Sustaining Behaviour Change Through Immersive Technologies: Trends, Perspectives, and Approaches

Long-term behaviour changes are critical to answering societal and individual challenges surrounding areas such as sustainability and health. Current understanding of how to bring about sustained behaviour is focused on the identification of Behaviour Change Techniques (BCTs) without explicit guidance on how these should be matched with technological solutions. Based on this gap we set out to answer the research question: What is the relationship between BCTs and interactive immersive technologies with respect to long-term, sustainable behaviour? To this end, we report a literature review on technology trends in the fields of human computer interaction, human robot interaction, and game design. Based on this review we develop three main contributions with implications for design theory and practice. First, we propose a number of characteristics and mechanisms in emerging immersive technologies. Second, we highlight technological pathways connected to specific BCT clusters likely to be disrupted: technology as a conveyor of information, an augmenter of feedback, and as an embodiment of empathy. Third, we explore these connections between BCT clusters and the actual technological interventions.