Designing the lost self: Older adults' self-representations in online games

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Carrasco, R
Waycott, J
Baker, S
Vetere, F
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2018
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Hong Kong, China

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Abstract

Older adults are increasingly engaging in online activities, including games, with other people. Many online environments require the user to create some form of self-representation, ranging from a simple user name through to a full body avatar. These self-representations not only enable access to online activities, but also provide an opportunity for expressing both the real and ideal identity. We wanted to better understand the impacts of later life on the construction of self-representations when playing online games. Our study used gameplay observations and semi-structured interviews with 10 older adult gamers aged from 65 to 95 years. We found they designed their player self-representations to project aspects of their lost (former) self and to embrace their present older selves. This engagement with self-representations as a form of self-expression suggests that designers need to consider older gamers, and their diverse preferences, when creating tools for customizable self-representations in online games.

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DIS '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference

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© ACM, 2018. This is the author's version of the work. It is posted here by permission of ACM for your personal use. Not for redistribution. The definitive version was published in CHI '19: Proceedings of the DIS '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, ISBN: 978-1-4503-5198-0, https://doi.org/10.1145/3196709.3196773

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Sociology

Psychology

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Carrasco, R; Waycott, J; Baker, S; Vetere, F, Designing the lost self: Older adults' self-representations in online games,DIS '18: Proceedings of the 2018 Designing Interactive Systems Conference, 2018, pp. 441-452