Supporting pretend and narrative play over videochat

Remote play over videochat may increase opportunities for social interaction for children who are geographically separated from their preferred playmate or who live beyond walking-distance from their friends. We investigated how currently available videochat technologies may be used for remote play and the role of visual and physical structure in supporting pretend and narrative play between children. We invited 10 pairs of children to play with three videochat prototypes: phone-to-phone, phone-to-laptop, and laptop-to-laptop. Consistent with previous research, we found that laptop-to-laptop videochat was better for pretend play. However, our findings were different from previous work in that we found some evidence that laptop-to-laptop videochat may also be better at supporting narrative play and is higher-rated by children in terms of preference.