Gamified design for the intergenerational learning: A preliminary experiment on the use of smartphones by the elderly

Abstract

With the development of Web2.0, smartphone is one of the most typical and popular communication tools adopted by the public. As digital natives, young people has a high degree of absorptive and learning ability for those emerging technologies. In contrast, due to “technical panic” for smartphone, the elder groups face a few problems, such as technostress, learning barriers, and less interests. Intergenerational learning, as an informal communication and learning style within the family or in a larger community, delivers knowledge, skills, abilities, social norms and values among generations systematically. It is a mixed approach combining both formal and informal features, which integrates and involves the young generation with their predecessors in an appealing manner. In this paper, we consider that the intergenerational learning dominated by young people would effectively help elder generation to use smartphone, which also has a significant impact on intergenerational relations and intergenerational barriers. Intergenerational learning is not limited to offline communication in which knowledge is delivered in words or written form, but it also includes the facial communications based on smartphones learning. In addition, it also mentions that game-based learning, or gamification plays an important role in improving the enthusiasm and effectiveness of study for the aged in process of intergenerational learning. This paper explores the phenomenon of reverse socialization of the elderly using smartphones which includes the reasons and the impact on intergenerational learning. Furthermore, it also attempts to analyze the change of attitude of both the youth and the elders during the process, which will yield some practical implication for the implementation of intergenerational learning.