Keyword: «immersive gaming»

Currently, digital generation adolescents experience significant communication difficulties, with a decline in their ability to engage constructively in real life, despite the increasing use of online communication. Traditional approaches to developing schoolchildren's communication skills fail to address these new challenges and needs and are often ineffective. It is therefore important to study the specifics and design the content and forms of interpersonal communication development in modern adolescents using immersive games. Immersive games, as a form of personalized and emotional interaction, provide the opportunity to simulate social situations that promote the development of communication skills, self-awareness, and behavioral strategies in various situations. The adolescent acts as an active participant in this process, which fosters self-awareness and reflection. The purpose of this study was to conduct a theoretical and empirical study of the specifics of using immersive games as a means of developing interpersonal communication in adolescents with communication difficulties. The theoretical and methodological basis of the study was formed by the work of scholars in the fields of theoretical and practical pedagogy, educational and social psychology, and the psychology of communication. The study utilized theoretical, empirical, and data processing methods. Ninety-six adolescents aged 13–14 from three educational institutions in Tula participated in the study. The results showed an increase in the number of adolescents with an average level of sociability, a normal level of empathy, and a high desire for communication and interaction. The theoretical significance of the study lies in clarifying the specifics of using immersive games in the work with adolescents with communication difficulties and identifying their qualitative characteristics that contribute to the development of interpersonal communication. The practical significance lies in the development and testing of diagnostic tools for studying communication difficulties in adolescents of the digital generation, the characteristics of their interpersonal communication, and the creation of a set of immersive games. The recipients of the research results may be teachers, educational psychologists of an educational institution, a psychological center, a rehabilitation center, a children's school and a health camp, etc.