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The Semantics of Fun: Differentiating Enjoyable Experiences

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Funology 2

Part of the book series: Human–Computer Interaction Series ((HCIS))

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Abstract

Over the last 20 years repeated attempts have been made in HCI to put enjoyment into focus. However, it is only recently that the importance of enjoyment, even in serious applications, has been widely recognised by the HCI community. Typical of a relatively new area of investigation is the lack of an agreed set of terms: enjoyment, pleasure, fun and attraction are often used interchangeably. But do they really refer to the same experiences? Of course, in common speech pleasure, enjoyment and fun are almost synonymous and this is not an attempt to fix the language. None of these terms are reducible to single definitions but for the purposes of this chapter we will propose a difference between pleasure and fun in an attempt to delineate distinct forms of enjoyment.

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Correspondence to Mark Blythe .

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Blythe, M., Hassenzahl, M. (2018). The Semantics of Fun: Differentiating Enjoyable Experiences. In: Blythe, M., Monk, A. (eds) Funology 2. Human–Computer Interaction Series. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_24

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68213-6_24

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-319-68212-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-68213-6

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