utility. The historical trajectory from simple text-based environments to sophisticated multi-user virtual spaces reveals a consistent pattern: as technological capabilities have expanded, so too has the complexity and significance of social interactions within these digital realms. This chapter establishes the conceptual vocabulary and historical context necessary for the analytical work that follows, tracing the evolution of virtual world technologies while introducing the theoretical frameworks that scholars and practitioners employ to understand their social dynamics.

元宇宙作为数字话语中的主导范式出现，其意义远超技术创新本身——它标志着人类如何栖居、构建并从数字空间中获取意义这一根本性理念的重新概念化。当技术专家和远见者谈论元宇宙时，他们通常会唤起沉浸式数字环境的图像：用户通过逼真的虚拟化身进行互动，从事经济交易，建立起与物理世界互动同样丰富的社会关系。然而，在这些流行想象中，存在着一个复杂的理论体系，它借鉴了计算机中介通信、社会心理学、人机交互和存在感哲学等数十年的研究成果。本书以这些基础概念的审视开篇，正是因为理解元宇宙需要的不仅仅是熟悉特定平台或技术——它要求理解赋予虚拟世界意义和实用性的社会架构。从简单的文本环境到复杂的多元用户虚拟空间的历史轨迹揭示了一个一致的模式：随着技术能力的扩展，这些数字领域内的社会互动复杂性及其意义也在同步增长。本章建立了理解其社会动态所需的理论词汇和历史背景，追溯虚拟世界技术的演变，同时介绍学者和从业者用来理解其社会动态的理论框架。

The conceptual foundations of virtual world research rest upon a trilogy of interrelated theories: presence theory, social presence theory, and the more recently articulated concept of plausibility of presence. These frameworks emerged not from speculation about future technologies but from empirical investigation of how human cognition and social behavior adapt to environments mediated by computational systems. Presence theory, as developed by Matthew Lombard and Theresa Ditton, addresses the fundamental question of why humans respond psychologically and physiologically to mediated environments as if they were "real"—even when conscious awareness suggests otherwise. The theory identifies several key factors that contribute to the subjective experience of presence: the richness of sensory stimulation, the degree of user control over the environment, and the extent to which the environment responds in expected and predictable ways. Early presence research focused primarily on video media and virtual reality systems, establishing that presence is not a binary state but rather a continuum that varies with the characteristics of both the medium and the individual user. The implications for metaverse design are profound: platforms that maximize sensory immersion, grant users meaningful agency, and maintain internal consistency will generate stronger presence experiences than those that prioritize other design values.

虚拟世界研究的概念基础建立在三个相互关联的理论之上：存在感理论、社会存在感理论和近来提出的“存在的可信度”概念。这些框架并非来自对未来的推测，而是源自对人类认知和社会行为如何适应计算系统中介环境的实证研究。隆巴德（Lombard）和迪顿（Ditton）提出的存在感理论回答了一个根本问题：为什么人类会对中介环境产生心理和生理反应，仿佛它们是“真实的”——即使有意识的认知表明并非如此。该理论确定了几个促成存在感主观体验的关键因素：感官刺激的丰富性、用户对环境的控制程度，以及环境以预期和可预测方式回应的程度。早期存在感研究主要关注视频媒体和虚拟现实系统，确定存在感不是二元状态，而是随媒介特征和个体用户特征而变化的连续体。对于元宇宙设计而言，其影响是深远的：最大化感官沉浸、赋予用户有意义的能动性、保持内部一致性的平台，将比那些优先考虑其他设计价值的平台产生更强的存在感体验。

Social presence theory extends the analysis of presence to encompass the specifically interpersonal dimension of mediated communication. According to John Short, Ederyn Williams, and Bruce Christie, who first articulated the concept in the 1970s, social presence refers to the degree to which a communication medium allows users to experience others as "socially real." Unlike general presence, which concerns the user's relationship with the environment itself, social presence focuses on the perceived immediacy and intimacy of interactions with other users. Early telephone systems, for example, transmitted voice but not visual information, yet users still reported experiencing social presence with callers—the sense that a "real person" existed on the other end of the connection. This finding suggested that social presence depends not merely on sensory fidelity but on the capacity of a medium to convey social cues and facilitate interpersonal awareness. As communication technologies have evolved from text-only systems to voice and video, the social presence available through mediated channels has increased correspondingly. Contemporary metaverse platforms aspire to transcend even video communication by enabling spatial interaction: the ability to perceive others not merely as video feeds but as embodied presences occupying shared digital space. This ambition raises profound questions about the nature of social presence and the conditions under which mediated interaction can approximate the richness of face-to-face communication.

社会存在感理论将存在感分析扩展到涵盖中介交流的人际维度。根据约翰·肖特（John Short）、埃德林·威廉姆斯（Ederyn Williams）和布鲁斯·克里斯蒂（Bruce Christie）在1970年代首次阐述的概念，社会存在感指的是一种传播媒介允许用户将他人体验为“社会真实”的程度。与关注用户与环境关系的一般存在感不同，社会存在感侧重于互动的感知即时性和亲密性。例如，早期电话系统传输声音但不传输视觉信息，但用户仍然报告说与来电者经历了社会存在感——感觉到连接的另一端存在一个“真实的人”。这一发现表明，社会存在感不仅取决于感官保真度，还取决于媒介传达社交线索和促进人际觉察的能力。随着通信技术从纯文本系统发展到语音和视频，通过中介渠道获得的社会存在感也相应增加。当代元宇宙平台渴望通过实现空间互动来超越视频通信：不仅将他人感知为视频源，而是作为占据共享数字空间的具身存在。这种雄心提出了关于社会存在感本质的深刻问题，以及中介互动在何种条件下可以接近面对面交流的丰富性。

The concept of plausibility of presence, introduced by Richard Skaržauskas and elaborated by subsequent researchers, represents an attempt to bridge the gap between technical capabilities and experiential outcomes. While presence theory originally emphasized the immersive qualities of the technological substrate—the visual fidelity, audio quality, and sensory richness of the system—plausibility of presence recognizes that the subjective experience of "being there" depends equally on the coherence and believability of the virtual world as a social environment. A metaverse platform might offer extraordinary visual fidelity yet fail to generate strong presence if its social systems feel artificial, if economic interactions lack grounding in comprehensible rules, or if the behavior of non-player characters and automated systems violates users' expectations of consistency. Plausibility of presence thus directs attention beyond hardware specifications to encompass the totality of the user experience: the quality of social interactions, the logical consistency of the environment, and the alignment between user expectations and system behavior. This holistic perspective proves essential for understanding why some virtual worlds succeed in generating presence while technically superior alternatives fail—the answer often lies not in raw computational power but in the subtle architecture of social and systemic design.

普拉西比力·奥夫·普雷森斯（存在的可信度）概念由理查德·斯卡茹卡斯卡斯（Richard Skaržauskas）提出并由后续研究者阐明，代表了弥合技术能力与体验成果之间差距的尝试。虽然存在感理论最初强调技术基质的沉浸品质——系统的视觉保真度、音频质量和感官丰富度——但存在的可信度认识到，“身临其境”的主观体验同样取决于虚拟世界作为社会环境的连贯性和可信度。一个元宇宙平台可能提供卓越的视觉保真度，但如果其社会系统感觉不自然，如果经济互动缺乏可理解规则的支撑，或者如果非玩家角色和自动化系统的行为违反用户对一致性的期望，它仍可能无法产生强烈的存在感。因此，存在的可信度将注意力从硬件规格转向涵盖用户体验的整体性：社会互动的质量、环境的逻辑一致性，以及用户期望与系统行为之间的对齐。这种整体视角对于理解为什么一些虚拟世界成功产生存在感而技术更优越的替代方案却失败了至关重要——答案通常不在于原始计算能力，而在于社会和系统设计的微妙架构。

The historical evolution of virtual worlds provides essential context for understanding contemporary metaverse platforms and the social phenomena they support. This evolution did not begin with the advent o