On March 12, 2022, the Laboratory of Media Studies of the University of Warsaw held the workshop on virtual reality entitled Metaverse as a promise of a bright future? - social interactions in a world of isolation. The workshop was an integral part of the 29th IEEE Conference on Virtual Reality + 3D User Interfaces, which took place on March 12-16 this year in the remote formula (although initially a hybrid event was planned, held in Christchurch, New Zealand). The conference is organized periodically by the most significant scientific association of this type named IEEE (Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers), bringing together specialists in electronics, computer and information engineering, electrical engineering and related fields. The workshops carried out by LMS UW (and others accompanying the conference) were selected through a competition. Forty-five participants from several dozen academic centres worldwide took part in the LMS event.

The meeting aimed to reflect on the social dimension of technological changes brought about by the development and expansion of virtual reality, recently symbolized by the Metaverse project. The workshop consisted of two parts: a panel of expert presentations supplemented by a discussion and an interactive virtual reality game, which was also summed up by a discussion.

The panel section, led by dr hab. Anna Mierzecka (LMS UW) has been attended by the invited keynote speakers - experts dealing with virtual reality and new technologies in the primary social aspect:

• Prof. Mark Billinghurst (Empathic Computing Laboratory, University of South Australia), Empathic Computing, going beyond the Metaverse; Prof. Matthew Cotton (SSSHL Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Teeside University, UK), Ethical decision-making and virtual environments;
• Carlos J. Ochoa Fernández (CEO in ONE Digital Consulting. President VR/AR Association Madrid Chapter, Global Co-Chair VR/ARA Education Committee), Impact of Metaverse in Education and Training in the Virtual Twin Society;
• Yongwoog „Andy” Jeon (Department of Marketing, Northern Illinois University, College of Business), Reading Social Media Marketing Messages as Simulated Self Within a Metaverse,
• dr hab. prof. UW Tomasz Gackowski (Laboratorium Badań Medioznawczych, Uniwersytet Warszawski), Metaresearch in Metaverse – metadillemas in future research.

The panel ended with a discussion moderated by prof. Tomasz Gackowski. The main topics of the debate were the ethical aspects of the development of new technologies, the challenges of conducting social research in a multi-media environment and modern tools enabling the measurement of psychophysiological reactions of people experiencing virtual reality.

In the second part of the event, the organizers invited the participants to attend (actively and passively) the social, deductive game "Prohibition", conducted in the VR Chat application. This gameplay has become a symbolic experimental field of VR exploration. This workshop element referred directly to the research project "VR Chat as a space for social interactions in risk-taking conditions" conducted at LMS UW as part of the Media Analyst specialization. Therefore, after the end of the game, Dr Karolina Brylska, coordinating this research project, presented a paper entitled Exploring the VR Chat – community and VR experience. She summarized the team's previous experience in conducting scientific research in VR. The presentation and the gameplay became the starting point for discussions about experiencing risk, competition and establishing interpersonal relations in VR. The player's identity in the virtual space was also discussed. It is also worth underlining that students of the specialization: Ryszard Niziński (acting as a game master during the workshop), Paulina Wągrodzka, Maria Lipińska, Julia Płocka and Jakub Chudzik took an active part in the game and discussion.