TY - CPAPER U1 - Konferenzveröffentlichung A1 - Bordini, Rogério Augusto A1 - Korn, Oliver T1 - Strengthening Invisible Ties: Decreasing Loneliness Indices of University Students Through a Gamified Mobile App T2 - GoodIT '22: Proceedings of the 2022 ACM Conference on Information Technology for Social Good N2 - During the periods of social isolation to contain the advance of COVID-19 in 2020 and 2021, educational institutions have had the challenge to adopt technological strategies not only to ensure continuity in students’ classes, but also to support their mental health in a period of uncertainty and health risks. Loneliness is an emotional distress caused by the lack of meaningful social connections; it has increasingly affected young adults worldwide during the pandemic's social isolation and still bears psychological effects in the current post-pandemic period. In the light of this challenge, the Nonenliness App was developed as a way to bring together university communities to address issues related to loneliness and mental health disorders through a gamified and social online environment. In this paper, we present the app and its main functionalities (Beta version) and discuss the preliminary results of a pilot clinical study conducted with university students in Germany (N = 12) to verify the app's efficacy and usability, alongside the challenges faced and the next steps to be taken regarding the platform's improvement. KW - loneliness KW - gamification KW - mobile app KW - HCI KW - Social Isolation KW - COVID KW - Einsamkeit KW - Verlassenheit KW - Isolation KW - Gamification KW - University students Y1 - 2022 SN - 978-1-4503-9284-6 SB - 978-1-4503-9284-6 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1145/3524458.3548489 DO - https://doi.org/10.1145/3524458.3548489 SP - 424 EP - 430 PB - ACM Press CY - New York ER -