Sweet Little Gamification Dystopia

New year, new me. ¹This is what so many people think when the year starts. I also wanted to improve myself this time. More exercise, a healthier lifestyle – you know, the usual stuff. But honestly, I never liked going to the gym. The music is too loud, the sweat smell is terrible, and lifting weights always felt boring to me.²

But this year, something is different. The new gym I joined has these E-Gym machines which is using gamification to motivate the user. They are really cool because they make exercising feel like playing a video game. You have to push or pull while keeping a yellow dot on a line. It sounds simple, but it’s super fun. And you get points! Each session feels like a little competition against yourself. I suddenly want to go back and try to beat my high score. The points motivate me to keep going, even if I’m tired.³

This got me thinking: if something like this works so well in a gym, why not in everyday life? Imagine we had this kind of game everywhere. In the future, when we all use AR glasses like Meta Orion instead of smartphones, it could really happen. We could see points for everything we do.⁴ Not crossing the street at a red light? Five points. Eating vegetables for breakfast? Ten points. But driving your car instead of taking the train for a short trip? Minus ten points.⁵

It’s kind of like what’s already happening in some places, like that Chinese city where people are scored for their behavior. But instead of feeling like we’re being controlled, it could be fun. We would want to get more points, like in a video game, and so we’d make better choices.⁶

Of course, there’s a big question: who makes the rules for the game? If someone else decides what’s good or bad, is it really still our choice? It’s both exciting and a bit scary to think about.

For now, I’m just enjoying my gamified gym workouts. But maybe one day, the whole world will feel like a big video game. Whether that’s good or bad depends on how we play it.