Commercial Virtual Reality (VR) transforms people’s virtual experiences but introduces deceptive design opportunities that threaten user privacy. Although privacy deceptive patterns on 2D platforms are well-documented, their impacts in VR remain understudied. We surveyed 481 users’experiences and responses to privacy deceptive patterns across eight commercial VR scenarios. We found that VR deceptive design can exploit both cognitive vulnerabilities and bodily strain, a phenomenon we define as Ergonomic Susceptibility, and that VR’s sensory-rich experiences can make users more likely to accept invasive data disclosure framed as immersion-preserving. Users recognized manipulation but their prior non-VR exposure can foster privacy resignation.
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Rushed by Discomfort, Trapped by Immersion: Users’ Experiences and Responses to Privacy Deceptive Design in Commercial VR Applications
It is found that VR deceptive design can exploit both cognitive vulnerabilities and bodily strain, a phenomenon the authors define as Ergonomic Susceptibility, and that VR’s sensory-rich experiences can make users more likely to accept invasive data disclosure framed as immersion-preserving.