Playing green games

Browsing through my work twitter feed this morning, I came across a link titled ‘Facebook and the Green Social Movement’. As a self confessed Facebook addict with a growing interest in green issues, my curiosity piqued and I clicked.
Within a few lines, I realise that this article wasn’t what I was expecting (an analysis of the role of Facebook in Green networking? I’m not sure) but rather something cannibalised from a Huffington Post article promoting a new Facebook game called ‘eMission’ . The game (created by DoSomething.org ) aims to encourage “individuals [within the teen demographic] to think about climate change and how to deal with it” by “promoting and encouraging green energy use”.

My immediate thoughts were of a Guardian article from earlier this year, calculating the carbon footprint of the internet, and of the somewhat contradictory image of red eyed teens staying up til the early hours with their computer screens glaring.
The idea of an online game that encourages players to conserve energy might seem slightly oxymoronic, however the premise of the game is to engage teenagers with the topic of climate change through learning and physical action (players gain points by proving they have made real life changes such as switching to energy saving lightbulbs) as explained in this video.

Educational online games such as this are not a new idea and have been used to promote critical thinking about advertising and help children overcome bullying amongst other things. How many teens will defrost their parents freezer to win online points is another matter, but the concept of introducing these topics and issues through a medium that teens are very familiar with and accepting of makes sense.

However, the privacy issues of Facebook applications and games is another kettle of fish.

Facebook might be hugely popular, but it seems to require an unreasonable and frankly dubious amount of personal information from teens wishing to play this game (see the screen grab above- why does the application need to see teens photos, videos and access their information even when they’re not online?). I think an independent site would have been more appropriate for this game in terms of its demographic, as exemplified by the aforementioned educational games that seem to work just fine without jeopardising teens online security.