ABSTRACT
Although consumers of all ages are increasingly embracing various forms of digital consumption and communication, marked intergenerational differences remain in terms of comfort and skill with digital reality. This chapter introduces the digital reality forms of augmented reality, mixed reality, as well as desktop and immersive virtual reality before discussing how digital reality can be used to adapt and extend traditional research methods to improve veracity, recall and controlled realism. The potential digitization of research methods with each of the relatively under-researched generations of children, youth and mature adults is discussed with respect to access and acceptance of digital technology, ways to use digital reality to conduct research and the practical and ethical issues which need to be considered.
