It's Friday afternoon, the sun is shining, and today looks like any other winter's day in this beautiful location called South East Queensland (SEQ).
But today isn't really like any other day....
And it never will be again.
Today is the day that awareness punched me in the face.
It hurt so bad that I actually had to go and lie down and take a few moments to compose myself.
I always thought I was a pretty aware person. I pay attention to things. I have good focus and concentration. I can do five different tasks and still remember, hours later, what the first task was that I did (picture yourself preparing to put the bin out but you stop at the fridge for a drink, then quickly wash the dishes, then get something to eat and go back to the office...forgetting to put the bin out).
I always remember to put the bin out. I'm aware of the first task. I'm aware of the smell of the bin too....
But that type of awareness is not what I'm talking about here. I'm talking about the awareness of being manipulated.
Every day, with nearly everything we do, we are being manipulated and we don't even know it.
Today, that changed for me. I'm now more aware than I've ever been and it's because of gamification.
Yeah, who'd a thought.
Gamification.......
I've been studying this process pretty closely now for the last couple of months but it wasn't until today when I was working through Yu-kai Chou's Octalysis framework that I could see, as clear as day, that SO many of my decisions to do things in the past were because some part of the gamified process had influenced my decisions.
I always knew I was being marketed too, but I never knew I was being gamified as well (or instead).
Let me give you a simple example. Offyourfacebook.
So many of us use facebook because we "think" it's a social network. We like to be in contact with our friends, or we like to stay connected to the groups we belong too. But that's actually only a small piece of the puzzle.
If you look at the image below, you can quite easily see that while Social Pressure is a big part of it, so too is Unpredictability and even more so Avoidance. On the flipside, if you look at Meaning (which refers to something "bigger than ourselves") it's almost a no show - which I find very interesting - Don't know about you.
Image Credit Octalysis By Yu-kai Chou
No wonder we waste so much goddamn time on that stupid platform.
We're doing everything we can to AVOID doing all the stuff that's really important in our lives.
Facebook tantalises us with its social connection, but it also keeps us sucked in by its Unpredictability. There's always something new.
This gives us the excuse to Avoid. And it places avoidance triggers in our faces constantly because of that Unpredictability. Everything on the page changes and so we stay glued to it to see what's going to appear this time.
And then 3 hours have passed.....
The Octalysis framework has opened my eyes. Big time.
Now, not only am I aware of the standard marketing tricks being used on me in everyday life, I can also see how the concepts of gamification are either blatantly used, or used in a defacto sense because they have inadvertently been built in to a product or promotion strategy.
My awareness has increased 100 fold.
And not only my awareness of it happening TO me, but also my awareness of how I can use gamification to influence others.
Gamification, and how to use it, is a MUST study concept if you want to be a true influencer in the future. I suggest you start studying now.
Aaron "Aware as F^&k" Parker
Follow me at https://steemit.com/@aaronparker