Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
are an excellent persuasion tool, which can very well be the most important platform
for persuasion in the next years, for three reasons: people love mobile phones, they
are always with them and they have a wide range of features.
Contextual awareness, namely the ability to detect and react to both the users'
actions and the changes in the environment, is a key feature of mobile applications.
It considerably enhances the user experience by providing seamless and continuous
access to the appropriate services and data. Schmidt (
2008
) mentions that the users'
perception of the surrounding environment is determinant to allow them to have
smart behaviors when using a context-aware application.
Moreover, individuals have some tendency to exhibit social proof behaviors inside
their groups (Rhoads
2007
), thus promoting convenient behaviors in a social network
may have a contagious effect. In 2007, Facebook launched Facebook Platform,
which allowed developers to create applications for the millions of people registered
in the social network. This started a new phenomenon, which Fogg calls “Mass
Interpersonal Persuasion” (MIP) (Fogg
2008
). MIP brings together the power of
interpersonal persuasion with the reach of mass media, by creating applications that
allow people to interact and cooperate on a non-personal level, allowing them to
reach a massive number of people.
Games may influence players to take action through game play, as described by
Ian Bogost in his theory on how videogames make arguments and influence players
(Bogost
2007
). Games not only deliver messages, but also simulate experiences, and
may become rhetorical tools for persuading players.
Behavior changing games combine game design elements, influence strategies
and persuasive technology along with the power of communities to motivate people
to accomplish challenging tasks. They use the power of games, networks and data
to help and encourage people to produce meaningful changes in their behaviors. Be-
havior changing games have been applied within several contexts, such as healthcare
(de Oliveira et al.
2010
), education (Bogost
2007
; Fogg
2003
) and environmental
sustainability (Froehlich et al.
2009
; Gustafsson et al.
2009
; Reeves et al.
2011
).
Most behavior change games include typical game design mechanisms: setting
goals, tracking progress, rewarding and receiving support. Players need to complete
tasks in order to achieve goals and get the corresponding rewards and recognition.
Game progress is tracked by asking players to perform virtual tasks, self-reporting or
automatic collecting data through sensors. Players are acknowledged and rewarded
with points, badges, virtual goods and sometimes real life prizes. Rankings are used
to allow players to compare their performance with their friends or other players,
which encourage a beneficial sense of competition. Many behavior change games
encourage people to share their performance and achievements with their social
networks to foster collaboration, competition and peer-pressure.
4.3
Playing to Save Energy
Decreasing energy consumption is an important goal for environmental sustain-
ability. Each one of us can contribute to reduce domestic energy consumptions and
consequently CO
2
emissions. Small individual actions may seem insignificant, but
