Gamify Life

GAMIFY LIFE

Challenge

Ever heard of the metaphor “Life is a game” or “you better start playing the game” or “you are playing a game out of your league” or “you are one hell of a player” or maybe “don’t play games with me”? All of us play games, not just the ones on screens but the most exciting parts (debatable) of life are usually seen as a metaphorical game. You’re cheating on a test, and your goal is not to get caught, you’re playing a game, you are talking to a girl you like and trying to increase the relationship meter, you are playing a game, or maybe you want to kill someone without getting caught, you guessed it! It is a game.

Let us look at life from a different perspective — a new, weird, probably life-changing view. We will see how the world is and what it rather could be, the interesting way to solve most of the world’s problems, the way to monitor strengths, weaknesses and everything in between and build a perfect human life (let me not get ahead of myself just yet..)

This obviously is a challenge because the technology to study the brain is just not as advanced yet, but then maybe someday, our lives will be just like a "sims" game or maybe an "Elder Scrolls" if you are into that.

Solution

The obvious solution is to invest in technologies that can read the brain and thereby help us in building a platform (imagine a headgear) that can track our skills and relationships as well as give a deeper understanding of ourselves and others. 

But an alternative solution could be to get to know yourself better, set goals and track progress yourselves, set milestones in relationships, award yourself for achievements and so on. To this end, a possible way would be to create a workshop that gives a deeper insight into ourselves and our life and test the hypothesis that this could lead to a better overall lifestyle.

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Before

After

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What could it look like?

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The Experiment

The experiment will be to conduct a one day workshop in two parts, where in the first part will be teaching young (below 18) participants ways to measure themselves (using present day HR practises), find their strengths and weaknesses and plan their future possible career paths. 

The second part will deal with adults (24 and higher) and teach them a way to set small goals every day in whatever career they are pursuing as well as daily goals in order to do some good, goals to lead a healthy lifestyle (gym/yoga), etc.

for example: 

- a random good habit (Read for an hour, 5 pushups, etc.),

- a number of todos

- a particular daily task by a certain time

and reward themselves for accomplishing their goals (a way to gamify life). 

Cost

A room for conducting the experiment as well as time and HR expertise. The room can be arranged in IIMB itself to conduct the workshop, request Dr. Ravikumar (Retired professor of IIMB) to conduct and evaluate HR questionnaires. And finally, I need to come up with possible daily goals for various common categories like goodwill, health, knowledge, etc.

Hypothesis

Firstly, will people be attracted to this kind of life?

Secondly, Will this kind of way really lead to better life choices?

Measurement

The participants will be given a survey on the below topics with various questions. The response will measure the extent of effectiveness of the principles and also how to develop and tailor the experiment itself to better suit the future workshops. (The number in the bracket represents the number of questions pertaining to that topic that will be asked. the questions itself will be made in consultation with an HR professional in order to remove any biases possible)

For Part-1

Satisfaction with your career options and the workshop (7)

Questions about self-discovery (1)

Questions about work type profile (3)

Questions about your psychology profile (3)

For Part-2

Satisfaction with a new approach and the workshop (7)

Questions about self-discovery (1)

Questions on if they will continue to follow the approach every day (3)

Questions on improving their daily lifestyle (3)

Likeliness to recommend this to others (1)

Common questions to both the workshops

Comments on increasing effectiveness (1)

What part was their favorite or what did they dislike (1)