Improving Intergenerational Communication and Bonding through Applying Video-mediated Communication and Simultaneous Gameplay

Risks of COVID-19 aggravating social exclusion of older persons through measures to restrict movement and contact such as stay-at-home restrictions and lockdowns. While such measures are crucial for ensuring the safety of all, they have increased the elderly’s social isolation, disrupt their connectivity with others, and worsen their health outcomes. Moreover, United nations has recently reported an increase in ageism and discrimination towards older people during this pandemic crisis. Communication across generations needs to be strengthened to foster intergenerational solidarity. Since the Covid-19, video-mediated communication technology has been massively adopted across the globe. It provides a vital infrastructure for (re-)connecting elderly so to mitigate social isolation risk while remaining at safe physical distance from others.

Using motion-based sensors, our team has developed Virtual Exercise Therapist System (VETS) which allows single-player offline exergames (video games for the purposes of exercising) to promote physical and intergenerational activity between elderly and youths. In this proposal, leveraging on existing teleconferencing platform (e.g., Zoom), we will first incorporate Video Communication Components to VETS (VETS-VCC). It will allow exergame-play between 2 (or more) players simultaneously within the video call. To evaluate the benefits of the VETS-VCC, 60 elderly-youth pairs will be recruited. They will be communicated over 8 weeks through VETS-VCC or video call only (without exergame). Impact on changes in well-being, exercise motivation, and intergenerational perceptions will be compared. Conversational analysis will also be conducted based on the audio and video streams of the video call to understand the development and dynamics of the intergenerational bonding.

We aim to introduce an inexpensive, accessible, potentially scalable technology solution to improve the connectivity of elderly through exergaming within video-mediated communication platform so to mitigate the negative effect of the social distancing. The intergenerational bonding fostered during the exergaming can also improve the mental well-being of the elderly.