JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Over the past few years, there has been an increasingly development of technologies supporting active ageing. Among the activities that allow exercise through the use of technologies there is geocaching, a treasure hunt of sorts in which participants use a receiver GPS to hide or find real or virtual objects. Although this activity can be particularly suitable for the promotion of healthy lifestyles in older people, geocaching is still unexplored in this area.

Objective:

The objectives of the study is to investigate the effectiveness of an action to promote active aging that would combine geocaching with the use of self-tracking technologies, evaluating the usability of technologies and exploring the ways in which technologies have been fitted into the organizational context under examination, determining the user experience of participants.

Methods:

A group of over 65 attending a senior center managed by a social cooperative was involved in the study. Some of them created the geocaching contents, and the others, split into two teams, participated to the game. To each participant were delivered a pedometer bracelets and the geocaching app. The steps taken by individual participants, along with the number of caches found by each group, were translated into the team scores.

Results:

The main results of the study were as follows: (1) Activities in favor of active aging that involve the use of new technologies can foster the participation of elderly people: in particular, adding gamification to the self-tracking can be a valid strategy to promote physical exercise among the elderly. (2) In order for this to happen, involving older people at first hand is crucial, focusing on their active involvement and empowerment in every phase of the project. (3) The mediation of conflicts and competition due to the gamification could only take place thanks to the strong support of the organizational context, in the shape of the social operators.

Conclusions:

The results show how promoting active aging through technologies does not happen as much thanks to the use of these tools alone, but instead through a wider process that involves an articulated organizational network with etherogeneous actors, technologies and relations.