[IDD Webinar 06] Understanding Social Interactions in Location-based Games as Hybrid Spaces

Understanding social interactions in location-based games as hybrid spaces: coordination and collaboration in raiding in Pokémon GO
Jiangnan Xu
Ph.D. candidate at Rochester Institute of Technology


Her research falls under the HCI and UX fields. Specifically, it focuses on exploring the natures and possibilities between humans and the physical environment in this digital era through AR technology. In particular, she is looking at how AR technology and gamification systems could co-evolve the way people interact with each other in hybrid spaces.

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Jiangnan has an interdisciplinary background in UX Research, Design, and Computer information. She holds an MSc (Distinction) from the University of Edinburgh, UK, majoring in Design Informatics. Her thesis is Distiction awarded, about web UX of data visualization tool online collection, designed and implemented a website for data visualization tool browsing and searching. In her undergraduate study, she was awarded the 2018 Outstanding Undergraduate Fellowship by the China Scholarship Council (CSC) and studied at ZJUT, China, and ABK, Stuttgart, Germany.

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Jiangnan is from Hangzhou, China, and studied and worked in Germany, the UK, and the US. She is experienced with cross-cultural and multi-functional communication, collaboration, data analysis, and technical writing.



Abstract

The integration of the mobile web and global position system (GPS) blends our physical environments with a digital layer of location-based information as a mobile interface, blurring the borders of traditional cyberspace and physical space. This advancement formed what de Souza e Silva termed “hybrid space,” which enabled several novel locative media. The hybrid spaces redefine people’s experience of social interactions. Location-based games (LBGs) with social components are a good case. Yet, the impact LBGs have on sociability remains under-researched. In April 2020, the new in-person/remote raiding format in the LBG Pokémon GO provided a lens to explore people’s social interactions in hybrid spaces. We interviewed 41 Pokémon GO players to understand how players coordinate and collaborate for in-person/remote raids and other social patterns. Our findings demonstrate that new social dynamics occurred: participants’ social interactions highly rely on external social media groups bridging cyberspace and the physical world. In such external social media groups, spontaneously formed leadership roles and mentor-mentee relationships demonstrate autonomy among players in the hybrid space. However, we observed that the interoperability issue challenges people’s experience. Overall, this work sheds light on the social interactions in LBGs as hybrid spaces.