According to a recent Gen Z research report by Piper Sandler, entitled Taking Stock With Teens, 26% of teens own a VR device but only 5% use it on a daily basis, and 48% use it seldom.
The survey was conducted this year between February 16 and March 22, and it included 7,100 teenagers from the United States. Regional responses were 45% in the South, 22% in the West, 21% in the Midwest, and 12% in the Northeast.
The findings are interesting because teenagers are the biggest consumers of video games, and many consumer-oriented virtual reality companies are developing products and services with this demographic in mind. In fact, the same survey identified 68% of teenagers as gamers, with nearly every other teenage gamer planning to buy a new console system in the next 2 years. In comparison, only 9% of teens who don’t own a VR headset plan to buy one in the future.
“This level of engagement is uncompelling relative to smartphones,” states the survey report. “Interest in the Metaverse appears mixed: 50% of teens either are unsure on the Metaverse or are not interested / no
intentions to purchase a device.”
Do these findings mean that the entire concept of the metaverse and the virtual reality headsets used to experience the currently available metaverse experiences don’t appeal to teenagers? Possibly, but the lack of interest could also mean that the first VR killer app and product have yet to arrive.
After all, smartphones existed for a long time before Apple released the first iPhone in 2007, but most consumers were happy with their dumbphones—just like most consumers today are happy playing traditional video games and enjoying content on 2D screens.
