Benefits and Barriers of Older Adults' Digital Gameplay

Gerontology researchers have demonstrated that cognitive and social factors are keys that may sometimes outweigh physical conditions in determining life satisfaction. Social interaction and cognitive challenge are consistently identified as key elements to enhance older adults’ quality of life. Digital games can offer many potential benefits to older adults in a motivating and playful way, such as increased social interaction and maintenance of cognitive functioning. This paper describes some key results regarding socio-emotional and cognitive benefits as well as barriers reported from an early survey of 463 Canadian older adults who play digital games. The results demonstrate that a diverse group of older adults are actively playing digital games on a regular basis and that players report numerous socio-emotional and cognitive benefits and few difficulties. These results are promising and will be followed up with a variety of experimental studies.

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