Active aging and Pokémon Go: A Participatory Study with Young Older Adults

Population aging has become a pluralist and emerging debate. Discussions revolve around not only long and healthy aging, but also on how to age with quality of life, access to rights, security, information, and sense of belonging to society. These are the pillars for active aging, according to the World Health Organization, in which several areas seek to contribute. Among these, the area of games enables, through the experience of the game, the practice related to economic, health, and socio-cultural issues. In this respect, location-based games emerge as a growing sub-area of games, which has captivated many players and has had a positive impact on the lives of senior citizens. This investigation seeks to identify the potential of location-based mobile games to promote active aging. This study was conducted through participant observation, carried out with four senior citizen volunteers for 3 months, both in the context of the game and on social networks. The results show that the mechanics of Raids, Collection, and Events of Pokemon Go were the ones that most contributed to active aging, namely, aspects related to socialization and well-being stood out among the favored areas, helping to identify factors of the game that can not only support active aging, but also leverage it.