[A]ccording to everything expert Malcolm Gladwell, to be satisfied with your job you need three things, and I bet most of you don't even have two of them:
Autonomy (that is, you have some say in what you do day to day);
Complexity (so it's not mind-numbing repetition);
Connection Between Effort and Reward (i.e. you actually see the awesome results of your hard work).
Most people, particularly in the young gamer demographics, don't have this in their jobs or in any aspect of their everyday lives. But the most addictive video games are specifically geared to give us all three... or at least the illusion of all three.
[T]he superstition that the budget must be balanced at all times, once it is debunked, takes away one of the bulwarks that every society must have against expenditure out of control. . . . [O]ne of the functions of old-fashioned religion was to scare people by sometimes what might be regarded as myths into behaving in a way that long-run civilized life requires.
Monday, March 08, 2010
5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted
5 Creepy Ways Video Games Are Trying to Get You Addicted: The video game as Skinner Box and the alienation of labor:
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