The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

I am currently in Banff, Alberta, Canada at the International Society for Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity’s Annual Conference 2008 and will be speaking as part of a symposium on “ExerGaming” / “Active Video Games” tomorrow morning. In the meantime I have been attending several sessions around the environmental factors that affect human behavior including the provision of public parks, play areas and the ability to move around on foot.

Whilst it is good that these important factors are now being properly considered, my perception as to how they are presented is that they are fairly passive or benign in their influence on human physical activity behavior.

Contrast this to technology which may have a much more active and dynamic influence on behavior. I had an interesting discussion over lunch with somebody with an IT background who graphically described what he termed the “BlackBerry Twitch” every time a user received a new message. As such technologies become widely adopted, they have the potential to result in significant change in human behavior.

Over the years I have become rather attached to a number of small rectangular pieces of plastic with a small micro chip embedded in them. For a good few years now, the UK has had a “chip and pin” system where you use a pin number rather than sign to authorize payment transactions. Mobile terminals and cashier-less facilities are commonplace in a number of settings.

Traveling round the US, the reversion to a signature felt uncomfortable and provoked feelings of separation as I handed over my card, albeit temporarily, to effect payment. I was therefore surprised to see a chip and pin terminal here in Banff, but to my astonishment it was only for debit and not credit cards. So yet again I felt somewhat anxious as I offered up my card.

So whilst the rate of technology adoption may be highly variable, we must not underestimate the potential impact on human behavior and that it may occur, often over a short time scale.