Fostering Communication between the Elderly and the Youth with Social Games

In today’s aging societies, elderly people often have difficulties to find people to communicate with. To address this loneliness of the elderly, it has been suggested to create more opportunities for children and elderly people to engage in various shared activities together. In this ongoing research, we investigate that social offline games can facilitate communication between the generations by creating a mutually enjoyable environment where elderly and young persons can interact with each other. A longitudinal approach is used to investigate whether intergenerational communication actually is enhanced by utilizing social offline games as the medium. Prior research has been conducted in related topics, such as the perceptions of the young and elderly participants towards each other in a game setting, as well as the impacts to communication behaviours among players of the same generation. We aim to build a model that connects game enjoyment, intergenerational perceptions and communication, and ultimately contribute to improving the well-being and relieving the loneliness experienced by many elderly people.