Reality Is Broken Summary

Words: 790
Pages: 4

What is the Author Saying? In the ninth chapter of Jane McGonigal’s Reality is Broken, she introduces the game Bounce, a “...telephone conversation game designed to support cross-generational social interaction” (pg. 177). The game allows you and a “senior experience agent” ten minutes to answer ten computer prompt questions. McGonigal and four others at the University of California desired to build a game that would eliminate barriers between age groups. This type of game deemed necessary in areas that excluded seniors from the rest of the world such as retirement communities, senior centers, and continuous care homes. According to major studies at both Harvard and Stanford, there is a prejudice against the elderly and “young people commonly associate older age with negative traits like diminished power, status, and ability, leading them to avoid interacting with people they perceive as elderly” (pg. 178).
In McGonigal’s research for the game Bounce, she reached out to both her grandfather Herb and her husband’s grandmother Bettie, in hopes of finding out which type of game would appeal to them. McGonigal came to the conclusion
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Through the chapter chunk, she explains very clearly what the game Bounce is and how you play. McGonigal also includes why she and three others wanted to create such a game that would “...spark a stronger feeling of community across the generation gap” (pg.178). When discussing the research she had done for the game, she talks about how “...immensely rewarding...” (pg. 178) it was to spend time talking to her grandparents and gaining insight on what they thought would make a fun game. Based on the way McGonigal talks about the success of her prototype game, the audience receives a sense of how proud McGonigal was to have created a game that she viewed as beneficial not only for seniors, but the younger generations as