Escape Addict: A digital escape room for the prevention of addictions and risky behaviors in schools

Abstract

Preventing addictive behaviors among teenagers is a crucial mission of public health organizations and public education institutions. However, it is chal-lenging to design effective and portable interventions for classroom settings. This research evaluates the effects of a novel classroom intervention called Escape Addict. Escape Addict is a digital escape room learning activity that aims to prevent, and raise awareness of, addictive and risky behav-iors. We conducted a controlled field experiment with 10 classes surveyed before (N = 202 pupils) and after (N = 199 pupils) the intervention, as well as 20 semi-structured interviews. Our results measured three weeks after the intervention show that Escape Addict significantly increased knowledge by 10%. Escape Addict also enabled pupils talk about addictions and risky be-haviors. The intervention had no major effect on risk perceptions and other behaviors. However, Escape Addict had heterogeneous effects. For instance, those pupils who enjoyed the intervention more, played fewer video games afterwards. Also, the effect on knowledge acquisition was stronger for pupils with higher educational achievement. Gender had limited effect. Our find-ings provide overall support that digital escape rooms represent interesting platforms to convey prevention messages in a compelling way.