Mhealth gamification

Games are the main form of entertainment for kids today and are infiltrating every aspect of daily life to the extent we can consider everyone is a gamer. Casual forms of gaming such as playing Candy Crush while waiting for the bus is something we are used to seeing now. We know of grandparents who play Wii with their grandchildren. In parallel, gamification is rapidly expanding and has come a long way.

Early "gamification" attempts involved adding simple game mechanics like points, badges and leaderboards to existing software. However, gamification 2.0 as explained by Amy Jo Kim, a visionary on conceputal frameworks for online communities, is about creating game-like digital services that shape real-world behaviour and deliver deep value to players, using a blend of instrinsic and extrisic motivators. Gartner predicts gamification and games to innovate and create new routes for personal development in the coming years, and specially in health and self-care, as it can radically change what we perciebe as fun regarding staying fit and adopting healthy lifestyles.

So, what exactly is game thinking? In recognised, top seller games, the players are taken on a journey, giving them something to learn, master and share. Jane McGonigal, author of "Reality is broken", describes good games as games that provide a clear goal, low risk failure, constant quality feedback, and flow which means the player is faced with just the right level of challenge. This is accomplished by gradually changing the game over time in response to the user's performance, to keep him motivated and wanting to improve.

So why apply Gamification in Healthcare?

Gabe Zichermann, author of "Game Based Marketing" researched that theme as such isn't related to what we percieve as fun. Games have taught us is that it can be a lot of fun to play anything, we can turn the unlikeliest of themes into something fun, from acquiring fitness habits to changing behaviour or learning how to adapt to a chronic illness.

Gamifying health we can make adopting healthy healthstyles, staying fit, loosing weight or even checking blood pressure regularly fun, having the user take charge of their health and care voluntarily, and looking forward to it.

Mobile Health offers a great opportunity for mobile health products, largely because of their accessibility. With games easy to use and able to embed external content such as photos and other player generated content, a good social infrastructure and tools enabling players to share and engage with others players; we can change the way we live nowadays health and illness.

*Visit Anna Sort's blog: http://lostnurseinthedigitalera.wordpress.com