Analogue Games and Digital Literacy: The NetSmart Case Study with Older People

This study examines whether NetSmart, a custom-designed analogue board game, can improve digital literacy among older adults in Lisbon, Portugal. Developed through a participatory approach and centred on topics such as scam identification, password security, privacy settings, and app use, the game was tested through a quasi-experimental pre-post design involving 42 participants aged 60 to 89 who had previously completed introductory digital literacy programs. Over six weekly sessions of small-group, facilitated gameplay, participants completed a 22-item questionnaire before and after the intervention, with responses analysed using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test.

The results show statistically significant improvements in several self-perceived skills. Participants reported greater ability to download and install mobile applications (p = .015), update applications and operating systems (p = .037), and use games as a tool for learning (p = .020). Confidence in educating friends and family about online safety (p = .033) and in playing online games (p = .013) also increased. Most of the remaining items showed no significant change, indicating that the impact was uneven across the skills measured.

The authors interpret these gains as evidence that analogue game-based learning can support not only technical competence but also autonomy, social engagement, and self-efficacy, with possible knowledge transfer to family networks and transferability of playful interest from analogue to digital environments. The study is explicitly limited by its single-case design, the absence of a control group, and reliance on self-reported rather than performance-based measures. The authors acknowledge these constraints and note that a forthcoming mixed-methods analysis will examine gameplay behaviour and performance in greater depth.