Gamification applied for health promotion: does it really foster long-term engagement? A scoping review

Gamification is a popular design approach with the purpose to increase engagement and continuous use of Health Behaviour Change Support Systems (HBCSS) with the purpose to establish health and wellbeing. It is widely employed for promoting healthier life choices or for supporting people with chronic diseases in their daily activities. Yet, there is a lack of evidence concerning gamification and its ability to sustain favourable effects on health behaviour change. This paper presents a scoping review about the long-term perspective in gamified HBCSS, focusing primarily on IT-reliant systems that treat individual lifestyle habits like healthy nutrition, exercise or smoking cessation. We systematically selected studies that consider gamified HBCSS for health promotion and discuss to what extent long- term engagement is explicitly included in their design. Our results underline a deficit of consideration of the long-term perspective as well as a lack of measurement related to the lasting effects of gamification. We therefore propose to intensify the use of longitudinal and prospective observational studies in the context of HBCSS, in order to increase the level of evidence of gamification interventions

Computational Commensality: from theories to computational models for social food preparation and consumption in HCI

Food and eating are inherently social activities taking place, for example, around the dining table at home, in restaurants, or in public spaces. Enjoying eating with others, often referred to as “commensality,” positively affects mealtime in terms of, among other factors, food intake, food choice, and food satisfaction. In this paper we discuss the concept of “Computational Commensality,” that is, technology which computationally addresses various social aspects of food and eating. In the past few years, Human-Computer Interaction started to address how interactive technologies can improve mealtimes. However, the main focus has been made so far on improving the individual's experience, rather than considering the inherently social nature of food consumption. In this survey, we first present research from the field of social psychology on the social relevance of Food- and Eating-related Activities (F&EA). Then, we review existing computational models and technologies that can contribute, in the near future, to achieving Computational Commensality. We also discuss the related research challenges and indicate future applications of such new technology that can potentially improve F&EA from the commensality perspective

Smart Sensing Technologies for Personalised Coaching

People living in both developed and developing countries face serious health challenges related to sedentary lifestyles. It is therefore essential to find new ways to improve health so that people can live longer and can age well. With an ever-growing number of smart sensing systems developed and deployed across the globe, experts are primed to help coach people toward healthier behaviors. The increasing accountability associated with app- and device-based behavior tracking not only provides timely and personalized information and support but also gives us an incentive to set goals and to do more. This book presents some of the recent efforts made towards automatic and autonomous identification and coaching of troublesome behaviors to procure lasting, beneficial behavioral changes

From persuasion to negotiation in health promoting technology

Over recent years, designing technologies to promote health-related behavioural change has been an area of growing interest in HCI. Given the prevalence of self-monitoring and social facilitation in emerging designs, the assumption appears to be that increasing an individual’s awareness of his or her behaviour and the behaviour of others will promote behavioural change. This thesis argues that while this is true to some extent, this represents a somewhat naive view of how individuals come to make decisions regarding their health-related behaviours. Three qualitative studies within distinct health domains illustrate the complex nature of health-related behavioural change. Weight Management was an inherently social activity, albeit subject to selective disclosure and incremental participation. Individuals were generally motivated by appearance rather than health, implementing change based on exposure and orientation to alternative strategies. In Families at Risk, caregivers were highly motivated by a desire to safeguard the health of their children but were restricted by a lack of financial and strategic resources. Lack of trust and a transient community contributed to social isolation, thus inhibiting opportunities for collaboration. In Cardiac Rehabilitation, behavioural change efforts were prompted by an acute health crisis and guided by health professionals. However, behavioural change efforts were sometimes restricted by a desire to return to normal, tensions arising when what was considered normal was composed of risk behaviours. Family involvement varied greatly, ranging from disregard to facilitating change, and a desire for independence and ownership of the rehabilitation sometimes restricted the active involvement of peers. Informed by the findings of these studies this thesis highlights the strengths and limitations of current technological approaches to promoting behavioural change, provides implications for design, and supported by the sociomedical literature, identifies alternative avenues of technological innovation. The thesis reflects on technology’s role in health-related behavioural change and considers associated ethical implications. Overall, the main contribution of this thesis is a reframing of the problem of promoting health-related behavioural change as more than a matter of behavioural awareness and personal motivation. While it is understandable that technologists would look to the clinical domain to inform initial investigations in this area, this thesis argues that technologists should be cautious about blindly adopting its prescriptive paradigm. As an alternative to persuasion, this thesis offers negotiation as a potential model for future innovations in this area

Chapter 3 Persuasive technologies and the right to mental liberty

The outline of this chapter is as follows. In section 2 we provide a further definition of PTs, and present some possibilities that PTs offer for the smart correctional rehabilitation of criminal offenders. Next, in section 3, we briefly discuss the right to mental liberty and the extent to which this right is guaranteed by existing European human rights. In section 4, we discuss three considerations that should be relevant in specifying human rights protection against smart rehabilitation. Subsequently, in section 5 we explore whether the use of PTs in the context of smart rehabilitation would infringe an appropriately specified legal right to mental liberty. We suggest that, in this context, it might be difficult to identify compelling distinctions between novel forms of smart rehabilitation and more traditional criminal legal interventions, such as the imposition of a prison sentence or a psychological treatment program