Talk To Me

Here is the demo link: Prototyp-demo

What do you do when a person you admire and care about believes in Covid-19 conspiracies? Having experienced this dilemma firsthand, I spend few weeks researching this issue and talking to people in similar situations.

The bottom line is though it is hard and frustrating to talk to conspiracy-minded people, it is more likely that their friends and family members can make them question their beliefs. During my research and interviews it became clear that better arguments ≠ better chances of changing their views. Many people I talked to experienced defensive or even aggressive behavior while trying to persuade their opponents with arguments and facts.

What seems to work better is a mix of non-violent communication and questions that help the other person to recognize logical fallacies. That sounds pretty complicated. That's why we want to use gamification to help people learn better communication techniques and be more prepared for such conversations.

Credits for the illustrations:

• Undraw

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Credits for the video with Prof. Dr. Imhoff:
Schweizer Radio und Fernsehen

The goal of the game is:

• To help relatives, friends, and partners to communicate more constructively with conspiracy-minded people they care about.
• To encourage nonviolent communication in conversations so that one has higher chances of showing a conspiracy-minded person a different perspective.
• To minimize the polarization of society by trying to have a dialogue instead of spreading accusations and hate speech.

Quotes from game testers:
“Talking to a conspiracy theorist can be really frustrating and emotional. This game provides excellent examples of how to address the issue.“

“It helps to prepare when similar situations arise in real life.“

“The explanation of correct answers helped me to understand why my uncle reacted that bad to our argument…“

It is an online game with an offline impact.
As we all see it nowadays, the conspiracy beliefs spread as fast as the virus.

It is dangerous to ignore the problem and label those who believe in conspiracy theories as "crazy". If more and more people ignore the protective measures, it becomes very dangerous for the whole society, especially for the risk groups.

We want to implement the game concept. The money will be spent on website development, expert collaborations, UX / UI design, content creation and - if the second funding round works - on translation, marketing, more game situations and evaluations.