Testing a Gamified Digital Intervention for Young Adult Anxiety: Usability & Feasibility Pilot.
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: This project develops and tests Your Life the Game (YLtG), a smartphone-based, gamified digital program that teaches evidence-based, reward-based-learning skills for working with habitual patterns—including worry and anxiety—in young adults. YLtG delivers its clinical methodology through an immersive fantasy game world rather than expert-led lessons or a conversational agent. The program is grounded in the framework that anxiety and habit reflect a contraction of perceptual and attentional scope (a "closed and contracted" state) that curiosity and awareness can expand (an "open and expanded" state). It targets the habit loop underlying anxiety—trigger (intolerable uncertainty or discomfort), behavior (worry or avoidance), and reward (momentary relief)—and trains three sequential skills: tracking awareness of when a habitual pattern is active (including body-based interoceptive cues); "disenchantment," or attending to the gap between what a pattern promises and what it delivers to lower its reward value, paired with self-compassion; and redirecting freed energy toward curiosity and values-aligned alternatives. The purpose of this specific study is to conduct the Aim 1 usability and feasibility pilot: a one-month (4-week), single-arm, fully remote study (target n=30) in young adults ages 18–22 with elevated anxiety (GAD-7 ≥ 8). There is no randomization, no waitlist, and no control group. The pilot establishes whether YLtG is usable, feasible, and acceptable for young adults, and gathers user-experience feedback to refine the program before any efficacy trial. Participants complete baseline assessments via Qualtrics, are onboarded by a trained research coordinator, and are instructed to engage with YLtG at least three times per week over the month, with structured retention check-ins along the way. At the end of the month they complete usability and clinical self-report measures and take part in a semi-structured, audio-recorded user-experience interview analyzed via Applied Thematic Analysis. The expected outcomes are threefold. First, usability, indexed by the System Usability Scale against an a priori benchmark (≥ 60). Second, feasibility, indexed by recruitment (enrolling the target n=30 within the recruitment window), retention (≥ 80% completing the end-of-study assessment), and engagement (≥ 80% engaging with YLtG at least three times per week). Third, acceptability, characterized through the end-of-study qualitative interviews. Pre-to-post changes in clinical self-report measures (GAD-7, ASI-3, IUS-12) are summarized descriptively as exploratory feasibility signals only; the pilot is not powered to test efficacy, and no confirmatory inference is planned. Completion yields a young-adult–refined version of YLtG and design inputs for a future, separately submitted randomized controlled trial.
Authors: Kate Crocker, Judson Brewer, William Nardi
Institution: Brown University
Subfield: Applied Psychology
Field: Psychology
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: gold
OpenAlex ID: W7201876822
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