Digital Outdoor Play
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Digital Outdoor Play: Benefits and Risks from an Interaction Design Perspective Tom Hitron Idan David Netta Ofer The Interdisciplinary Center The Interdisciplinary Center The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel Herzliya, Israel Herzliya, Israel [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Andrey Grishko Iddo Yehoshua Wald Hadas Erel The Interdisciplinary Center The Interdisciplinary Center The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel Herzliya, Israel Herzliya, Israel [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] Oren Zuckerman The Interdisciplinary Center Herzliya, Israel [email protected] ABSTRACT Author Keywords Outdoor play has been proven to be beneficial for children’s Outdoor Play; Head Up Games; Transparent Technology; development. HCI research on Heads-Up Games suggests Interaction Design. that the well-known decline in outdoor play can be addressed by adding technology to such activities. However, outdoor play benefits such as social interaction, creative thinking, and INTRODUCTION physical activity may be compromised when digital features Outdoor play is known to positively influence children’s devel- are added. We present the design & implementation of a novel opment [1]. Three important benefits of outdoor play are so- digitally-enhanced outdoor-play prototype. Our evaluation cial interaction, creative thinking, and physical activity [9, 12]. with 48 children revealed that a non-digital version of the By playing outdoors in groups or teams, children engage in novel outdoor play object afforded social play and game in- social interaction both by competing and collaborating, de- vention. Evaluation of the digitally-enhanced version showed veloping empathy, and increasing their social competence reduced collaborative social interaction and reduced creative accordingly [1,9,18, 24, 31, 39]. When considering the dis- thinking when compared with baseline. However, we showed tinction between competition and collaboration, researchers that specific sensing and feedback features better supported attributed different values to each. Competitive games were outdoor play benefits. For example non-accumulated feed- shown to have both positive and negative effects, depending on back was shown to increase collaborative play and creative the child’s personal characteristics. For some children, compe- thinking in comparison to accumulated feedback. We provide tition leads to strong individual motivation, while for children evidence-based recommendations for designers of outdoor who feel less competent, it may have an opposite effect [29,54]. play technologies. Collaborative games require working towards a common goal and were shown to have an important role in the development of social skills [29]. Collaboration in outdoor games also in- ACM Classification Keywords fluences creative thinking [4, 22, 52]. Games such as chase ( H: .5.1)Multimedia Information Systems (e.g. HCI) and flee, ball play, and imaginative outdoor games represent the open-ended unstructured nature of outdoor activities. An open-ended environment setting is conducive to creative think- Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or ing [6, 12]. Physical activity is another well-known benefit of classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed outdoor play and is associated with improved health, cogni- for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than the tion, emotional regulation and well-being [13,46,50]. Taken author(s) must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or together, social interaction, creative thinking, and physical ac- republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]. tivity are well-documented benefits of outdoor play. Moreover, CHI 2018, April 21–26, 2018, Montreal, QC, Canada these benefits are of special importance as they play a ma- © 2018 Copyright held by the owner/author(s). Publication rights licensed to ACM. jor role in the development of adult-life skills, such as social ISBN 978-1-4503-5620-6/18/04. $15.00 competence and problem solving [39]. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1145/3173574.3173858 Compared with children in the 1970’s, children today spend Heads Up Games 50% less time in unstructured outdoor activities [26]. Time Pervasive games commonly involve screens and hand-held de- spent with technology is [49] overtaking time previously spent vices that may interfere with natural play patterns [37] and are playing outdoors [30, 45]. This could be attributed to the thought to compromise the known benefits of natural play [48]. ambient, easily accessible nature of technology [40]. The To address these concerns, Markopoplus & Soute pioneered a implications of the well-known decrease in outdoor play range sub-category of Pervasive games coined Head Up Games [47]. from lack of physical activity [30] to negative consequences HUG principles promote outdoor social interaction with the on children’s social skills and social life [19]. support of digital devices while keeping the player’s head "up" for natural outdoor navigation and interaction. These prin- In light of these concerns, the HCI community has shown ciples are evident in the Camelot project [55]. Camelot is a a growing interest in addressing the decline in outdoor play. screenless outdoor game device for children. Children collect Leading research in this domain includes Exertion games, Per- virtual resources to earn construction materials for building vasive games, and Head Up Games. Embedding elements of a physical castle. The resources are collected with the help social interaction and physical activity in technology-enhanced of a dedicated physical device that consists of Infrared (IR) outdoor play is considered a key factor in addressing the de- detectors and IR LEDs. In a qualitative study, the authors crease in outdoor play [48]. Having said that, certain outdoor found that children communicated, debated, and cheered on technologies may capture children’s attention and change nat- one another as they collaborated towards a common goal, thus ural outdoor play patterns [47]. gaining the benefits of social interaction. To summarize, outdoor play is clearly a desired, healthy ac- Another aspect of outdoor play addressed by HUG is chil- tivity with many well-documented benefits, and yet, in re- dren’s tendency to change rules and to create new games [23]. cent decades, outdoor play has consistently decreased. To Rule generation is considered a significant feature of creative address these issues, HCI researchers have presented proto- thinking [10]. Soute et al. developed RaPIDO, a sensor-based types and studies of technologically-enhanced outdoor games, prototype, and GameBaker, an accompanying platform for specifically within the Pervasive games and Head Up Games rule changing [2]. By changing parameters such as buzzing communities. At the same time, there is a rising concern that duration and the number of participating teams, children could technology may have a negative impact on natural outdoor play create various outdoor games for RaPIDO, based on their own patterns, to a point that the well-known benefits of outdoor ideas. The authors reported that children were interested in play may be compromised. making their own rules. Hitron et al.’s preliminary work ex- tended this approach by designing a Scratch-based coding platform for children to change rules in outdoor play. Their RELATED WORK prototype enabled children to control events and define thresh- The HCI community has proposed several approaches for olds, thus creating their own local game experiences [21]. enhancing outdoor play with technology [3, 34]. Most re- lated to our work are Pervasive games and Head Up Games Some HUG games were compared with non-digital play activ- (HUG) [48]. Pervasive games merge physical and digital ities. Stop The Bomb [20], a sensor-enabled belt with vibra- experiences, while HUG are technology-based outdoor play tion motors indicates the location of ’bombs’- electronically activities designed to make minimal use of screens, hence the enhanced cardboards. Two different versions of the proto- "Heads Up" definition. Our work lies within the HUG domain. type were designed and compared: a "paper" version using cardboard box , and a "digital" version that uses LEDs and vibration motors. The researchers showed that in comparison Pervasive Games to a non-digital version of the game (different in design but Pervasive games take gaming away from the computer screen similar in functionality), levels of physical activity and social and back into the real world [38]. Within Pervasive games, interaction were not compromised by technology. designers leverage technologies to create new and exciting Another study presenting a comparison of digital and non- gaming experiences that merge physical and virtual game ele- digital outdoor play is the Lighthouse project. In the Light- ments [32]. Including sensors in games has led designers to house game [5], children play as pirates, trying to collect gold develop multi-player technologies [32] that require physical coins while avoiding digital obstacles. The authors used the effort. Research in the field of Pervasive games also empha- OPOS observational method [5] and reported that