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LINA - A Social Augmented Reality Game around Mental Health, Supporting Real-world Connection and Sense of Belonging for Early Adolescents

2022; Association for Computing Machinery; Volume: 6; Issue: CHI PLAY Linguagem: Inglês

10.1145/3549505

2573-0142

Gloria Mittmann, Adam Barnard, Ina Krammer, Diogo André Barbosa Martins, João Dias,

Digital Mental Health Interventions

Early adolescence is a time of major social change; a strong sense of belonging and peer connectedness is an essential protective factor in mental health during that period. In this paper we introduce LINA, an augmented reality (AR) smartphone-based serious game played in school by an entire class (age 10+) together with their teacher, which aims to facilitate and improve peer interaction, sense of belonging and class climate, while creating a safe space to reflect on mental health and external stressors related to family circumstance. LINA was developed through an interdisciplinary collaboration involving a playwright, software developers, psychologists, and artists, via an iterative co-development process with young people. A prototype has been evaluated quantitatively for usability and qualitatively for efficacy in a study with 91 early adolescents (agemean=11.41). Results from the Game User Experience Satisfaction Scale (GUESS-18) and data from qualitative focus groups showed high acceptability and preliminary efficacy of the game. Using AR, a shared immersive narrative and collaborative gameplay in a shared physical space offers an opportunity to harness adolescent affinity for digital technology towards improving real-world social connection and sense of belonging.