Technology is not changing the world, the human ability to play is.

Joseph Chilton Pearce once said, “Play is the only way the highest intelligence of humankind can unfold”. It’s an idea I wholeheartedly agree with. And, perhaps not coincidentally, so do many evolutionary and behavioral scientists.

Technology seems to have a magic attraction to a lot of individuals and companies, yet you can’t help but ask if technology really is the most important ingredient to transform our lives and businesses? Do we really need today’s technology for that? Or is it something in our perception and mindset we need to change to truly harness the power of todays, and even more so, tomorrows technology? Why are we often taking a technology first approach, where the technology itself seems to be the purpose? Should we define our ability to play through the technology we developed, or should our ability to play define the technology we develop and implement. Play and technology can be two sides of the same coin, they both hold tremendous potential, they are both things that scare us, intrigue us and captivate us.

In the near future, technology will match, if not exceed, most of our abilities. If all goes well, we will put it to work doing the things that do not challenge us, that do not make us more knowledgeable or that do not help us advance. Because that’s exactly why humankind invented technology: to serve our needs. I know that for a lot of people right now it seems like things are the other way around, that we serve technology. But if you look at the big picture, I am certain that the human drive to keep going forward with technology comes from our innate desire to go back to what we were biologically programmed to do. And that is to advance ourselves and our species through the power of play. Call it a survival mechanism or an evolutionary crowbar, but this much is clear: Play holds a powerful force of attraction that, arguably, is responsible for most advancements of the human species.

Play is profitable

Over time, it has become increasingly obvious that the human mind is triggered and challenged when play is successfully engrained in a worthwhile experience, be it digital or physical. Our willingness to emotionally invest in something and spend time and money increases tremendously when an experience pushes all the right buttons. Many companies have attempted to leverage this insight to motivate the audiences to buy their products or services, or to “nudge” opinions on certain topics. Unfortunately, most attempts to create a compelling experience of play fail miserably at doing the one thing they want to achieve. In the end, they simply don’t move or motivate us.

When you succeed in engaging your audience, your business will thrive. This is the reason that many companies seek to inject the power of play into their products, services and platforms. The absolute unicorn of most marketers and managers is to have fully engaged audiences or employees that would do anything for your brand. This ideal has led to countless attempts to gamify just about everything from loyalty programs to login forms. Getting people truly engaged, however, is a very hard nut to crack. For one, gamification is not the answer, at least not most of the time. People are not magically motivated by sprinkling some gamified fairy dust on the experiences they have. But thankfully, by now we know that leaderboards and badges alone do not make for motivated individuals or teams. There is no use in adding play to something if people are simply not willing to play with it. What we need to realize is that play is not a gimmick, it is an evolutionary trait. We are made for play – it’s simply in our nature.

The gaming gene in all of us

Play is our own evolutionary Jedi mind trick. It allows us to soak up and process valuable information while applying it in a real-life context. Play is how we succeed in life, how we evolve both as individuals and as a species. If it weren’t for our ability to learn through play, humankind would be extinct.

From the day we are born to the day we die, all of our greatest skills, traits and knowledge are learned through play and social interaction. Young children play by mimicking their parents’ behavior, learning how to speak, how to walk, or, back in the day, how to hunt. Play helps us understand the cultural and social norms of our community. Partaking in its rules and structures is how we join that community and learn its walk and talk. Whenever we master an important life skill, play often gives us the rewards we need to keep learning and advance to the next step. Direct praise or appreciation from those we love or respect give us a sense of security as well as purpose and meaning. It makes us feel loved, appreciated and shapes our future selves. That still holds true later in life, when we engage in sports, competition or work on our careers. Our attraction to play comes from our innate ability to push ourselves to learn more and continue to grow through a combination of challenges, fun and rewards. So what drives us to keep on playing? We need the result of our efforts to have some meaning in our daily lives. And that right there is where we usually fail in transferring gameplay to real life. Because if play does not add value in the bigger scheme of things, there is no hard-and-fast benefit in keeping up the game.

One of the most important aspects of why people are so attracted to play is “controlled crashing”. Play allows us to grow by way of trial and error. During play, it is perfectly fine to fail, to give wrong answers, to simply try and learn. This is a perspective we have all but lost in our daily lives. The pressure of always having to get it right the first time has numbed us, and made us into a risk-averse species. Which is silly, if you think about it, since it is in our nature to want to experiment, and try. The best proof is the boundless energy and curiosity of kids, who fail all the time. Yet we allow them to experiment and play, within certain bounds. We allow them to fail, because we realize it is essential for their development and growth.

Most of adult humanity has evolved into a risk-averse group that feels most comfortable when things stay the same. From adults to teens, we do not venture, experiment or explore. This is something that our primal need for safety ingrained in us. Because the world around us can be or seem to be a scary place. Our need to be safe is important in the context of play. Without it we stick to the sidelines. To create that sense of safety, we need to create an environment where experimentation and failure are not only allowed but encouraged.

My point is that if we choose to face those fears, we would do well to remember that we were once a very adaptive species. Right now, however, instead of finding ways to adapt ourselves to the world, we are forcefully adapting the world to our perceived needs. And as a result, we evolve the world and our technology, but we often fail to evolve ourselves and our thinking. We need a new motivation something I believe technology will bring us. Technology could empower us to make room for play.

The motivating power of the act of play is proven by science. In 2012 Mathias Pessiglione identified the part of the brain governing motivation during combined physical and/or mental efforts. These parts of the brain are the ventral striatum and dorsal striatum. They contribute directly to decision-making and the initiation of action, and they do so by combining sensory, cognitive, and motivational/emotional information. In other words, when we try to reproduce the natural motivation center in our brain, it is important to remember that all aspects of play, both physical, mental and emotional are needed to motivate us so that we learn to play the game, and evolve our skills.

The rewarding experience of play

One single gamified post or dashboard is not enough to motivate us. What we need is a full-on experience. The playful experience affects our emotional state by triggering the brain to release neurotransmitters. We then “feel” the value in what we are doing as we are rewarded with a physical rush, and we are motivated to keep playing. Cognitive scientists like Antonio Damasio show that emotion is actually the foundation of rational thought. When we experience emotions, we choose to value certain things over others. Emotion-based experiences make us focus on what we pay attention to, what we care about and which things are important enough to remember. In other words, we set prioritizes, assess our values, and tune in to the basis for our motivation.

In addition, these experiences give us both intrinsic and extrinsic rewards. Play strengthens different skills that we need as individuals both to live a fulfilling life and to move forward in life. It also strengthens our connection to others. Plus, when we succeed we often get something tangible to show for it, like a trophy, a diploma, award or other recognition. Intrinsically, as described above, we receive a neurological reward (e.g. pleasure or even ecstasy). For designers or professionals who are looking to add play to an experience, product or service, a good balance of intrinsic and extrinsic rewards is one of the most difficult things you can achieve. Mostly because every individual reacts in different ways.

Autonomy

“Tell me and I will forget, teach me and I may remember, involve me and I will learn.” Many people attribute this quote to Benjamin Franklin. Science tells us he was right. Learning by experiencing something or “tangential learning” is far more effective then memorizing static information. Being an active part of an experience gives us the sense that we are in charge of our choices and actions. When a player does not feel in control, their engagement will go down over time until they finally quit. To remain engaged a player needs autonomy. The ability to choose one’s path gives meaning to a challenge and the reward that follows. Over time, these choices allow the player, or us as individuals, to grow and improve. This means that using play to motivate people to adopt certain types of behavior also requires giving them a certain degree of autonomy.

That said, every game designer will be able to tell you that the fun in any game or playful situation comes from the rules and restrictions that are set on play. Rules create a challenge, they make things interesting, and are part of the motivational package that keeps the player involved and increases the reward both on a neurological and a social level.

These are the points where brands or educational developers often fail in using gameplay to motivate us. They dictate what and how they want us to learn, what we should do, how we should act. This is silly, really. Because for the billions of unique individuals out there on our planet, it’s absurd to think that there is one single right way of doing things. While we do all rely the same basic neurological wiring and behavioral patterns, we each have own unique path and our own way of making choices based on our cultural and personal background and our life experiences. So there simply can be no one-size-fits-all approach. This is the reason why out of the millions of games and playful experiences crafted each year, only a handful is considered a success and motivate people to keep playing.

Often when we use play to engage people, the goal is to keep them engaged for as long as possible. There’s just one (major) problem with this. It’s not how our brains are wired. Engagement is not meant to last for all eternity. When we take in information through a playful situation our brains need time to process the input and information you got through the experience and turn it into skills. Well-crafted gamely experiences master this perfectly. If you do not offer a balance of skill learning and information processing, the player will usually quit. He or she will ultimately be missing a sense of achievement, because there is not enough time to process information and level up their skills.

Then there’s the fact that the human brain is programmed for energy efficiency. Any time that a playful or learning situation demands too much energy from our neurons without delivering any of the above-mentioned values, our brains sends us a cue that we do not need this, there is nothing for us here. And we simply stop participating. This applies to games and learning (or education, which is a whole different can of worms that I might open up at a later point). So even the best games will only entertain us until we believe we have mastered them, then we will move on and seek out a different challenge.

Technology as a catalyst for motivation

The digital age we live in gives us access to a multitude of “tribes” with whom we can ideate, create and play. Technology allows us to acquire skills we didn’t even know we wanted or needed just 20 years ago. We need or want them now because our biology has programmed us to learn from people and situations we feel connected to. As soon as we feel that connection, we are willing to jump into action and do whatever is necessary to strengthen it. Our need for connectedness today, allows us to connect with and learn from individuals on the far end of the globe. Digital technology makes it possible. The information we have at our disposal to learn and grow is immense. Technology, to me, is a great enabler that we can use to accelerate our growth, both as individuals and as a species.

Like I said in the beginning of this article, often we hear A.I. is making such great strides that it will soon be able to match (or exceed) many of our skills. And I applaud that because, our true value as a species and our true nature lies in our ability to play. It is what separates man from machine. A machine learns by processing data and running multiple scenarios to then go with the most feasible or desirable option. But it cannot play without purpose nor can it linger on an idea or apply philosophy to find meaning. Play is the spark that ignites creativity (hell, I would say it’s the source of all creativity). When we play, we allow ourselves to make unconventional choices, set out on unexpected paths and make “irrational” decisions simply because we are free to choose. This is how we produce art or how we engage in philosophy. It allows us to ponder the meaning of everything in life we hold dear.

So when we can build technologies that support and perhaps take over most of our factual and solution-driven thinking, where does that put us? I believe it puts us in charge. We are standing at the helm and ready to start solving mankind’s big issues because we will no longer be occupied with the gritty details, but collectively look at the bigger picture. To work on that what is really important to us as humans. Why? Because when we engage in play and apply our creativity together with our tribes, we all become part of an endless wellspring of skill and talent. Our built-in capacity for play has the power to improve our lives. To cite just one example, take the puzzle-solving platform “Foldit”: there, the gaming community beat scientists in explaining how proteins fold, helping researchers to better understand proteins and possibly cure diseases. Other examples can be found throughout history, as many great thinkers and inventors attribute their achievements to botched experiments or tinkering. Scientists and researchers are some of the best advocates of play.

And the fact that we are all walking, talking and creating human beings should make us all advocates for play!

Summary

If you want to motivate people through play, I hope these thoughts lead to several takeaways. For designers creating a service, product or platform, try asking these questions:

• Does the product/service/platform make the player part of a community?
• Do rewards include direct appreciation by a person or a group that the player identifies with and, in the process, strengthen their position in the community?  
• Do players feel valued and accomplished? (intrinsic & extrinsic)
• Can they try and fail and try again without judgement? (“controlled crash”)
• Can players improve at their own speed while moving along their own chosen path?
• Is the reward of play greater than the initial investment or effort?
• Does the reward mean something in real life for the player?
• Is there a process in place that turns information into skills?
• Is it an experience worth their time?
• Are there rules and restrictions that create a challenge?
• Does the product/service/platform tap into existing behavior and traits connected to the players cultural, geographical or behavioral backgrounds? 

Technology as enabler

When you use technology to motivate people to align with your cause, always remember its raison d’être: technology was invented to support us by making things less repetitive and easier to manage or accomplish. Technology should remove the barriers that prevent us from being engaged, the barriers that hinder our creativity or stop us from using our skills to find fulfillment in mastery. Today, our focus is too often on the technology itself, and not enough on what it could – and should – help us achieve. The moment we give technology a purpose instead of making it a purpose in itself, we will be able to use it as a massive enabler to get more out of ourselves, our employees, our brand, our company and our audiences. If we can use technology to create an environment in which people feel safe to play, to build, to explore and to interact, then it will become the foundation on which we can build communities and tribes.

I encourage everyone to put play first, to reserve time for exploration and discovery through play. Because when you play, it becomes obvious which technology you need to be able to become and remain engaged, which technology makes you grow and connect to your tribes.

I’d love to hear from all of you, please share your thoughts and opinions and whether you agree or disagree! I would also love to get your facts supported by research, because in my opinion this is a conversation that is more relevant today than ever before. I’ll end this with an invitation that just so happens to be my personal motto:

 Let’s take over the world and turn it into a playground!

 Many thanks to Arno Selhorst for the dialogue and Sarah Matthews for the great editing.