Nordic Childhoods in the Digital Age

"This book adds to the international research literature on contemporary Nordic childhoods in the context of fast-evolving technologies. It draws on the workshop program of the Nordic Research Network on Digital Childhoods funded by the Joint Committee for Nordic research councils in the Humanities and Social Sciences (NOS-HS) during the years 2019–2021. Bringing together researchers from Finland, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Iceland, the book addresses pressing issues around children’s communication, learning and education in the digital age. The volume sheds light on cultural values, educational policies and conceptions of children and childhood, and child–media relationships inherent in Nordic societies. The book argues for the importance of understanding local cultures, values and communication practices that make up contemporary digital childhoods and extends current discourses on children’s screen time to bring in new insights about the nature of children’s digital engagement. This book will appeal to researchers, graduate students, educators and policy makers in the fields of childhood education, educational technology and communication.

Playful Materialities

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization

Co-located Augmented Play-spaces:Past, Present, and Perspectives

In recent years, many different studies regarding Co-located Augmented Play-spaces (CAPs) have been published in a wide variety of conferences and journals. We present an overview. The work presented in these papers includes end user's perspectives as well as researcher's perspective. We place these within four aspects in this review: 1) Argumentation, the underlying reasons or the higher end goals to investigate interactive play from a user's perspective, 2) Systems, the kind of systems that are created, this includes their intended use which fits the end user's perspective, 3) Evaluation, the way in which the researchers evaluate the system, 4) Contribution, the goal of the studies from the researcher's perspective; what does the study contribute to the research community. CAPs are often multimodal in nature; this survey pays attention to the multimodal characteristics in relation to all four aspects. This overview contributes a clearer view on the current literature, points out where new opportunities lie, and hands us the tools for what we think is important: bringing the end-user and research perspective together in intervention based evaluations. In short, this paper discusses CAPs: their past, the present, and the perspectives

Playful Materialities: The Stuff That Games Are Made Of

Game culture and material culture have always been closely linked. Analog forms of rule-based play (ludus) would hardly be conceivable without dice, cards, and game boards. In the act of free play (paidia), children as well as adults transform simple objects into multifaceted toys in an almost magical way. Even digital play is suffused with material culture: Games are not only mediated by technical interfaces, which we access via hardware and tangible peripherals. They are also subject to material hybridization, paratextual framing, and processes of de-, and re-materialization

The role of playfulness and sensory experiences in design for public health and for ageing well

The chapter provides an insight into the role of design and sensory experiences in public health and ageing well through the lenses of playful design. It presents, through a number of relevant examples, the role of playfulness as a trigger for engaging people and especially older adults with physical exercise through tangible play. Emphasis is placed on the potential, benefits and challenges of designing playful sensory experiences and activities (interventions) for public health and ageing well. Following a review of the relevant literature on playfulness and sensory experiences and health, a number of projects that incorporate playfulness and sensory experiences are presented. This is followed by a presentation of the Active Parks case study. Active Parks co-created an interactive and playful walking trail that offers casual physical activity in one of Lancaster city’s park. Working with the local community and a several key stakeholders a number of interactive and playful multisensory proof-of-concept prototypes were designed, developed and tested in the park. Based on the literature and the aforementioned case study a number of recommendations are provided on how to design playful sensory experiences for public health. This is the first paper of its kind to offer such practical recommendations that aim at public health and playfulness focusing on adults and older users

The Playful Citizen

This edited volume collects current research by academics and practitioners on playful citizen participation through digital media technologies