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Journal of Clinical and
Basic Psychosomatics A hackathon of cooperative play over 1000 km

design of a structure where age-specific scenes and mixed- Given the limited number of participants in this study,
age interactions could be alternated. In addition, a need to further exploration is needed, considering these limitations,
devise ways to deepen communication between children for future instances of infection-related crises that suppress
who have never met each other before; the need for training children’s social development. Another limitation of this
to improve skills in ICT operation, calling each other by study is its focus on specific regions, and future research
nicknames, and holding information exchange meetings should explore intervention designs suitable for diverse
for all parents and children afterward were suggested. geographical context.
Improvement of these issues should be repeated multiple
times, not just for a single event. Furthermore, because of Acknowledgments
the limitations of only obtaining information online, it is The authors acknowledge all the participants.
necessary to do about the onsite real space as well.
This study is limited by the small sample size and Funding
subjective description of the behavioral classification. Yamaguchi University, Tohoku University, and Saitama
A future study is needed to increase the sample size and Medical University supported this study.
to develop image deep learning technology to identify
different behaviors for reproducible quantification. 2,61 Conflict of interest
Another limitation is that although the study intended The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
for children to propose the play ideas on their own, in
some cases, the parents proposed the play ideas. Future Author contributions
research should incorporate parents’ play ideas as part of Conceptualization: Fusako Tomoto, Makoto Ota, Mamiko
the study or ensure the children come to these online play Koshiba
groups without their parents. Formal analysis: All authors
Investigation: All authors
5. Conclusion Methodology: All authors

This study examined the effectiveness of a new intervention Writing – original draft: Fusako Tomoto, Mamiko Koshiba
method using an online conferencing system to enhance Writing – review & editing: All authors
social communication among children who experienced
social suppression due to infection avoidance during the Ethics approval and consent to participate
early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. The intervention This study protocol was approved by the Yamaguchi
involved 15 children, who had never met before and were University Review Committee for Non-Medical Research
separated by long distances, introducing and playing their Involving Human Participants (2020-047).
games together online. The findings of this study showed
that the intervention successfully promoted collaborative Consent for publication
play among older children from distant locations, and Informed consent for publication was obtained from the
the total participation time, the amount they proposed relevant participants.
play, the online conversation with each other, and the
time spent watching the screen with a smiling expression Availability of data
increased significantly with higher age. This study outcome
in younger children was to promote different play in their The datasets for this study can be found in the main text.
community as an age-dependent social formation style. Further disclosure
Children with ADHD and ASD, who have social disabilities Part of the findings was reported in the blog of WEB
and were reportedly more susceptible to COVID-19 magazine of the Association of Children’s Environment
lockdown, may also benefit from this online intervention published in May 2020 (https://www.children-env.org/
method, as they tend to have a high affinity for ICTs. magazine/blogs/blog_entries/index/23?page_id=4) for

As directions for future research, we suggest helping children and family against COVID-19 lockdown
improvements in design, primarily with age-dependent society.
consideration with additional care of different ICT
utilization skills. It is also necessary to investigate the References
effects of repeating the event as well as one-time events 1. Prins J, Van der Wilt F, Van der Veen C, Hovinga D. Nature
going forward. play in early childhood education: A systematic review and

Volume 2 Issue 4 (2024) 10 doi: 10.36922/jcbp.4221