Even though video games have grown as an artistic medium , they are still often written off as mindless entertainment. Research is increasingly exploring meaningful gaming experiences. Less studied, though, are the ways such experiences can alter people鈥檚聽 lives long term.听

In a new study, 天美影视传媒 researchers surveyed gamers about video games鈥� effects. Of 166 respondents researchers asked about meaningful experiences, 78% said such experiences had altered their lives. Researchers then pulled recurring themes from the responses 鈥� such as the power of聽 rich storytelling 鈥� so that developers, gamers and even parents or teachers might focus on those elements.听

The team will Oct. 14 at the Annual Symposium on Computer-Human Interaction in Play in Pittsburgh.听

To learn more about the paper, UW News spoke with lead author , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering; co-senior author , a UW professor and chair in human centered design and engineering; and co-senior author , a UW professor in the Information School.听

What are the most significant findings in the study?

Nisha Devasia: We highlighted three conclusions drawn from modeling the data. The first is that playing games during stressful times was strongly correlated with positive outcomes for physical and mental health. For example, during COVID, people played聽 games they felt strongly improved their mental health, such as Stardew Valley. Others mentioned that games that required movement, or games that had characters with interesting physical abilities, inspired them to get outside or try new sports. Many participants also said that they gained a lot of insight from the game narrative. Story-based games often tell a sort of hero’s journey, for instance. People reported that the insight they gained from those stories correlated to their own self-reflection and identity building.

Finally, most people had these meaningful experiences in very early adulthood or younger, when they’re still trying to figure out who they are and what they want to be in the world. Playing as a character and seeing your choices change the course of events is pretty unique to games, compared with other narrative media like novels or movies.

Do any individual stories really stand out to you from the survey you took?

ND: All the stories about Final Fantasy VII, because that’s the game that I love. I鈥檓 actually sitting in my childhood bedroom right now and the wall behind me is covered in Final Fantasy VII posters. The quote we used in the title also really resonated with me: 鈥淚 would not be this version of myself today without these experiences.鈥� I definitely cannot imagine what I would be doing in my life if I had not played Final Fantasy VII when I did.听

People also said things like, 鈥淭his helped me build the skills that ended up being my career. I learned how to program because I wanted to make games.鈥� I worked in the gaming industry and can verify that鈥檚 true for many people in the industry.听

How should these findings fit into how we view games as a society?

Julie Kientz: People have a tendency to treat technology as a monolith, as if video games are either good or bad, but there’s so much more nuance. The design matters. This study hopefully helps us untangle the positive elements. Certainly, there are bad elements 鈥� toxicity and addictiveness, for example. But we also see opportunities for growth and connection. Some people in the study met their spouses through games.

Jin Ha Lee: What Nisha studies is essentially what I live. I鈥檓 a gamer, and I have definitely started playing certain games with my two children specifically because I wanted to have more conversations with them. When my daughter plays games with interesting stories, we have the opportunity to talk about our lives as we analyze the story. What were these people thinking? Why did they make certain decisions?聽

As researchers, we develop games for learning, for instance, for teaching people about misinformation or AI, or promote digital civic engagement, because we want to foster meaningful experiences. But a lot of the existing research just focuses on the short-term effects of games. This study really helps us understand what actually caused a game to make a difference in someone鈥檚 life.

What societal changes could we make in our approach to gaming?

JK: Because people have a tendency to oversimplify things, some of the proposed solutions can be counterproductive. For instance, limiting kids鈥� screen time can actually interfere with positive experiences, especially if someone is immersed in the storyline and identifies with the characters. If 30 minutes into a game, a kid鈥檚 Nintendo Switch turns off because of parental controls, that might hinder the ability to have a positive experience. If we aren鈥檛 using these tools consciously, it might actually lead to kids playing more casual, junk games, because those can be played in 30 minutes.

ND: You see this with discourse around game addiction, too. Sometimes excessive gaming is because of dark patterns in a game鈥檚 design. But it is often a symptom of someone going through something difficult in their life, and the game happens to be a way to cope. As our study shows, there鈥檚 the potential for growth in that coping.听

JHL: There鈥檚 also a place for games and media that we consider 鈥渂ad.鈥� You might play a game that鈥檚 so horrible that you make a meme out of it, and the jokes you share become a way to build community. Online communities can grow into offline events and friendships. But that isn鈥檛 necessarily obvious if you just view gaming as something you need to protect your children from.

What technological changes might accentuate the meaningful effects of games?

JHL: Games are naturally interactive and complex, so there鈥檚 a lot of opportunity for critical engagement beyond just the gameplay. There鈥檚 music, there鈥檚 art, there鈥檚 storytelling. All of these offer space for meaningful interaction. Designers can skillfully incorporate these elements to prompt reflection, evoke emotions, or challenge players鈥� perspectives.听

ND: We鈥檙e calling our next study Video Game Book Club. Right now I’m building a tool to allow people to annotate their gameplay as if they were writing in the margins of a book. While you play, a little pop-up lets you make a note. At the end, an interface pops up showing your gameplay stream and all the notes you made, which should allow them to reflect on what they were thinking as they were playing.

We鈥檙e also working on a reflection chatbot. Every time after you play a session that’s 30 minutes to an hour long, you’ll interact with this bot that prompts you to think critically about the experience, much like we鈥檙e taught to relate to literature. What was really memorable? How is this connected to your life?聽

Co-authors include , a UW doctoral student in human centered design and engineering, and , a UW doctoral student in the Information School. This research was funded by the .听

For more information, contact Devasia at ndevasia@uw.edu, Kientz at jkientz@uw.edu and Lee at jinhalee@uw.edu.

Shortly after artificial intelligence models including Midjourney and OpenAI鈥檚 Dall-E went public, AI-generated art started winning competitions: , . Concern rumbled that AI could replace artists 鈥� and even, by some metrics, . But simultaneously, people were exploring these tools as ways to augment their creative processes, not replace them.

天美影视传媒 researchers grew curious about how AI might affect creativity in children, specifically, so they worked with a group of 12 Seattle-area kids ages seven to 13 to explore how the kids鈥� creative processes interacted with AI tools. They found that for the kids to be able to integrate generative AI into their creative practices meaningfully, they often needed support from adults and peers.

The researchers presented May 14 at the ACM CHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems.

UW News spoke with the study鈥檚 lead author , a UW doctoral student in the Information School, about the study, the importance of support and the particular creativity of kids.

What was the impetus for this research?

Michele Newman: Before coming to UW, I was working on a 鈥� AI, essentially 鈥� to measure creativity in elementary school children. When ChatGPT came out, I was at the UW working with , a program where adults and kids co-create technology products for children, and I really wanted to see what effects GPT might have on children’s creativity.

So much of the early experience around this new technology was fearful. People were saying, 鈥淒on’t use it to teach, it’s going to harm kids.鈥� Many schools banned it. So part of the impetus of the project was trying to see what a medium stance looks like 鈥� where it’s not harming or taking jobs. It’s supporting and building meaningful experiences for kids. How can we look to the future and build ethical and meaningful practices around this technology?

How did you go about designing the study? And why did you use those design considerations?

MN: In KidsTeam the primary methodology is , where kids are treated as equal partners when designing technologies. So one of our approaches was just putting the kids in front of technology 鈥斅燨penAI鈥檚 ChatGPT and Dall-E, or Google’s music generator 鈥� to see what they do. What are their considerations? Where are they getting frustrated? What does it mean to have a tool that can actually kind of do the creation for you? A lot of creativity research talks about how process is very important. That’s kind of where the person鈥檚 individuality comes out. So we wanted to see the kids develop their creative processes.

We also gave the kids a more structured experience. It’s one thing to just look at a piece of technology and say, 鈥淗ere’s what it can do.鈥� It鈥檚 another thing to say, 鈥淯se this specific software to write a story.鈥� In the sessions, we balanced the open-ended approach with more directed exploration and had kids use techniques like comic boarding, where they make comics about potential good and bad uses of AI.

What findings were the most interesting to you?

MN: Maybe the most important and practical finding is how clearly these systems are not built for children. The kids might know a lot about, say, a video game like . If the AI system doesn鈥檛 know anything about it, the kids might conclude they鈥檙e smarter than the system. So there鈥檚 a mismatch between what children are expecting these systems to be able to do and what they can do. This type of technology is generally built with adults in mind. Likewise, children’s language just isn’t the same as adults. Things like this really become an issue for kids trying to creatively express themselves.

The title of this paper is 鈥淚 want it to talk like Darth Vader,鈥� which is a quote from one of the kids. He was writing a story about Star Wars, and he turned to us and said, 鈥淚 want it to talk like Darth Vader. I want it to be able to be customized.鈥� He suggested that it would help him write a better Star Wars story. Obviously, you could prompt ChatGPT to talk like Darth Vader, and we helped walk him through that. But those aren’t things that the kids necessarily understand right away. They need extra instruction around that. Children’s creativity is unique. Because of their development and their experiences, they have different needs than adults do. They’re still building and understanding social norms, and what it means to create.

I was also fascinated by the kids鈥� ethical considerations.

MN: Yeah, when we asked about some typical things like cheating, the kids tended to reiterate things they鈥檝e heard, that 鈥淚 shouldn’t use it to cheat.鈥� But when we asked them about things like whether their friend should use AI to write a birthday card for them, they started to have really nuanced takes. Some started asking how much the friend is using it. Is it to write the whole card, or just to help? Every kid starts to have different ideas. So then we鈥檙e considering how to foster an individual child’s expression.

We asked one 11-year-old how he鈥檇 feel if his favorite book series was written by AI instead of an author, and he said it would 鈥渄ismantle鈥� the joy of reading for him. We often don’t think about kids having these deep, existential questions about what it means to be an artist. But they are. They鈥檙e asking whether they lose some authenticity when AI rather than a friend writes a birthday card. Over the course of the study, we saw them changing and developing as they used these systems. By the end, it was great to hear them saying things like, 鈥淚 don’t think this really expresses what I’m saying.鈥�

But they started making certain types of adjustments to their creative process and their goals, which for me sometimes raised a red flag. Sometimes they鈥檇 add extra context to get it to do what they wanted. But other times they might try an idea and quickly say, 鈥淚t’s not working, so I’m just going to change the idea.鈥� That鈥檚 a hard problem. But we can’t just make systems that solve all these issues, because every kid鈥檚 process is different. Sometimes you do need to learn to give up on an idea. That can be part of the creative process. So the question with AI is how do you support kids and give them knowledge of their individual creative processes? Creativity is always happening in a larger context. The interaction is not just about inputting a prompt. It鈥檚 working iteratively with the system while being supported by peers and adults. And those networks of support make a meaningful experience with these systems much more likely.

Additional co-authors on this paper were , a professor in the iSchool; , an associate professor in the iSchool; , an undergraduate in the iSchool; , and , undergraduates in human centered design and engineering at the UW; , an undergraduate in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering; , who completed this research as an undergraduate in interaction design and psychology at the UW; and , a doctoral student at the University of Michigan. This research was funded in part by the U.S. Institute for Museum and Library Services.

For more information, contact mmn13@uw.edu.

With COVID-19 cases spiking again across the United States, many states are that look similar to the first stay-at-home orders issued in March.

These announcements are coming right in time for the winter holiday season, when Americans normally gather with the people they love. But with this year’s recommendations to , how can people find a way to connect with others?

One option is to find community in online spaces that celebrate a shared interest, such as playing a video game together or bonding over the love of a band, according to , an associate professor in the 天美影视传媒’s Information School. Lee studies communities centered around popular video games 鈥� for example, Animal Crossing and Pok茅mon Go 鈥� and the Korean Pop band , which has a huge fanbase called ARMY.

UW News asked Lee about this research and how these communities have changed since the pandemic began.

Based on your research, can you describe a typical video game or music fan community?

I think it is difficult to describe a “typical” community, though these groups definitely have one thing in common: Their members are very passionate about a particular thing and they want to share that love with others. However, each community has its own unique flavor and culture.

For instance, in my group鈥檚 research, we have come to understand how ARMYs 鈥� a term describing members of the ARMY fanbase 鈥� mobilize and successfully organize online campaigns to achieve various goals. Sometimes the goal is to support the artists, such as achieving a music streaming goal. Other times, it is to support a social cause 鈥� for example the for ARMYs to match a million-dollar donation, that came from BTS and Big Hit Entertainment, to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

This kind of commitment and mobilizing power are impressive, and something that you don鈥檛 see in many other fandoms, at least not to this degree.

Why did these communities form before the pandemic?

For game-related communities, these are the places where people can share useful information related to playing the game and also connect to other people who can play with you.

For music fan communities such as ARMY, people can obtain the most up-to-date information about the artists, find other fans and organize and participate in various collaborative efforts to support the group.

Did the role of these communities change after COVID-19 led to stay-at-home orders and lockdowns?

These communities have always provided support, even before the pandemic.

But it is true that the level of support has definitely expanded now. Many of our research participants shared how people in their communities have provided the emotional support they needed for their mental health and well-being, especially during the lockdowns when they were confined to their homes for days and weeks.

Several participants described these online communities as being their “place of happiness” or “light during the dark days.” They shared that their fan community members consoled and encouraged others during their challenges, and also organized to provide help in real life, such as getting groceries and donating money for people affected by COVID-19.

Why engage in a community like this during the pandemic?

Many people will agree that engaging with media is helping them get through the pandemic, be it playing a game, going through music playlists or bingeing on YouTube videos or TV shows.

What we have found is that for many people, the social connection resulting from their engagement with these forms of media is as important as appreciating the media itself. For many of these fans, being part of the fan community is how they connect to the outside world and overcome the increasing sense of isolation that weighs on them in the pandemic.

I also think it is important to note that people sometimes perceive this kind of media engagement as unhealthy and isolating, especially in non-pandemic situations. But ultimately when people play games, watch TV shows and listen to music, a big part of the joy comes from the fact that they can talk about it with someone else 鈥� this experience helps connect people.

Can you describe some of the ways people have used these communities to replace events that can’t be held due to the pandemic?

We have seen many examples of Animal Crossing players hosting a variety of social events, from casual hangouts to memorial services, or celebrating special days such as birthdays, graduations and anniversaries.

On the music side, BTS held a two-day online streaming concert “” in October because their tour had to be canceled due to the pandemic. The event was extremely successful: The group sold 993,000 tickets and drew viewers from 191 countries. While it is not the same as going to a concert in person, the viewers were able to see the performance and get their ARMY Bombs (official light sticks) connected and synced to the performance, which created a sense of “togetherness” as people watched the show. BTS could also see and interact with some ARMYs who were selected to show themselves on a massive screen surrounding the set as the group performed.

Are there ways parents have used these communities as a way to support their children鈥檚 social connections?

In the Animal Crossing community, many families play the game together. I have seen parents who let their children visit other families鈥� islands to sell turnips, watch fireworks or hang out during the bug catching or fishing events. I have also seen parents use these communities to find other kids who are the same age as their own children so they can play together.

What about people who are just considering this idea? Can this still work for people who didn’t already have this type of community at the beginning of the pandemic?

Definitely! Find a community that will welcome you, and many game- or music-related fandom communities will. Many of our participants shared that there is a sense of “immediate connection” among fans regardless of who you are or where you come from.

For instance, we saw a lot of people who have recently joined ARMY during quarantine after watching . There are many of these “quarantine” ARMYs who are actively engaging with the community and who eagerly prepared for the new BTS album “BE,” released on Nov. 20. It doesn’t really matter when you become a fan, you can still be really passionate.

Do you have some tips or tricks for people looking to join a community?

Find an online community that makes sense to you. This could be the platform where the fans are most active, such as Twitter for the ARMY fandom. Or it could be a small online community that is more relevant to you 鈥� for example, a Discord server for Pok茅mon Go players in your neighborhood, or one of many Facebook groups centered around Animal Crossing, such as those dedicated to parents or LGBTQIA+ people.

For more information, contact Lee at jinhalee@uw.edu.

Parents who regularly play “Pok茅mon GO” with their children report a number of side benefits from playing the mobile device-based game, including increased exercise, more time spent outdoors and opportunities for family bonding, according to new 天美影视传媒 research.

In the first study to survey and interview parents who play “Pok茅mon GO” with their families, some parents said the interactive and mobile nature of the game 鈥� in which players capture fictional creatures from the Japanese Pok茅mon franchise on smartphones and other mobile devices by 鈥渇inding鈥� them in real-world locations 鈥� made them feel better about engaging in that type of gameplay, as opposed to more sedentary forms of 鈥渟creen time.鈥�

The results, taken from a qualitative survey of 67 parents and interviews with 20 additional parents playing “Pok茅mon GO” with their families in a Seattle park, are detailed in a to be presented at the Association for Computing Machinery鈥檚 conference in May. The study did not include perspectives of parents who do not allow their children to play “Pok茅mon GO,” which is an important avenue for future research.

Some guilt among “Pok茅mon GO”-playing persisted, and many set limits to prevent kids from becoming so absorbed in the game that they ignored cars or other real-world hazards, as well as responsibilities. Those included setting time constraints, requiring kids to do chores or homework first, shutting down the mobile device if kids didn鈥檛 give it back when asked or parents staying in control of the smartphone while the family played.

Yet many parents 鈥� particularly moms of boys, fathers of girls and parents of teenaged children 鈥� reported spending more quality time with their children as a result of playing “Pok茅mon GO” together and talking more than usual, both about the game itself and about other things in their lives.

Parents also appreciated how the game motivated both them and their children to go outside and exercise in ways that were convenient and fit into their lives, as their children displayed newfound enthusiasm for walking the dog or walking rather than driving to dinner or playgrounds. For some participants, these 鈥淧ok茅-walks鈥� led to walking thousands more steps per day, and one father reported that his 11-year-old daughter had lost 12 pounds.

鈥淟ocation-based augmented reality games are pretty different than sitting in front of a TV or playing a typical video game, so we were interested in the way kids and their parents were sharing those experiences together,鈥� said lead author a UW doctoral student in Human Centered Design and Engineering. 鈥淧eople still don鈥檛 really know how to build tech that works well for families, so when this game came out of the blue and really caught on, we wanted to look at what its ingredients for success were.鈥�

When the interdisciplinary UW research team first went to observe people playing “Pok茅mon GO” at a popular outdoor mall shortly after the game’s release last July, they noticed a curious thing after the late Seattle summer sunset: Kids were still running around outside with their parents until as late as midnight.

鈥淚t was clearly way past everybody鈥檚 bedtime,鈥� said senior author , assistant professor at the UW Information School. 鈥淲e also noticed that the parents were playing Pok茅mon as much as the kids were, and we鈥檇 never seen that before with Minecraft or any Nintendo game. So we knew there was something going on here that was different.鈥�

In follow-up interviews with families who had begun playing “Pok茅mon GO” together, almost all parents had safety concerns about the game, from children not paying attention to where they were going to interacting with strangers. To mitigate those concerns, many parents imposed limits or rules on the gameplay, such as only allowing older children to travel a certain distance from the home and requiring younger children to only play on a parent鈥檚 device.

However, many parents reported net benefits from the overall experience, including noticing new details like artwork or pocket parks in their neighborhoods, teaching their kids how to navigate streets safely and having a shared interest with their children, particularly at ages when communication can become tricky. As one mom who played with her 8-year-old son told the interviewers:

鈥淚 think it鈥檚 just helping us find a common thing we can do together as a mom and a boy, and that鈥檚 really awesome for me 鈥� As a boy coming home from school, they don鈥檛 tell you what they ate or 鈥� what the teachers said, but now he鈥檚 telling me this stuff so it鈥檚 a good way to be communicating.鈥�

Because the Pok茅mon franchise was first introduced in 1995, some parents had also grown up with the characters, which heightened their interest in playing the new location-based game. The simplicity of the game compared to others like Minecraft lowered the bar for participation, and parents鈥� prior knowledge about and experience with Pok茅mon characters often led their kids to view them as valuable 鈥渆xperts鈥� who could teach them.

鈥淧ok茅mon has existed for over 20 years now. Watching so many kids play and engage with their parents through “Pok茅mon GO” was very different and exciting,鈥� said co-author and UW human centered design and engineering graduate student , who grew up religiously watching the Pok茅mon TV series and movies and playing the card game with friends. 鈥淏ut it鈥檚 also been popular among parents who knew nothing about Pok茅mon.鈥�

The research team identified how “Pok茅mon GO” met six conditions that previous researchers have identified as leading to productive 鈥溾�� for families. Those include the ability to play and learn about the game together, motivation for multiple generations to engage, and features that make it easy to put the game away, such as the opportunity to put the phone away in a pocket until the next creature appears rather than constantly having to look at the screen.

In addition, “Pok茅mon GO” hinges on players going outside, walking and working in teams, making parents more likely to accept or promote gameplay or jointly participate with their children. That said, some of those same parents acknowledged that the 鈥渁ddictive鈥� nature of Pok茅mon GO could lead to never-ending requests from their children to play.

By investigating the perspectives, values and challenges of parents who play “Pok茅mon GO” with their children, the team of UW information scientists, learning scientists and human-computer interaction researchers hope to shed new light on how to design technologies that invite families to engage in them together.

鈥淭hat鈥檚 a pretty difficult thing to tap into 鈥� how do you get different generations of people to want to play, even if it鈥檚 for different reasons?鈥� Sobel said. 鈥淭hese designers were able to capitalize on an older franchise that appealed to everyone from casual smartphone users to serious game players to children.鈥�

Co-authors include HCDE graduate student , associate professor , and Information School associate professor .

For more information, contact Sobel at ksobel@uw.edu, Yip at jcyip@uw.edu or Bhattacharya at arpitab@uw.edu.