Gamification or how to exploit Attention Deficit Disorder

The scale of social gaming is such that, according to TechCrunch, Google has invested US$100M in the social gaming behemoth Zynga and over half of Facebook’s 950 million users play social games. The conversion of the remainder of our digital time allocation into something that resembles a game is a trend which is increasingly permeating our online activity. Appealing to our innate psychological predispositions when we sit in front of a computer shapes the way companies are thinking about their online users – and in particular our ever diminishing attention spans.

Gamification, the technique of using game mechanics in other contexts that are not games to influence behaviours, is slowly taking over the web. Gartner predicts that by 2014, more than 70 percent of a selected group of global 2,000 organizations will have at least one “gamified” application. Airlines, hotels and credit card companies have long understood our desire to be rewarded for our loyalty with status and prizes. Subtly addictive internet activities, such as adding more friends on Facebook or contacts on Linkedin, largely explain the appeal of some of the most popular websites on the internet, along with the status that is derived from the increased usage.

Here is an interesting report on gamification: http://www.pewinternet.org/~/media//Files/Reports/2012/PIP_Future_of_Internet_2012_Gamification.pdf