The Quest for the Perfect ExerGame

“The only winning strategy is to play!”
I had a bit of a nostalgic time watching the film “WarGames” last night. It seems an age ago when you had to hunch over a tacky keyboard and type in commands to have them displaced on a monochrome CRT monitor. Now we are spoilt for choice in terms of input methods and displays.
Brief synopsis of the film: Boy connects/hacks into a computer to play what he thinks are soon to be released computer games. Innocently challenging the computer to a game he in fact sets off a countdown to World War 3. Aided by a girl and the eccentric inventor, he manages to ” teach” the computer the futility of its intended course of action via a simple game of Tic Tac Toe (Noughts & Crosses) which neither player can win. The computer then simulates every possible WW3 strategy with neither side ever winning. The film ends with the computer stating that “The only winning strategy is not to play”.
What if you were to test out every strategy for the “Global War on Obesity”? Would the conclusion be:
“The only winning strategy is to play an ExerGame”??

Citizen Journalism has gone mainstream with a few recent high profile cases where individual’s on the spot have been ahead of professional reporters. The utility of mobile phones is such that is now easy to capture video, audio, photos and text as events are unfolding and immediately put them online.

In thinking about the use of social media in a health context, I would like to develop the concept of “Citizen Narration” as a narrative approach that makes use of social media to document and reflect on an individual’s or groups own particular health and/or social circumstances and experiences. Storytelling has long been an important part of human culture and is recognized as providing engaging learning experiences and reflective practice is increasingly being used in personal and professional development.

Obviously there are privacy concerns in terms of the degree and extent of personal disclosure, issues of ownership that need to be addressed and also the need to develop social media literacy. I have no doubt that these issues can be overcome and see “Citizen Narration” utilizing social media as have the potential to become a real grass-roots approach to health promotion and empowerment.

I have now had time to reflect on the workshop I attended at F.A.C.T. in Liverpool, UK at the beginning of the week. The speakers and participants were drawn from a wide cross section of discipline areas including arts, media, technology, social science, health promotion, health care, health science and computer science. There were many interesting and stimulating debates around both practical issues related to the medium of social media and the message in terms of “What is health?”

In terms of the medium, it soon became apparent that there are many barriers that need to be overcome on the health service side if social media is to be utilized effectively. In contrast, arts groups with a social remit are much smaller and more focused organizations that appear much more able to embrace social media.

Significant concern was expressed about “institutionalizing” social media for health purposes and the impact that this would have on its effectiveness. In some ways this represents the difference between prevention versus treatment and also health “monitoring” versus empowerment.

There was also recognition of the problem of the “digital divide” could be further exacerbated by use of social media, however I was a little surprised about the lack of concern about the emerging divide with “Generation Y” due to a lack of engagement on their terms.

Finally, it was encouraging to here some individuals from such a diverse set of backgrounds talking about health-related issues and there was a real sense that “health” in its broadest sense was not the sole responsibility of the health service.

“Liberty, Equality & Fraternity ” is the opening part of the title of my presentation today at the Health and Social Media Workshop today. I chose it to try and convey a sense of how I think ExerGames in the widest possible sense will come to revolutionize physical activity/exercise/sport.

Twenty minutes is not long when you are trying to convey the potential of game-based activities combined with social media to promote positive health behavior. Not only do I hope that I can get the audience excited about playing games, but also that I can find common ground in my quest to create engaging interactive experiences by having a dialogue around performance and interactive arts.

Perhaps I could get the discussion started by quoting Jane McGonigal

“Games are the ultimate happiness engine.”

Last week was pretty hectic and it didn’t help that I was recovering from having run a 1/2 marathon (more about that soon). Anyway, I mustered the energy to get my presentation ready for a workshop on Social Media and Health at the Foundation for Art and Creative Technology (F.A.C.T.) in Liverpool, England. The sessions today were are interesting mix of theory and practice around the use of social media in arts engagement and participation. Many of the issues raised about the use of social media are similar to those concerning its use in the spheres of both health and education. There was a real sense that social media is seen by arts organizations as a way to reach out and engage with their audiences. I was struck by the thought that the perhaps relative size of the organizations operating in the arts field means that they are better placed to capitalize on the opportunities that social media affords. They are not too big and bureaucratic that it takes forever to do something, nor are they too small that they cannot sustain their efforts. I am very much looking forward to a full day of sessions tomorrow where the focus shifts to the use of social media to promote health.