Binary Social Game: Real-World Evaluation of Motivating Group Exercise Through Gamified Social Dynamics

This article introduces the Binary Social Game (BSG) framework, designed to promote desired behaviors through asynchronous social interactions. In a 2-week preliminary study, we validated GrowFlower, a BSG-based system aimed at motivating group exercise, which informed the design of GENGO. This gamified system leverages social influence and a bingo-style board to encourage consistent exercise within groups. In a 2-month real-world experiment, 387 participants completed 3,827 workouts, including both solo and group exercises. The results demonstrated that participants who engaged in both personal and group modes (Mixed Cohort) exhibited the highest overall engagement. Additionally, we analyzed the characteristics of successful groups, identifying key factors such as social ties and communication that contributed to sustained participation. These findings demonstrate the potential of BSG-driven designs to foster behavior change through socially motivated, asynchronous group dynamics.