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Is Facebook Healthy?

“Can your social network make you healthier? It’s a question that health organizations are asking more and more as part of a wave of new gaming experiments.”
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“In June, Vancouver game consulting company Ayogo launched a Facebook game called HealthSeeker that awards ‘life experience’ points or virtual gifts when players with diabetes make small lifestyle changes. For example, it might assign a challenge such as not putting sugar in a single cup of coffee and then reward the player for completing the mission. The challenge of this kind of game isn’t to convince people of something but to get them to act. ‘People are already emotionally committed to their health,’ says Michael Fergusson, the founder and CEO of Ayogo.”

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