Social video gaming and well-being.

Despite stereotypes of video games as isolating technologies, video gaming can be a highly social activity that contributes to well-being. Advances in computing technology and greater social acceptance of video gaming have led to overall increases in gameplay in social scenarios. Our review focuses on three areas of research relevant to understanding social gaming and well-being: social play in video games (both past and present social play, and forms of tandem play), social gaming and psychological recovery (both short-term recovery and long-term resilience), and the use of emerging technologies to connect via gaming (such as game streaming and augmented/virtual reality). Throughout the article, we also highlight deficiencies in extant research and offer suggestions for how social scholarship on video games can move forward with well-being in mind. While existing research generally demonstrates the social dynamics of gaming and demonstrates the role of games for well-being, a robust and directed merging of these two complimentary lines of research is currently lacking.

Exercising With Embodied Young Avatars: How Young vs. Older Avatars in Virtual Reality Affect Perceived Exertion and Physical Activity Among Male and Female Elderly Individuals.

This study demonstrated that implementation of the Proteus effect via manipulation of avatar age in VR is effective among elderly individuals in the context of exercise. One hundred and four elderly adults aged 60 years and older who did not engage in vigorous physical activities participated in this experiment with a 2 (avatar age: young vs. older) × 2 (sex: male vs. female) design. The results showed that the embodiment of younger avatars (age approximately 20 years) in VR leads to greater perceived exercise exertion regardless of sex after controlling for age and emotion. Older adults with young avatars perceived a greater contribution of efforts to exercise. This study also found that among those who did not engage in vigorous exercise, female older adults who embodied young avatars reported greater self-efficacy for future exercise and greater physical activity during the exercise phase than those who embodied older avatars. This study suggests that females are more likely to be motivated to continue exercising through young avatar embodiment. In contrast, female elderly who embodied old avatars reported significant fewer physical activity than male elderly who embodied old avatars. This indicated that the Proteus effect had stronger effects among females than among older males. Although we found the Proteus effect through VR avatar manipulation, the effect was temporary and limited to the experimental phase. This study is the first to examine the Proteus effect among elderly individuals in the context of exercise. It also contributes to the literature by indicating that avatar age manipulation is an effective means of promoting exercise among elderly individuals and helping them achieve exercise outcomes. This study further demonstrates that female elderly individuals respond to young avatars differently than male elderly individuals, with female elderly individuals showing more positive effects of young avatar embodiment than males. Implications and theoretical contributions are discussed.