Session Information
| Title | Digital Games in Later Life: Challenges and Opportunities |
| Presenter(s) | Bob De Schutter, Kathrin Gerling, Sara Mosberg Iversen, Carrie Heeter and Henk-Herman Nap |
| Time | Friday, October 17, 1:00p-2:00p |
| Location | Lake Michigan |
| Format | Panel |
| Description | Academic research into how digital games relate to later life has always been a niche. While the first paper on the topic titled "Computer Games for the Frail Elderly" dates back to the early days of the modern Internet (Weisman, 1983), the 30-some years in between have not produced a huge body of literature. As Van Leeuwen & Westwood (2008) pointed out, research into play typically focused on children's play, while research on play in older life mainly took place in therapeutic contexts. Nonetheless, the field seems to be building up towards a critical mass, as the amount of researchers that have published on games and older adults has greatly increased over the past decade. After all, older adults - typically defined as either 50+ or 65+ years of age - are becoming one of the largest demographic groups in society. Predictions from the United Nations World Population Prospects (United Nations Population Division, 2012) estimate that the world population over the age of 60 will double between 2015 and 2050 (i.e., from 12.2% to 21.2%). With one fifth of the world over 60, older adults are becoming an attractive "grey" market for businesses, designers, medical providers, politicians, and researchers. Furthermore, the rising percentage of older adults in society will bring along many challenges (Christensen, Doblhammer, Rau, & Vaupel, 2013; Smith, 2010). Our society will need to find a way to overcome a contracting retirement system (as a result of a smaller workforce), to provide older adults with the healthcare and technological interventions needed to support a vibrant and independent "fourth age." While some solutions have been offered for this problem (e.g., a redistribution of work that increases the retirement age), there has been no perfect answer due to the scale of the problem. However, as digital games have been demonstrated to offer health benefits for both a general (Granic, Lobel, & Engels, 2013) as well as an older audience (Marston, 2009; Nap & Diaz-Orueta, 2012), they have become part of this discussion. Nonetheless, "older adults" is not a synonym for "patients." Nor does old age automatically entail frailty, incapacity or disability, or that one is oblivious to changes in technology and culture. Studies indicate that a large percentage of older adults already play digital games: 45% of UK adults older than 50 plays games on a regular basis, while in the US this amounts to 72% (Hagoort & Hautvast, 2009). The same study reports similar figures for other Western countries: 40% in France, 41% in Germany, 45% in Belgium and 52% in the Netherlands. Older adults spend between 2.5 hours (Germany) and 5.7 hours (US) per week playing digital games, and in most countries older women play slightly more often than older men. Research also demonstrates that older adults are not exclusively playing brain training games, or are motivated to play only as a result of health concerns. Even if they have specific content preferences (Brown, 2012; De Schutter & Malliet, 2014), older adults have been found to play many genres of games with a wide range of playing motives (De Schutter, 2011; Nap, de Kort, & IJsselsteijn, 2009; Pearce, 2008), including desires for achievement and nurturing others (Tyree & McLaughlin, 2012). It is time for a re-framing of old adulthood as a phase of opportunity, energy, and playfulness. After all, a 60 year old in 2014 was 23 when the first Star Wars movie debuted - and their interests are as varied as their motivations and abilities. Considering the growing interest into the topic, the societal challenges of 2050, and gaps that could exist between the needs of actively playing older adults, non-playing but interested older adults, academic research, and the commercial interests of companies such Silverfit, Lumosity, Akili Interactive, etc., we propose a panel session for the Meaningful Play conference on game design/research and aging. In our panel we will address the issues outlined above as well as other topics including the discourse that underlies the existing academic research (Iversen, 2014; van Leeuwen & Westwood, 2008), possibilities to bridge the gap between the game industry and the academic field and its spin-offs (similar to the games for change or games and learning communities), a strategy to unite the highly multidisciplinary academic research on the topic, the development of a common design vocabulary, etc. |