How does digital play support children's well-being?
The RITEC-8 framework.
All three Phase 2 RITEC research projects began with a definition of children’s subjective well-being and a specific, working framework conceptualising aspects of children’s subjective well-being that were developed by UNICEF Innocenti and Western Sydney University in Phase 1 of the project. Drawing on this, the research teams from all three Phase 2 RITEC research studies have worked collaboratively to devise an empirically-based framework which foregrounds eight dimensions of children’s subjective well-being that digital play, when well designed, can support. This framework, which is called the 'RITEC-8' framework, is presented below. More information about how the present study contributed to this framework can be found in our full report.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Explore, construct and express facets of themselves and others.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Experience a range of emotions
🕹️ Be aware of their emotions
🕹️ Be able to regulate their emotions.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Be open to a range of experiences
🕹️ Imagine different possibilities
🕹️ Act on original ideas
🕹️ Make things.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Experience mastery
🕹️ Feel they can achieve.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Experience connectedness with others
🕹️ Manage social connections
🕹️ Feel that they belong
🕹️ Be aware of others.
Digital play allows children to:
🕹️ Experience a sense of control and autonomy
🕹️ Have freedom of choice.
Digital play:
🕹️ Represents, and supports equitable play for, diverse children and childhoods.
Digital play:
🕹️ Is, and feels, safe and secure.
Research spotlight: Liana and her friends
'I learned how to switch to PlayStation [...] And here, let’s say, it writes about your eyes, not to be too close [...] Let’s say, I go up here, three of my friends are playing . Oh, Kostas is playing, let’s say, this [Username 1], it’s my friend, Kostas, my schoolmate. Now, let’s say, it writes, here under, he’s playing Minecraft. This [Username 2] is another friend of mine, from school again, and he’s playing.'
Digital play supported children’s well-being in lots of different ways. In Cyprus, digital play supported 10-year-old Liana's (CYF3) well-being in two main ways. Firstly, digital play supported her feelings of both competence and identity associated with the identity of ‘gamer’. Secondly, digital play supported Liana’s social connections with her group of ‘gamer’ friends.
When she was taking part in the research, Liana displayed a strong sense of competence and pride in being able to explain what was happening on digital platforms and games in great detail. Digital play was also an important connection to a group of male schoolfriends, who shared her passion for games like Fortnite and Minecraft.
In this illustration, which has been created for the project by a professional illustrator based on our research data, Liana is playing Fortnite in her living room. Her phone is lighting up with messages from her friends (they are strategising together as they play the game).
You can read many more examples like Liana's in our full report.
The image on this page is representative of a particular family in our dataset. The illustration was created for our project by Alexandra Francis, an independent illustrator, designer, and animator based in Manchester (UK). Find out more about her work at https://alexandrafrancis.com/.