The domestication of digital games in the lives of older adults

Schutter, Bob De; Brown, Julie; Abeele, Vero Vanden

doi:10.1177/1461444814522945

Cited by 56 publications

(56 citation statements)

References 18 publications

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“…Any pleasures assumed to be elicited through game use were largely articulated within more dominant tropes in which users were constructed as concerned primarily with the worthy pursuit of cognitive health and enhancement. This finding supports studies of gaming technologies that have shown that adult game use might not be regarded as age-appropriate (De Schutter et al., 2015), and hence rationalised and legitimizing in ways that reflect cultural norms of adulthood (Thornham, 2009). …”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Prudence, pleasure, and cognitive ageing: Configurations of the uses and users of brain training games within UK media, 2005–2015

Pickersgill

Broer

Cunningham‐Burley

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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The use of ‘brain training’ games is often regarded as relating to wider ideals of self-improvement and youthfulness. Hence, use is intertwined with discourses of ‘active’ ageing. This paper analyzes how the use and users of brain training games were configured in the UK media, from 2005 to 2015, and examines how notions of active ageing relate to these representations. Game users were rarely constructed solely as gamers, and were more often presented as prudent individuals focused on a serious goal. This configuration related to assumed and enjoined motivations for brain training; specifically, users were commonly framed as seeking to enhance cognition and limit/delay cognitive decline. Scientific evidence about brain training was often deployed to explain how games might work; sometimes, however, it was used to undermine the utility of games and assert the significance and cognitive health-benefits of other activities. A minority of texts explicitly critiqued ideals of self-improvement, arguing that game playing was important for its own sake. Yet, even the pleasure associated with gaming was occasionally instrumentalized as a mechanism for ensuring prudent life choices. The analysis casts fresh light on how debates around health, ageing, and science correspond to configurations of technology uses and users. It presents evidence of the widespread cultural circulation of enjoiners regarding self-care and healthy ageing within British society. However, the paper also provides indications of the limits to such imperatives: discourses of pleasure co-exist with and perhaps supplant logics of prudence in (accounts of) practices ostensibly aimed at ageing ‘well’.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 89%

Prudence, pleasure, and cognitive ageing: Configurations of the uses and users of brain training games within UK media, 2005–2015

Pickersgill

Broer

Cunningham‐Burley

et al. 2017

Social Science & Medicine

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“…In contrast to the images created by designers and what people expect, implicit methods are often more powerful than explicit methods in shaping the design. [48, p. 41], Loos [45] and Loos and Romano Bergstrom [49] argue that young male game designers may specifically tend to overlook the aspect of age-related functional limitations due to the factors mentioned in the Table above. We agree with De Schutter et al [59] that "Designers must be aware of normative age-related changes and (1) how such aspects can affect technological interaction (e.g. reduced vision and hearing, slower pace, decreased attention division skills, etc., IJsselsteijn et al [51, p. 1171…”

Section: Giving Voice To Older Adults' Capability To Play Exergamessupporting

confidence: 83%

Exergaming: Meaningful Play for Older Adults?

Loos

2017

Lecture Notes in Computer Science

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Abstract. Dutch historian Johan Huizinga [1] viewed games as a fundamental aspect of life. As long ago as 1938, he observed that, next to "homo faber" (man the maker), there is also the concept of "homo ludens" (man the player). The aim of this paper is to explore what we can learn from previously conducted empirical studies about the motivation and capability of older adults to use exergames. We were guided by the following questions. To which extent: (1) Are older adults motivated to play exergames and why is this the case?, (2) Are older adults able to play exergames and why is this the case? and (3) Can the voices of the older players be heard in the empirical studies on exergaming in later life? We conducted a narrative literature review to gain insight, not only into the factors relating to older adults' engaging in exergames, but also into the ways older adults themselves experience playing such games. To avoid a mainly functionalist perspective on play, we will also include hedonic aspects of playing exergames.

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“…The same toxicity is found when studying actively playing older adults; participants of our own qualitative research (e.g., De Schutter, Brown, and Vanden Abeele 2014;De Schutter and Malliet 2014) talked about how it was socially unacceptable for them to play games. For example, one 62-year-old female participant told us how she hid her Nintendo Gameboy when a friend came to visit, and remarked "When I play my Gameboy outside of my home I see people looking at me; they think that I have gone crazy."…”

mentioning

confidence: 54%

Towards a Gerontoludic Manifesto

Schutter

Abeele

2015

A&A

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Digital games have become an important part of the technoscape, not only for youngsters, but for players of all ages. Older adults are a large, currently still largely untapped market for innovative game research and development. However, the current discourse on games and ageing can largely be categorized into two themes. The first theme refers to digital games framed as a way for older adults to improve certain skills. The useful, pragmatic qualities, rather than the fun, hedonic aspects of games are emphasized. The second theme identifies the various age-related constraints that prevent older adults from playing. It focuses on the cognitive and physical limitations of older adults. Underlying both themes is a reductionist perspective on ageing as merely a process of decline and debilitation. In this article, we present a “gerontoludic” manifesto. Firstly, games should not be marketed solely as having the purpose of dealing with or mitigating age-related decline and focus on positive aspects of older age (adagio 1: growth over decline). Secondly, age-related adjustments should never interfere with the actual gameplay of the game (adagio 2: playfulness over usefulness). Finally, game researchers and game industry should put more efforts in understanding what differentiates elderly players, rather than seeing them as united in their age-related impairments (adagio 3: heterogeneity over unification). As this manifesto is a first step that needs further abutment by a wider community, we welcome debate and additions from game designers and researchers to further this manifesto and to move beyond ageism in games.

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The domestication of digital games in the lives of older adults

Cited by 56 publications

References 18 publications

Prudence, pleasure, and cognitive ageing: Configurations of the uses and users of brain training games within UK media, 2005–2015

Prudence, pleasure, and cognitive ageing: Configurations of the uses and users of brain training games within UK media, 2005–2015

Exergaming: Meaningful Play for Older Adults?

Towards a Gerontoludic Manifesto

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