Real Life But Better: How Augmented Reality Can Save Gen Z
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Is augmented reality foosball in Gen Z’s future? 
Kuba Bożanowski/Flickr
Our kids are fat. They’re super-connected, self-aware, highly-strategic, fat kids. One-third of American kids are overweight, according to the CDC. Another study predicts that a staggering 47% are predicted to be obese by adulthood. And while our instinct tells us to take away their phones and unplug their Xboxes, technology might actually be the cure.
Augmented reality, in particular, has potential to mobilize (and exercise) those dubbed “the most sedentary generation in American history.”
Meet Gen Z – kids born after the turn of the century. They’ve been described as “digital natives.” They’ve only known of a world with touch-screens and apps. And as a result, they’ve developed an instinctual relationship with technology. Think: babies who swipe at magazines. 72% of kids under 8 have used a mobile device to consume media. For better or worse, they’ve been exposed to a lot and they’re growing up quickly. Today, kids learn to collaborate through Google Docs at an age when I was learning cursive. Z lives in a world of continuous updates where relevance is constantly being redefined.
Yet for all this advancement, some of this generation’s biggest issues seem so basic (nutrition & fitness), and the solutions so simple (diet & exercise). The obesity epidemic, has led some to predict that Gen Zers will have shorter lifespans than their parents…this at a time when we’re cloning mammoths and landing on comets. Why can’t we keep our kids healthy? And WHY are we trying the same methods that have been failing previous generations – Calorie-counting? Health class? Baseball?
The answer might be poetically simple: Don’t be boring.
When it comes to health and fitness – areas where intervention is desperately needed – there’s a real failure to connect with kids, or to fit in with their lives. It’s not as though kids are choosing a technology-based lifestyle; they were born into it. So, how do we jujitsu Z’s natural inclinations into healthy behaviors? Enhance healthy experiences so that kids want to engage.
Augmented Reality (AR), the process of layering real-time information over real world environments, should be making health and fitness more exciting than Minecraft. Instead, it’s being wasted on helping hipsters find restaurants.
Developers, entrepreneurs, health experts – Look to AR, for the sake of our children.
Move Gaming Outdoors
Gen Z wants to go outside. Nature immerses kids without the pressure (or decision fatigue) that comes with customizing a digital landscape. Z doesn’t require nature to be tech-free; they want it to be fun. Create AR adventures that layer mysteries, stories, and puzzle-solving over unpredictable environments – a.k.a. their backyards. Simply embracing mobility and spatial interactions can get kids up and moving. Download the app Zombies, Run! While a helicopter pilot helps you escape a zombie apocalypse, you’re tricked into training for a 5k race. This is AR at its best and simplest. No heads-up displays, just your phone, ear-buds, and good storytelling. But even if you’re not a runner, AR can facilitate movement. Ingress, a game developed at Nantic Labs, involves players in a complex sci-fi story that requires actual travel. Players must physically move to virtual markers in order to make progress. Whether used for running, storytelling, or even geocaching, AR has the potential to get Gen Z gamers off the couch and out the door.
Redesign Sports for the 21st Century
With youth participation dropping in baseball, football, basketball, and soccer, it might be time to rethink sports for the new millennium. Baseball, for example, has practically been the same for 100 years – and even it’s own players admit they get bored. How’s the YouTube generation supposed to engage?
The pace of life is different today. Kids work and play in short intense spurts. They move between real and virtual spaces. They start a document on their laptop in school, reopen it on their phone while riding the bus, only to revisit later on their tablet while watching TV. They start and stop. They multi-task and collaborate.
Today, kids play Halo while dreaming about Quidditch. They’re playing the newest video games and wishing for impossible sports. There’s an opportunity use AR in the creation of new-to-the-world athletics that support Z’s rules of engagement. These days, the most popular technologies in sports seem to be hormone therapy and Hi-Def TVs, but even a head-mounted camera like the GoPro can enhance and alter the experience of competition.
Help Them Make Smart Decisions
The weird thing about an obesity epidemic is that it’s difficult to see. Our idea of normal (weight and behavior) becomes skewed by the people around us–who are also unhealthy. We need to hit reset. Kids can’t trust their eyes, and for such a highly visual generation this is a major handicap. Enter AR to help us make choices and tradeoffs. The popular app, WordLens, for example, uses your phone’s camera to translate, in real time, foreign text to your native tongue. The same visual translation could help people select or deselect food.
Augmented reality can train Z’s eyes so that they know what good choices look like. And when they’re making good choices, reward them. Their phones track where they are and how they move. Walk 10,000 steps, unlock a new level of Candy Crush. Take stairs instead of elevator, access a hidden car in Forza. Maybe Gen Z needs to see their real-life choices reflected in an avatar. A study at Stanford showed that avatars influence behaviors in the real world–they can change the way we exercise or eat. Z could be their own coaches or caretakers; perfect, for a generation that missed out on Tomagotchi.
The only way out is through. While technology may have contributed to the obesity epidemic, it’s not going away anytime soon. TVs and PCs turned Americans into overweight, underactive consumers of information but as technology mobilizes, so will people. Augmented Reality offers a chance to engage kids with health and fitness in fun, new ways.
The race is on, as fully immersive media gathers steam. Soon AR will be forced to compete with head-mounted virtual reality – tethered to monitors and outlets. We need better AR interactions today so that we have a chance to develop and gain traction before people plug themselves back into the walls to play more sedentary video games that make them fat.
Sean Brennan is a Principal at the innovation design consultancy Continuum.
