MR.Brick: Designing A Remote Mixed-reality Educational Game System for Promoting Children's Social & Collaborative Skills

Children are one of the groups most influenced by COVID-19-related social distancing, and a lack of contact with peers can limit their opportunities to develop social and collaborative skills. However, remote socialization and collaboration as an alternative approach is still a great challenge for children. This paper presents MR.Brick, a Mixed Reality (MR) educational game system that helps children adapt to remote collaboration. A controlled experimental study involving 24 children aged six to ten was conducted to compare MR.Brick with the traditional video game by measuring their social and collaborative skills and analyzing their multi-modal playing behaviours. The results showed that MR.Brick was more conducive to children's remote collaboration experience than the traditional video game. Given the lack of training systems designed for children to collaborate remotely, this study may inspire interaction design and educational research in related fields. © 2023 ACM.

Playing the video games during COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on player's well-being

COVID-19 affected our lives intensly. That state of affairs made humans helpless. They had been depressed and experienced loneliness. At that time many human beings were determined to play video games just to loosen up their minds. Many games changed into an additional source of revenue wherein during COVID-19 they were playing while earning money. With these advantages, there were also some poor effects was accrued. A number of players remained playing video games post COVID-19. The carried out survey is based on the social video games results on players' well-being and additionally on the effects of gamers' health and their sensible lifestyles. We are going to investigate the behavior of gamers engaged with video games during the COVID-19 lockdown and the video games affects on their well-being, the time they served in playing video games, and the consequential effect on their behavior and social and mental well-being. The results provide a start line for empirically grounded discussions on video games at some stage in the pandemic, their use, and potential outcomes. Different agegroups of players have been investigated. Most players are between 18 and 30 years. A number of the gamers during lock down played a few hours but most of players were males who spent most of their day playing video games. However, now the ratio of playing video games is reduced as examined with past circumstances. Roughly we can say that the condition as a whole is better, the reason why players enforced video games in their post COVID-19 practical life1. © 2023 IEEE.

IDDF2023-ABS-0282 Prevalence and risk factors for unhealthy dietary habits among children during covid-19 pandemic

BackgroundThe COVID-19 pandemic has led to changes in dietary and lifestyle habits among children and adolescents. This study investigated the prevalence and factors associated with unhealthy dietary habits among 1,475 primary and secondary school students from 2021 to 2022.MethodsA cross-sectional study was conducted in randomly selected primary and secondary schools participating in a project promoting online health education and promotion named GoSmart using self-administered questionnaires. Logistic regression analyses were conducted to investigate the demographic and lifestyle habits associated with various unhealthy dietary habits. This study was approved by Survey and Behavioural Research Ethics (SBRE) [Reference No.: SBRE-21-0052] and funded by Quality Education Fund (QEF#2019/0883).ResultsThe prevalence of inadequate consumption of vegetables and fruits was high among both primary (81.5%) and secondary school students (89.5%) and associated with physical inactivity in both primary (aOR=3.35, 95%CI: 1.41-7.97, p=0.006) and secondary students (aOR=4.30, 95%CI: 1.51-12.25, p=0.006). A substantial prevalence of breakfast skipping was observed among primary students (22.9%) who spent two or more hours on video games or social media (aORs=1.84-2.27);and among secondary students (23.7%) who consumed two or more hours on social media, alcohol consumption, and consumption of unhealthy food (aORs=1.42-2.79). Consumption of unhealthy food was reported by 43.9% and 48.2% for primary and secondary students respectively, with primary and secondary students who spent two or more hours on video games or social media (aORs=1.62-2.27) and secondary students who perceived themselves as underweight (aOR=1.79, 95%CI: 1.13-2.83, p=0.012) having a higher frequency of consumption.ConclusionsThere was a high prevalence of unhealthy dietary habits among schoolchildren in Hong Kong. Alarming results were observed with physical inactivity being associated with a higher risk of unhealthy dietary habits among primary and secondary students, which may increase the risk of obesity. Moreover, the apparent interrelationship between unhealthy habits highlights the need for a comprehensive approach to promoting healthy habits through education in this population.

COVID-19, Health Habits, and Addictive Behaviors in the General Population

The lockdown due to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic had a significant impact on daily routines and habits. New lifestyle behaviors contributed to the onset and course of mental diseases, including addictive problems. The objective of this work was to describe changes in health status during lockdown in the general population, including potentially addictive behaviors, and explore possible contributing factors. The analyzed data comprised a population-based sample of 240 individuals (73.3% women, mean age 43.8 years old). Assessments included sociodemographics and self-reports for health state and addictive behaviors. The risk of perceived worsening physical and psychological state was 21.7% and 20.0%, respectively, after the lockdown. The risk of requiring a new treatment for physical and psychological illnesses was 10.4% and 4.2%, respectively, while 2.5% of the participants started using illegal drugs and 9% initiated video game use. Finally, the statistical predictors of health worsening during the lockdown were the presence of anxiety symptoms, being unmarried, having low education levels, experiencing fears related to COVID-19 infection, and having family conflicts. This research identified vulnerability factors contributing to changes in physic and mental health, as well as those associated with addictive behaviors during lockdown. These results should be considered in further stressful situations to design personalized preventive and therapeutic plans. © Author(s).

Guest editorial: Playful literacies across ages and contexts: new horizons for pleasure, affect, and living texts

During the COVID-19 pandemic, educators observed increased student stress and disconnection in formal learning environments, whereas young people turned to playing, gaming and collaborative writing to cultivate connections during this upheaval. Using Thiel's previous theoretical work, Woodard and colleagues explore playful dramatizing, multimodal composing and science learning through one fourth-grade girl's video about food chains. [...]Beauchemin and Qin take up affect as relational and performed forces that emerge from the inbetweenness among people, objects and material and discursive contexts. [...]in "Press Play,” community leader Karl André St-Victor describes how playful practices at Chalet Kent, a community youth center in Montréal, sustain strong senses of belonging and companionship among youth and center staff.

Corona Larona: A 2.5D Mobile Game Advocating COVID-19 Safety Protocols and Mitigation Strategies

Governments and health agencies around the world have been at the forefront of managing the COVID-19 pandemic. To control the spread of the outbreak, mandatory safety protocols have been put into effect. Despite the continuous development and strict enforcement of these preventive guidelines, non-compliance with these mandatory safety protocols has been reported. Getting the message to the public is one of the key challenges in convincing people to follow mitigation policies. In this study, we employed the media of video games to advocate for COVID-19 safety protocols. We developed a video game called "Corona Larona"that features microgames with action gameplay playable on a mobile platform. Our video game concentrated on several preventive measures such as physical distancing, hand washing, wearing face masks as well as basic knowledge about the virus using in-game multiple choice questions. To our knowledge, this is the first video game dedicated to the COVID-19 outbreak and the mandatory safety protocols. In a time when many people play video games to survive their current situation, the Corona Larona game is a strategic example of using and maximizing this form of media for a more noble purpose. © 2022 IEEE.

Methodology to carry out medical meeting online, based on low-cost solutions

One of the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic is the adaptation of most of the activities remotely or virtually, in the case of medical appointments, in the different specialties other than emergencies produced by COVID-19. Most of them continued in the format through online appointments. One of the important processes in medical evaluations is related to the so-called specialist boards, where special cases are evaluated, for which several physicians must be connected online, in addition to being able to make reports jointly. In this paper we develop a methodology to perform medical meetings of specialists, using a platform dedicated to the use in video games, through the DISCORD tool interconnectivity from various devices is performed, the results demonstrate the interactivity and applicability of the methodology, so it can be applied in different processes where interconnectivity between different devices and the concurrence of several users is required. We present a methodology to configure virtual appointment rooms, the results allow us to verify that the methodology can be replicated and scaled according to the needs. © 2022 ACM.

Optimal Path Control of a Patient for Rapid Infection Testing

In this paper, we propose a path control framework for guiding and simulating the patient's path of travel to speed up virus testing in pandemic situations, such as COVID-19. We use geographic information and hospital state information to construct graphs to yield optimal travel paths. Pathfinding algorithms A* and Navigation mesh, which have been widely used, are efficient when applied to control agents in a virtual environment. However, they are not suitable for real-time changing cases such as the COVID-19 environment because they guide only predetermined static routes. In order to receive a virus infection test quickly, there are many factors to consider, such as road traffic conditions, hospital size, number of patient movements, and patient processing time, in addition to guiding the shortest distance. In this paper, we propose a framework for digitally twinning various situations by modeling optimization functions considering various environmental factors in real-world urban maps to handle viral infection tests quickly and efficiently.

PREPARING FOR ESPORTS COMPETITIONS: GAMING COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

Communities of practice are groups of people united by a passion for something, who deepen their knowledge and experience in their field through ongoing interactions. This article focuses on the importance of institutionalized relationship networks and mutual recognition in preparation for esports competitions. The study represents inductive, qualitative analyses. Individual in-depth interviews were conducted with players (n = 12) that have significant achievements in Magic: The Gathering (MTG) competitions. In the social world of MTG enthusiasts, numerous groups reflect the functionality of a community of practice. These groups constitute a fundamental aspect of preparation for top-level MTG tournaments. Examples of the functioning of so-called testing groups among MTG enthusiasts allow the formulation of a new analytical category – the gaming community of practice. Contrary to stereotypes, the presented study supports the thesis about the significant role of video games in the formation of social competencies and the creation of specific communities, which is particularly important in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic.Alternate :Koncepcja wspólnoty praktyków zakłada, że jest to grupa osób, które łączy zamiłowanie do czegoś i które pogłębiają swoją wiedzę oraz doświadczenie w tym obszarze poprzez bieżące interakcje. Prezentowany artykuł skupia się na znaczeniu zinstytucjonalizowanych sieci relacji i wzajemnego uznania w przygotowaniach do rywalizacji w e-sporcie. Badanie stanowi przykład indukcyjnej jakościowej analizy. W jego ramach przeprowadzono indywidualne wywiady pogłębione z osobami (n = 12) mającymi znaczące osiągnięcia we współzawodnictwie w grze Magic: The Gathering (MTG). W społecznym świecie miłośników MTG liczne grupy odzwierciedlają funkcjonalność wspólnoty praktyków. Grupy te konstytuują podstawowy aspekt przygotowań do najważniejszych turniejów MTG. Przykłady funkcjonowania tak zwanych grup testingowych wśród miłośników MTG prowadzą do sformułowania nowej kategorii analitycznej – growych wspólnot praktyków. Wbrew stereotypom, prezentowane badania wspierają tezę o znaczącej roli gier wideo w kształtowaniu kompetencji społecznych i tworzeniu specyficznych wspólnot, co jest szczególnie istotne w kontekście pandemii COVID-19.

Actually existing vitality rights: resisting neoliberal affects at a video game design camp

PurposeThe purpose of this study is to demonstrate the power of affective pedagogies and playful literacies to resist neoliberal framings of video game play and design in educational contexts. Design/methodology/approachFocusing on the Giga-Games Camp, a video game design camp for adolescents, the authors mobilize different methodological impulses across a number of different registers, using interview data to trace institutional arcs, focal frames from a GoPro camera to see vitality in action and descriptions of platform events to follow these lines through the shift to online instruction brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. FindingsThe authors narrate three transversal movements of the Giga-Games Camp to reveal how play-centered pedagogies can challenge the neoliberal tendency to assimilate young people's video gaming practices as a vehicle for future-proof science, technology, engineering and mathematics learning. Originality/valueThe authors offer the concept of actually existing vitality rights to describe how attending seriously to vitality in learning spaces will often manifest organically in very real strategies to reimagine and restructure preexisting, neoliberally sedimented uses of space, institutional configurations and constellations of sociopolitical power.

The Change in Exergaming From Before to During the COVID-19 Pandemic Among Young Adults: Longitudinal Study.

BACKGROUND: Exergaming may be an important option to support an active lifestyle, especially during pandemics. OBJECTIVE: Our objectives were (1) to explore whether change in exergaming status (stopped, started or sustained exergaming, or never exergamed) from before to during the COVID-19 pandemic was related to changes in walking, moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA) or meeting MVPA guidelines and (2) to describe changes among past-year exergamers in minutes per week exergaming from before to during the pandemic. METHODS: A total of 681 participants (mean age 33.6; SD 0.5 years; n=280, 41% male) from the 22-year Nicotine Dependence in Teens (NDIT) study provided data on walking, MVPA, and exergaming before (2017 to 2020) and during (2021) the COVID-19 pandemic. Physical activity (PA) change scores were described by change in exergaming status. RESULTS: We found that 62.4% (n=425) of the 681 participants never exergamed, 8.2% (n=56) started exergaming during the pandemic, 19.7% (n=134) stopped exergaming, and 9.7% (n=66) sustained exergaming. Declines were observed in all 3 PA indicators in all 4 exergaming groups. The more salient findings were that (1) participants who started exergaming during COVID-19 reported the highest MVPA levels before and during the pandemic and declined the least (mean -35 minutes/week), (2) sustained exergamers reported the lowest MVPA levels during the pandemic (median 66 minutes/week) and declined the most in MVPA (mean change of -92 minutes/week) and in meeting MVPA guidelines (-23.6%). During the pandemic, starting exergamers reported 85 minutes of exergaming per week and sustained exergamers increased exergaming by a median 60 minutes per week. CONCLUSIONS: Although starting and sustaining exergaming did not appear to help exergamers maintain prepandemic PA levels, exergaming can contribute a substantial proportion of total PA in young adults and may still represent a useful option to promote PA during pandemics.

Racing with the industry: an interview on motorsports, esports, livestreaming and the COVID-19 pandemic

The following interview discusses two paradigmatic media sports cases during live sports lockdown in 2020. Producing online tournament responses to the COVID-19 cancellations of live events, the IndyCar First Responders 175 race and the W Series esports league both turned to esports livestreaming. Under this transition, themes of safety, gender equity, risk, and rules emerged as key topics surrounding the current and future state of esports within media sports ecosystems. As discussed by Garth Midgley (founder of GOATi Entertainment and lead developer of 22-Racing Series), Abe Stein (senior strategist with the Sports Innovation Lab), Gina Miller and Jo Diamond (Communications executives, W Series), and Emma Witkowski (senior lecturer and esports academic), these cases exemplify ascending issues in sports quick transition to online esports and networked livestreaming solutions, shoring up media sports under lockdown.

Scandalous Dystopias: Hyping The Last of Us Part II and Cyberpunk 2077 During the Pandemic

This chapter explores how the COVID-19 pandemic scandalized two of 2020's most anticipated video games: The Last of Us Part II—a sequel to an older game that adapts zombie media like 28 Days Later and The Walking Dead—and Cyberpunk 2077, based on the cult tabletop roleplaying game Cyberpunk 2020, which adapted Dungeons & Dragons and William Gibson's novel Neuromancer. The pandemic exposed the risks of building hype by framing these games as adapting other media whose most appealing features they incorporated. Hyping them through their associations with prestigious earlier media increased their visibility but created unmanageable expectations. These discrepancies became increasingly apparent as the pandemic disrupted the games' carefully planned releases, giving birth in both cases to disastrous scandals. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Revisión Sistemática: Influencia de los videojuegos educativos en el proceso de aprendizaje

: The article aimed to carry out a systematic review of the literature on the impact of educational video games on the learning process, 4 research questions were proposed and with the PRISMA methodology, 17 articles were selected, which met the inclusion and exclusion criteria. proposed. The results showed that video games are educational tools capable of emulating learning environments, favoring communication, social skills, problem solving and critical thinking;in addition, the best genres for educational video games are educational or serious. [...]the possibility of using educational video games in the learning process was determined and that these can be applied to improve this process. Introducción La pandemia de la COVID-19 provocó adaptarse mediante el uso de la tecnología a nuevos cambios educativos, se pasó de tener una educación presencial a virtual, pero distintos países no estaban preparados para esto, generando complicaciones al dar continuidad a las clases y evidenciando la incapacidad del sistema educativo respecto a cómo abordar la enseñanza remota, durante este periodo se empezó a usar y entender que el uso educativo de las TIC (Tecnologías de la Información y las Comunicaciones) fue necesaria de implementarse, lo que demandó una mayor capacitación en el uso de la tecnología por parte de docentes y alumnos;además, más allá de que las TIC sean un instrumento útil para el aprendizaje, se necesitó que se generen las condiciones administrativas y organizativas necesarias dentro del sistema educativo, para que la incorporación de esta nueva solución tecnológica sea positiva (González et al., 2021).

Loot box consumption by adolescents pre- and post- pandemic lockdown.

Loot boxes are virtual items that can be redeemed to receive randomly selected other virtual items, and have been criticized for being similar to gambling. The presence of loot boxes in video games has dramatically increased since 2010, with little evidence available for the current prevalence rate of loot box purchasing in the general population, particularly during and following the COVID-19 pandemic lockdowns. This study uses data from representative samples of American youth to estimate prevalence rates for video game play and loot box consumption before the pandemic (2019) and after the pandemic lockdowns (2022) to examine whether the pandemic has affected loot box usage in the general population and among gamers. The results suggest that youth loot box consumption has increased, rising from 24.9% in 2019 to 31.6% in 2022 among 8th grade (age 13-14) youth. The increase over this time period was larger for girls, though boys are still more likely to purchase loot boxes overall.

Passive Collaboration and Connections in a 'Strand Game': Changing the Way We Play

In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in new modes of online player interactions that rely on passive and asynchronous collaborations rather than immediate actionbased competitive gameplay. Especially after the COVID-19 period of lockdown, quarantine, and resulting isolation, it becomes momentous to examine the new modes of interaction and association that video games offer to connect people in untraditional ways. Accordingly, we perform a close reading on the 2019 game Death Stranding which is based on the themes and gameplay mechanics of connection, collaboration, and new paradigms around social bonding. We identify five domains wherein the themes of the game manifest: narrative infrastructure;mechanics that discourage violence;building connections with other players;bonding with virtual characters;and construction of the self as a social agent. These findings are discussed with the possibility of defining a new genre, named by the game's creator as a "strand game" (Kojima 2019a, 2019b).

Do People Use Games to Compensate for Psychological Needs During Crises? A Mixed-Methods Study of Gaming During COVID-19 Lockdowns

Do people use games to cope with adverse life events and crises? Research informed by self-determination theory proposes that people might compensate for thwarted basic psychological needs in daily life by seeking out games that satisfy those lacking needs. To test this, we conducted a preregistered mixed-method survey study (n = 285) on people's gaming behaviours and need states during early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic (May 2020). We found qualitative evidence that gaming was an often actively sought out and successful means of replenishing particular needs, but one that could 'backfre' for some through an appraisal process discounting gaming as 'unreal'. Meanwhile, contrary to our predictions, the quantitative data showed a "rich get richer, poor get poorer" pattern: need satisfaction in daily life positively correlated with need satisfaction in games. We derive methodological considerations and propose three potential explanations for this contradictory data pattern to pursue in future research.

National Capital Section Presents Future City 2023 SpeciaI Award

Future City organizations and teams have returned to normal activities this year after Covid;and have reorganized and conducted a very successful Future City 2023 Competition. On 19 February, regional Future City winners from 41 middle schools and after-school organizations (eg, scouts, 4H, boys/girls clubs) from nationwide and China participated in the Future City National Finals. The Special Awards judging was done in person in Washington DC. In its 31st year Future City has engaged middle school in STEM and diversity. This year's Future City theme was "Climate Change Challenge." Middle school students were asked to create cities of the future, first on a computer and then as large tabletop models. Working in teams with a teacher and volunteer engineer mentor, students create their cities using the SimCity 3000 TM video game donated to all participating schools by Electronic Arts, Inc., of Redwood City CA.

Exploring intergenerational interactions through an online storytelling experience

Intergenerational games to be played by grandparents and their grandchildren can be mutually beneficial for both age groups: breaking with age stereotypes, linking the learning and leisure needs of both generations and encouraging communication, solidarity, and social connectedness between generations. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it was necessary to switch from co-located physical intergenerational play to online experiences. This type of experience, in which grandparents connect from their own houses to participate, represents a challenge in terms of recruiting participants and carrying out the online sessions, due to grandparents'technological insecurities and their reluctance to play videogames. Besides, intergenerational games have to be carefully designed to promote symmetrical interactions, fun and engagement on the part of both age groups as well as to develop easy to use interfaces. In this work, we present an online storytelling game designed to be played by family teams formed by grandparents and their grandchildren. The guidelines followed, the assessment tools designed to evaluate the intergenerational dynamics and the emotions that arise during the experience are also presented. Results of the three online sessions carried out are presented and discussed. IEEE