Adolescence is often associated with emotional upheaval and teens themselves value support with their emotions. HCI research on emotion regulation has focused on lab-based interventions for those with the greatest needs. This paper explores how adolescents use commercially available videogames in their daily environments and how these practices relate to emotion regulation. We conducted a 2-week diary and interview study with eleven teens asking them to reflect on their videogame practices and emotions. We deployed a multimodal diary to encourage authentic teen voice on factors not typically considered in intervention studies. Our findings indicate that teens use videogames to regulate their emotions and to recover from stress in diverse ways. These processes are often intertwined with adolescents’ social relationships and can be mediated through game affordances. We argue that traditional approaches to emotion regulation may be too individualistic to recognise or support the social dynamics that define teens’ emotional lives.

Games can be powerful vehicles for gender identity exploration and self-reflection but are often subject to designers' biases including gender representation, limiting such opportunities. Using a game jam as a research-through-design method, alongside qualitative interviews with the creators, this paper explores how the process of creating games and the games themselves can facilitate exploration of and reflection on gender identity. We highlight aspects of identity people want to explore; how different game elements can support processes of exploring these, and what aspects are missing in games. Further, the process of creating and playing helped participants reflect on and reframe their understanding of gender regardless of their identity/experience. Finally, we reflect on the process of designing an inclusive jam around the topic of gender identity, which can be sensitive and divisive. Our work results in implications for the design of games and other potential tools for gender exploration.