Augmented reality games and mental health during COVID-19

Augmented reality games and mental health during COVID-19

Project Members - Macquarie University

Kathleen Yin – Research Fellow Kathleen.yin@mq.edu.au

Louise Ellis – Research Fellow louise.ellis@mq.edu.au

Kiran Ijaz  – Research Fellow kiran.ijaz@mq.edu.au

Jim Smith – Research Fellow jim.smith@mq.edu.au

External members

Matthew Lee – PhD candidate, University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia

Project contacts

Louise Ellis

Kathleen Yin

Project Description

This program of work seeks to examine the mental health and well-being of players of location-based augmented reality (AR) games during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. For an overview, watch this video.

Background

Location-based augmented reality (AR) games, such as Pokémon GO (PGO) and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite (HPWU), have been shown to have beneficial impacts on physical activity, social connectedness, and mental-health for their players. In March 2020, global social distancing measures related to COVID-19 prompted the AR games developer Niantic to implement several changes to ensure continued player engagement with PGO and HPWU. While these changes ensured PGO and HPWU continued to flourish, they do not necessarily translate to improved physical and mental well-being for players, as many game play features designed to promote physical activity and social activity were removed or altered. This program of work seeks to the potential role of AR games in supporting mental health and well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond. A series of mixed-methods international studies are being undertaken during 2020-2021 seeking to answer the following aims:

• To examine the impact of COVID-19 social restrictions on the physical and mental well-being of AR game players.
• To examine the impact of COVID-19 social restrictions on usage of video games and motivations for use.
• To examine the potential role of AR games (and video games in general) in supporting well-being during COVID-19 and beyond.
• To examine constraints, involvement and loyalty, providing valuable insight into player preference and experience and to develop tailored AR game design strategies for health.

Benefits

By understanding the phenomenon of how game players globally are using the interactive and immersive medium of AR games to manage their own mental health and wellbeing, we are glimpsing the massive potential these games have in becoming behavioral medicine for populations under stress.

Publications

Ellis,L. A., Lee, M. D., Ijaz,K., Smith,J., Braithwaite,J., & YinK. (2020). COVID-19 as ‘Game changer’: Use and impact of augmented reality games on physical activity and mental well-being during this time of crisis. Journal of Medical Internet Research, 22(12):e25117 doi: 10.2196/25117

Smith, J., Lee, M. D., Ellis, L. A., Ijaz, K., & Yin, K. (2021). Developing a novel psychographic-behavioral qualitative mapping method for exergames. International Journal of Serious Games, 8(2), 87 - 107. https://doi.org/10.17083/ijsg.v8i2.422

Presentations

Smith, J., Yin, K., Lee, M., Ellis, L., & Ijaz, K. (2020). Developing a qualitative mapping method: gamers and ex-gamers of Wizards Unite and Pokémon Go, levels of specialisation, constraint, involvement, and loyalty. Presention at NVivo Virtual Conference 2020.

Project sponsors

The work is supported by research grants from the National Health and Medical Research Council (APP9100002, APP1134459, APP1176620) and the Medical Research Future Fund (APP1178554).

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