Alaa Almarshedi, PhD, Saudi Arabia

Towards a Healthier Future: The Role of Gamification and Games in Learning New Habits

Building healthy habits is not an easy task. While some people have the internal motivation to seek a healthy lifestyle, others find it very challenging. The latter group might need external motivation and nudging to learn new healthy habits and stay consistent. Gamification and serious games can play an important role in tackling this challenge by helping people achieve and maintain a healthy lifestyle in a playful and fun way. In this talk, we will discuss the use of gamification in developing an environment for learning new habits that can improve the health and quality of life of users. We will specifically focus on the application of gamification in the self-management of chronic illnesses and in fitness tracking.