What motivates children to play outdoors? Potential applications for interactive digital tools

Copyright 2014 ACM. Children (8-12 years) living in urban, western contexts are increasingly spending their free time indoors engaging in digital recreation, rather than outdoor, child-directed play. There is potential for place-specific, digital technology to be designed to motivate children 'off the couch' and outdoors into their local natural places. This paper presents the outcomes of three workshops conducted with eleven children (8-12 years) in Aalborg, Denmark, designed to understand key motivators for outdoor play in children. Children were divided into five design groups. Fictional inquiry and a series of artifacts and triggers were used to communicate the design task to children and inspire a range of relevant designs. Here, we report on the design outcomes of workshops, the motivators for outdoor play, and potential applications for interactive digital technology to inspire more regular, outdoor play experiences in children

An Exploration of the Barriers and Motivators to Outdoor Active Play for Young People Aged 11-12: Why Don’t They Play Anymore?

Introduction: Regular engagement in physical activity has numerous health-related benefits for children and young people, yet many do not meet the recommended levels of physical activity set by The Chief Medical Officer. Outdoor active play, a form of unstructured physical activity, contributes towards children and young people’s physical activity levels more than any other pastime/activity. Despite this, outdoor active play levels decline when children transition from year six (aged 10-11 years) to year seven (aged 11-12 years). Therefore, this study aims to understand why young people engaged in outdoor active play and what barriers they faced. There is little research that explores outdoor active play for young people aged 11-12 years living in the UK. Thus, the present study will address the gaps in research and contribute to existing knowledge. Methods: An explanatory sequential mixed method design was adopted and comprised of a two-phase approach: collecting and analysing quantitative data followed by the collection and analysis of the qualitative data. Phase one adopted a quantitative approach – self-reported questionnaires were used to quantify outdoor active play rates of a sample of 208 young people aged 11-12 years. The purpose of phase one was to identify young people with high and low play rates. Phase two adopted a qualitative approach – four focus were conducted with, five boys with high play rates, five girls with high play rates, five boys with low play rates, and five girls with low play rates. The purpose of phase two was to identify and explore the barriers and motivators to outdoor active play. All focus groups were audiotaped and transcribed verbatim. The transcripts were analysed using content analysis. Findings: The questionnaires revealed that 170 young people reported that they engaged in outdoor active play, of those 170, 36 young people were categorised as having high play rates and 31 young people were categorised as having low play rates. The focus groups revealed that having homework to complete was the most prominent barrier for boys. Whereas, the most frequently cited barrier by girls was the presence of strangers in preferred play spaces. Additionally, the most prominent barrier to outdoor active play for young people with high play rates was being too busy learning other skills such as football or dance. Whereas, the most frequently reported barrier for young people with low play was having location rules such as, only being allowed to play in their garden which was implemented by parents. In this study, boys often spoke of being motivated to engage in outdoor active play because it was fun and enjoyable. Whereas, girls spoke of being motivated to engage in outdoor active play as it provided an opportunity to socialise with friends. Additionally, young people with high play rates were motivated to engage in outdoor active play for the health-related benefits. Whereas, young people with low play rates spoke of being motivated to engage in outdoor active play because it was fun and enjoyable. Conversely, the weather was cited as a barrier and a motivator to outdoor active play by young people in this study. Conclusion: The findings of this study provide an insight into the barriers and motivators to outdoor active play for young people aged 11-12 years. And show that the barriers and motivators differ between gender and play rates. The study is unique for its direct involvement with young people aged 11-12 years (year seven) and its comparison of the barriers and motivators between boys and girls and young people with high and low play rates. However, the researcher was a limitation in this study as a lack of experience in data collection and data analysis may have affected the validity of the findings. Future research is needed to clarify what girls perceive as a safe place space and what steps can be taken to make outdoor active play safer for those who participate. Furthermore, future research which is conducted with parents of young people is needed to explore how parental safety concerns can be eased to increase young people’s outdoor active play levels

How play moves us: Toys, technologies, and mobility in a digital world

The 21st century has been described as the Century of Play. The change in current play is particularly noticeable when looking at technological developments. This thesis deals with the technologization, digitalization, and connectedness of play between 2010–2020. The research explores forms of contemporary play, playthings, and players in a time when digitalization and connectedness have extended to various tools and realms of play—devices, toys, games, apps, and mediated playful environments. At the heart of the research are playthings and technologies conceptualized here as play machines, players using these tools within their communities and contexts, and, due to technological change, play research that increasingly expands into digital and networked cultures. Interactive digital devices have made play ubiquitous, and this includes play activities related to toys, mobile technologies, digital cameras, smartphones, digital toys, social media, and social robotics. The purpose of the thesis is to increase the understanding of what the rapid technologization of play, or what is conceptualized in the thesis as the digital leap of play, means in terms of mobilizing the players physically, cognitively, and emotionally. The thesis opens up prospects for technology-enriched play by presenting a range of empirical studies interested in the mobilization tendencies of current digital devices, toys, and connected media cultures that inform and inspire contemporary play and players of different ages as a form of digital culture that unites players and generations. The assumption is that digital technology connected to modern play experiences can move players in physical, cognitive, and emotional terms. Through six qualitative case studies, the thesis proposes to answer the central question: “How has play moved human players of the Western world in 2010–2020 in terms of physical, cognitive, and emotional mobility/movement?” The sub-question inquires what kinds of digital play are encountered in interactions of people of different ages as part of technologically enhanced leisure, learning, and environments where play is increasingly happening with and through machines and social media platforms by asking: “How are the acts of play realized in each instance of digital play through technology use, and what are the functions of the play for the players in each study?” The thesis seeks to understand the nature and various aspects of the digital transformation of play and balance the prevailing negative assumptions with more positive and optimistic views on the effect of technology-oriented play on the lives of players of different ages. The scholarly contribution of the thesis is to generate new play knowledge: The publications included in the thesis highlight various play patterns and practices among children of preschool age, adults, and seniors who engage in digital play through the use of digital devices or digital toys, either solitarily or socially, as part of intergenerational play. The findings of the thesis illustrate how changes in the ecosystem of play (primarily made possible by developing mobile technology and social media) are linked to the opportunities for players to engage in creative play activities, their documentation, and their social sharing. The connections of evolving digital technology (for example, digital toys, social media networking, and social robotics) to play are diverse; mobile devices with and without screens are used as an extension of play to enrich the experiences and outcomes of play and to empower the players by allowing them to showcase their imagination, creativity, and ability to connect with peers and other player communities. The thesis concludes that contemporary technology embodied in digital devices and Internet-connected playthings as the play machines of 2010–2020 allows for the expansion of play into human and toy interactions that non-technological playthings would not support. Technological development thus expands the historical, digital-material, and narrative dimensions of play. Social, technology-supported play triggers cultural processes that also support intergenerational interaction in play. Consequently, this thesis suggests that 1) digital technology is a driver for societal changes that affect play, 2) digital technology is a mobilizer of players in a physical, cognitive, emotional, and social sense, and 3) digital technology is an enabling, empowering, and enriching resource for contemporary digital play