One thing I would add is that susceptibility to “lotuses” (a.k.a. Skinner boxes, in the context of games) seems to vary interpersonally quite a bit.
For example, I:
don’t have a Facebook account
don’t own a smartphone
don’t play Zynga-esque games
don’t browse Youtube
am actively turned off by “collectible” games, and never play them
The increasingly complete conversion of World of Warcraft from a glorified IRC server with pretty pictures into a series of elaborate Skinner boxes is what made me stop playing.
Now, I could claim that this is because I’m very good at noticing these things, and also have a heroic amount of willpower, but that ain’t so; I just find these things naturally repellent (a website having “achievements” or any other sort of “gamification” is one of the best ways to ensure that I will close the window within moments).
I don’t know to what extent this is “innate”. Part of it may be my field of study / work (knowing “how the sausage is made”, so to speak). Whether that’s causal, or downstream, I can’t say.
But, clearly, there’s considerable variation.
Update, five years later: I’ve been asked whether I still endorse the recommendations in comment, whether I still don’t do any of these things, etc.
The answer is yes. Nothing has changed. I still don’t have a Facebook (or Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram…) account, still don’t own a smartphone, still don’t browse YouTube, etc., etc. (I’ve felt no temptation to alter this state of affairs, and find all of the above-described things just as repellent now as I did then.)
This is a good post.
One thing I would add is that susceptibility to “lotuses” (a.k.a. Skinner boxes, in the context of games) seems to vary interpersonally quite a bit.
For example, I:
don’t have a Facebook account
don’t own a smartphone
don’t play Zynga-esque games
don’t browse Youtube
am actively turned off by “collectible” games, and never play them
The increasingly complete conversion of World of Warcraft from a glorified IRC server with pretty pictures into a series of elaborate Skinner boxes is what made me stop playing.
Now, I could claim that this is because I’m very good at noticing these things, and also have a heroic amount of willpower, but that ain’t so; I just find these things naturally repellent (a website having “achievements” or any other sort of “gamification” is one of the best ways to ensure that I will close the window within moments).
I don’t know to what extent this is “innate”. Part of it may be my field of study / work (knowing “how the sausage is made”, so to speak). Whether that’s causal, or downstream, I can’t say.
But, clearly, there’s considerable variation.
Update, five years later: I’ve been asked whether I still endorse the recommendations in comment, whether I still don’t do any of these things, etc.
The answer is yes. Nothing has changed. I still don’t have a Facebook (or Twitter or Tumblr or Instagram…) account, still don’t own a smartphone, still don’t browse YouTube, etc., etc. (I’ve felt no temptation to alter this state of affairs, and find all of the above-described things just as repellent now as I did then.)
Yep. It varies by lotus too. What counts as a lotus, and how strongly, seems to depend on whom we’re talking about.
And clearly there are trends. Otherwise Facebook wouldn’t have its business model.