# Does Augmented Reality Affect Sociability, Entertainment, and Learning? A Field Experiment
## 1 Introduction  
A new software technology combining physical and virtual realities by adding layers of digital information onto the physical world using suitable devices, such as wearables, has enabled new applications (e.g., Pokemon Go) and has introduced a novel way to communicate with others [1, 2]. Changing the way people communicate and interact with each other, social media has been the most recent technological revolution that has impacted social interaction, entertainment, and learning [3]. These aspects are also apparent in perceived benefits that motivate people to use social media [4, 5, 6]. As new technology has the potential to permanently change the way we behave, besides user studies and product development, cutting-edge technology should be examined with regard to its implications on social interaction, sociability, entertainment, and learning. Augmented reality (AR) applications enable people to interact with virtual objects overlaid in the physical environment and visible through digital screens. AR or mixed reality (MR) can be located in a continuum between real and virtual reality or seen as a combination of the two different elements [7, 8]. As a result of the incoherent use of the terminology and commercial success of AR applications, previous researchers and other stakeholders have often referred to MR as AR, even though only someof the experts in the field use them as synonyms [8]. The suggested definitions of MR summarized by [PERSON] and colleagues [8] indicate that collaboration is one of the key aspects used in defining the concept. [PERSON] and colleagues [9; 10], for example, studied the collaboration between the local AR user and remote virtual reality (VR) user. Increasing amounts of AR and MR applications are being designed and introduced each year to the public and to various industry fields, such as education, health care, and maintenance, to name a few [11; 12; 13]. As an entertainment technology combined with a global positioning system, AR is best known to the public thanks to Pokemon GO, but new games and applications emerge, including Minecraft Earth and Harry Potter: Wizards Unite. Based on previous research, AR applications such as AR games could potentially enhance social communication and social interaction between people. Researchers have focused on the case of Pokemon Go and concluded that AR games have the potential for positive behavioral effects such as socialization [14]. Some games, not just AR games, incorporate more social and collaborative features to the gameplay than others, but even single-player games have been argued to have inherent social aspects [15]. Thus, augmented reality games could potentially foster sociability by gathering users together in a shared space and offering affordances for interacting with other users via options to comment, read, and reply to others. [PERSON] and colleagues [16] describe the single-player games in general, \"knowledge of others playing the same game makes the game more social\", which presumably concerns AR technology as well. Against this, it is interesting that a sense of social presence in MR technology has been found to positively affect visitor experiences in public places [17]. Entertainment value is also an important factor in itself and becomes even more relevant when investigating AR game outcomes in the context of recreational activities. More generally, gamification has combined research of technology and game design, motivation, and human-computer interaction, among others [18]. In a review of engagement in digital entertainment games, researchers categorized, for example, subjective experience, physiological responses, motives for playing, and impact of game on life satisfaction as aspects of engagement [19]. Recently, researchers studying AR identified hedonic and utilitarian as important aspects in AR adoption and found that consumers regard AR to be useful in tourism and education [20], and based on a literature review, AR had positive effects on engagement (e.g., in the museum context) [21].