Using Mobile Games to Inspire Meaningful Behavior Change

Editor's Notes

• #4: Anyone who has tried to quit smoking, change their diet or start saving more money knows behaviors are hard to change, habits are hard to break!
• #5: The reason behavior change is so hard is because it isn’t a one-off hurdle… it’s a sprint not a marathon… Dr. Alex Lickerman – Happiness in the world Precontemplation - We have literally never thought about needing to change a particular behavior - usually anchored in information gaps Contemplation: We begin to actively think about the need to change a behavior. This is the stage in which obstacles to change tend to rear their ugly heads. Determination: We begin preparing ourselves mentally and often physically for action.  Action: When the rubber hits the road Maintenance: Often underestimated in terms of difficulty Behaviors are sticky and change can break down at any of these stages.
• #6: Now having worked at the World Bank for more than 8 years, I have seen the stickiness of behaviors manifest in the form of the last mile problem. It’s when good solutions fail because people are not motivated to change their behaviors to make the solutions a part of their daily lives.
• #9: Condoms as
• #10: Balloon animals
• #14: Even sticky habits can be broken if we make the process fun. A set of piano stairs were installed right besides an escalator (SC). Every commuter that walks the piano, makes music, a tune of their own. “From Movement to Mozart” they called it. And so previously what was an abandoned staircase became a source of curiosity, fun and fitness for the people coming out of an underground station. (SC) There was a 66% increase in people taking the stairs since the piano installation… 
• #15: What can be more fun than games… Games bring the fun to behavior change… It shouldn’t feel like work!
• #16: Take Pokemon Go for example…. It had kids of all ages out and about, looking for pokemons!
• #17: Why are games effective tools for behavior change? Story, crystal ball, trophy There’s a story, you have a virtual world, virtual characters, the good guy, the bad guy… there’s a crystal ball.. in the span of a few hours.. ure able to see the short-term and long-term consequences of ure actions, both good and bad and then there’s the trophy… the game rewards u for good decisions and penalizes you for bad ones… Given the interactive, iterative, and inspiring nature, games appeal to the human psychology in a way most other communication tools don’t and their impact on our brains far transcends the boundaries of the virtual world.
• #18: Information gaps- challenging the norms – disseminated through the story Interactivity: this is where the story, the crystal ball & the trophy meet: games are able to build a virtual case for actions that need to change in the real world! Iteration: Iterative exposure to the message: Goes beyond TV ads,radio campaigns etc.
• #20: At GRID we are exploring these windows of opportunities. The challenge of poverty is huge, but so is the potential of video games!
• #21: GRID aims to leverage the universal language of video games to inspire social change - globally! Global solutions to global problems…
• #22: Let’s take the menstrual stigma as an example…. When I grew up in Pakistan, my period was something evil, so evil that I could not even say its name, almost like the Dark Lord from Harry Potter!  She Who Must Not Be Named! But the menstrual stigma is not unique to Pakistan, there are 5000 words used for periods world wide! To break the stigma around us there is a need to educate and raise awareness, engage and trigger dialogue and inspire and change behaviors so that we not only recognize the problem but also move towards finding a solution for it.  
• #23: MoHiM is a mobile game about periods. The word itself means “an effort” in Urdu and it spells out the acronym for Menstrual Health Management. It’s a simple mobile game, the player is challenged to maneuver a pair of undies to catch pads, while avoiding objects that should not be used to control menstrual flow, such as newspapers, leaves and rags. We believe,   Gone are the days of crushing candies It’s time to catch those pads with undies!      
• #24: We are looking at a world where smartphones as low as $20 are now available in areas where even toilets are a luxury. This technology boom opens a window of opportunity, to reach the bottom billion through their phones and use simple mobile games as tools for behavior change. 
• #25: MoHiM being scaled up in Pakistan and East Africa – Days for Girls Lessons like tap and not swipe
• #26: The continued silence and limited information available on menstruation results in millions of females suffering from poor menstrual health. MoHiM aims to inspire behavior change by raising awareness, imparting knowledge and promoting dialogue to break the stigma. Mobile phones are private
• #27: Challenges social norms
• #28: In order to ensure inclusive international access and sustainable impact, GRID games are developed to be compatible with low-end Android phones and do not require internet connectivity to run. The games are also developed at one-fifth the cost of comparable commercial games and are available for free downloads, hence providing a long-term scalable solution for meaningful behavior change. In three years, we have worked on several different games… such as
• #30: Math learning in the Gambia Gumbers in The Gambia Makes math learning fun…
• #31: Stereotypes here in the US StereoWiped – wipes stereotypes Now working on two new games on SurrEndo, Reproductive health
• #32: Learning objectives: Set your learning How: A game has to be fun! The line between preachy and informative… When: Overload of information, use bonus stages
• #33: There are 1.5 billion people living in poverty today, facing challenges relating to their health, their money, their children’s future.. (world bank) But there are also 1.5 billion people around the world playing video games … 2013 State of Online Gaming Report I have committed to the cause, the question is Are you game?