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Video games used during play can benefit children’s well-being, if designed with their needs in mind, a new study from the University of 91ֱ��, LEGO Group and UNICEF has found.

The (Responsible Innovation with Technology and Ethics for Children) project was designed to understand children’s well-being in a digital era and explore how future digital games and digital play experiences (DPEs) can be designed, in line with evidence, to support positive well-being for children.

A new report from the University of 91ֱ�� forms part of the (Tuesday 30 April 2024), which was founded by UNICEF and the LEGO Group, and features contributions from universities around the world.

91ֱ�� conducted research with 50 families of children aged from 6-12 from the UK, South Africa, Cyprus and Australia, working closely with world-leading researchers at the Centre for Creative Education in Cape Town, Oulu University in Finland, the University of Cyprus and Curtin University in Australia.

The new report provides evidence on how children playing digital games affected their overall well-being, as well as how their experiences playing digital games affect their feelings about themselves, their relationships and their environment.

The findings show that digital play supports children’s well-being in a variety of ways, however this can look very different for different children and their families. It is hoped the new study will provide a framework to inform the future design of digital play experiences for children.

Dr Fiona Scott, from the School of Education at the University of 91ֱ��, said: “Children playing digitally has often been perceived negatively or valuable only when children are formally learning something. There has been much discussion in the press and within research about how children spending more time online can harm their well-being, but this study sought to find out if digital play experiences have benefits for children, and if so, how we can use this research to inform how digital games can be developed to better support these benefits in the future.”

Working with the families, researchers found examples of children’s digital play supporting well-being in terms of their perceptions of autonomy (feeling they have control and freedom of choice) and competence (experiencing mastery and feeling they can achieve).

Digital play enabled children in the study to explore, construct and express aspects of their identities and to experience, develop greater awareness about and regulate their emotions.  It also supported them to think, act and make creatively, in contrast with some past media discussions, the digital play of children in the study allowed children to experience connectedness with others and be aware of others, including through nurture play. 

The data from the project showed the breadth of experiences when families engaged with digital play experiences. Edyta from 91ֱ��, who took part in the research with her 11-year-old daughter Olivia, noted how different games affected Olivia’s emotional responses.

Edyta said: “Being born and raised in Poland in the 80s, I had no clue about games. There are games that I don’t mind her playing - like The Sims - as she really plays them, but also is aware of her surroundings. Games like Fortnite bring her a lot of emotions. I will hear her shouting to the TV and raising her voice when I call her for something.”

The researchers gathered data about what drove different children to play digital games and how these drivers affected what they chose to play and how they played it as well as their well-being. Although different drivers, such as the ability to control, curate and classify during play, or to create, explore deep interests or acquire and perform knowledge and skills, were important to different children at different times in their lives; the report from 91ֱ�� suggested 14 principles of what makes good digital game design that can support children's well-being.

Two of these the researchers consider essential for developers designing games for 6-12 year olds that can support their well-being. Firstly they should always represent and support equitable play for diverse children and childhoods. Secondly, they should always be, and feel, safe and secure.

Beyond this, the researchers propose a range of design principles that can support children’s well-being in different ways. Many of the most popular games in the study aligned closely with multiple principles in this list:

1. Providing opportunities to safely explore and experiment with identity; 
2. Offering opportunities for relaxation, emotional regulation and achieving 'flow' states;
3. Offering opportunities to stimulate pleasurable and joyful sensations;
4. Offering safe opportunities to experience and explore difficult emotions or those less commonly considered ‘positive’;
5. Offering opportunities to create;
6. Offering negotiable pre-set challenges and opportunities to create personal challenges;
7. Providing opportunities to acquire and perform knowledge;
8. Offering opportunities to collect, curate and classify;
9. Offering opportunities to experience, explore and negotiate togetherness;
10. Providing opportunities to think about, tend and nurture others;
11. Offering opportunities to exert and experience control, choice and agency;
12. Offering safe and supported opportunities to encounter and negotiate risk. 

Dr Scott said: “The findings from our report and the RITEC study in full offer implications not just for game developers, but for families and parents too.

“Our research contains a wide variety of examples of how children’s well-being benefited directly from their digital play experiences. For example, some children were able to explore potential future selves through their characters and in their play, envisaging future appearances, identities or future careers and interests.

“Some games allowed children to gain skills and confidence in problem solving, and showed the importance of how family member interaction whilst playing video games can support the development of these skills. The affirmation of these experiences whilst children are playing were really important for their overall development as they navigated resolving challenges, particularly when developing emotional resilience in relation to their digital play.”

She added: “This valuable data will help game designers understand that a variety of play experiences are needed to support the myriad ways in which children’s well-being can be promoted. How their games can be designed for good, to help support children’s well-being and growth in their own sense of self, as well as their relationships with others. Video games and digital play experiences have the capacity for so much good, when designed with children in mind.”

Today’s release of the research and its findings will be followed on Friday 3rd May by the 91ֱ�� report which will be published . 91ֱ��’s report will also be available to explore through a project .

Later this year the project will launch a guide to assist businesses to incorporate these findings into the games they design.

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