The Mysterious Power of Gamification

[Applause]

i’d like to start this speech off

with a story when i was in elementary

school

i used to hate cleaning my room probably

like a lot of you

i would let my stuff pile up so high

that when i was finally told to clean it

it would be a monumental task that would

take little eight-year-old me

the entire day it was admittedly

really frustrating until i discovered a

trick

to motivate myself i would divide my

room into sections

and each time i cleaned one of those

sections i would give myself 10 minutes

to do whatever i wanted pretty soon i

started cleaning my room more and more

often

all just to relish those 10 minutes of

doing absolutely nothing

and dare i say it it maybe even became

just

just a little bit fun i’m sure many of

you have similar stories to mine

putting chocolate bars between the pages

of a textbook getting an allowance for

doing chores

or even treating yourself with some tv

time after a long essay

well i’m here to tell you that in this

new decade filled with technology and

buzzwords

that concept has a name now it’s called

gamification

and here is how it can turn your life

around

many sources define gamification as the

addition of game elements

to a non-game context but i prefer to

think of it in a different way

to me gamification is at its core

the addition of broken down tasks and

plentiful rewards

to motivate someone to do a task i mean

wouldn’t you be more willing to do your

homework

if you knew that you were going to get

ice cream after every page

that’s an oversimplification of course

if only

right but it does exemplify some of the

basic principles of gamification so

let’s go over the first one

broken down tasks in a video game

you’re not set into the world and told

to immediately defeat the final boss

why is this because you would feel

overwhelmed at the sheer amount of work

that that would take and you definitely

wouldn’t want to play the game

instead games break this daunting task

of beating the game

down into smaller tasks like collect

this item or defeat this mini boss

gamification works in a similar way you

take a big daunting task

and you break it into smaller less

intimidating tasks

the reason why this works is because

each time you complete one of those

smaller tasks

your brain gets just a hint of

satisfaction it lets you keep going to

complete the bigger task

the second reason why video games are so

addictive and why gamification works

is the reward system in a video game as

you play more

you unlock more money which translates

to more power

more status more dopamine more equipment

etc

gamification works in a similar way

again

each time you complete a task you give

yourself some

money now this money isn’t real money of

course

but it could be anything you love to do

for example did you remember to walk the

dog today congratulations

you’ve earned yourself some money or in

this case

10 minutes of tv time i think we are

starting to understand the basic

principles the gamification is built on

but you might be sitting there and

wondering well how can i apply this to

the youth of today

because after all the theme of this

event is the power of education

and of knowledge so sit with me

close your eyes and picture this

imagine a world in which kids

wanted to learn a crazy concept i know

but just think about how that could

change the world there would be no more

dreading getting up into

uh there would be no more dreading

getting up and going to school in the

morning

there’d be no more complaints about this

information is useless or when are we

going to use this

instead kids would want to learn just

for the sake of learning

think about how that could change the

world there’d be scientific

breakthroughs

brilliant innovations charismatic

leaders collaborating on global problems

it sounds like an unrealistic dream i’ll

admit but with gamification

i believe that we can make this world a

reality i mean think about it

kids already play a lot of video games

an average of seven hours per week in

2019

so why not combine what they love with

what they need

programs using gamification incorporate

this kind of learning

into mundane classroom subjects like

foreign languages

history math science coding and pretty

much anything else you can think of

and if you want an example of how

successful this can be

take a look at duolingo duolingo is a

popular app that teaches its users

foreign languages using gamification

does anybody know how many active users

duolingo has

300 million that is over twice the

population

of russia for another example

take a look at i civics i civics is a

popular website

that uses gamification to teach its

users politics and civic responsibility

which are two subjects that are often

overlooked in core classroom curriculums

and it was founded by the former supreme

court justice

sandra day o’connor even minecraft

the biggest best-selling video game of

all time

has released an education edition with

users in over 115

countries because this is the future of

motivation

and of learning i’d like to take a

moment and ask if there are any teachers

educators administrators the like in the

audience today which

of course i’m sure there are see you

over there

uh for those of you i would recommend

implementing some of the things that

i’ve talked about

today if you’re about to assign a

massive assignment

maybe break it down into some smaller

ones over a longer period of time

and give your students little rewards at

the end of each one

i guarantee that they will be feeling

more motivated in no time

but even if you don’t teach kids on the

daily you can still benefit from what

i’m telling you today

the next time that you’re confronted

with a massive overwhelming list of

chores

try breaking some down and giving

yourself a little bit of relaxing time

at the end of each one i guarantee that

you

will be feeling more motivated even

though i just delivered a 10-minute

speech with a lot of statistics

and a lot of science all i’m asking for

is two simple things broken down tasks

and plentiful rewards i’m not advocating

for an entire overhaul of the

educational system

it’s just two simple things that you yes

you in the audience right now can

implement

into your lives to help future

generations so please

do your part and help me make learning

fun

again thank you for coming to my tedx

talk

[Applause]

you