Social media and my smartphone has become a vital part of so many aspects of my life. From talking to my friends on social media, entering my bank account, to keeping me updated on fresh news. Social media have changed a lot since it came, because now you are not just liking and commenting something, you can also get your news, shop and have conversation with the brand you shopping from, all at the same site. Sosial media is here to stay and when you think of it, it has become a big part of our day to day life.

Have we become too addicted to social media ? As a communication student I am over average interested in social media and the ways to use it. Specially now when I am doing an internship at a communications department, it feels like I am constantly having my nose down at my phone screen scrolling through social media. It is so easy to just get lost in the social media universe. You know when you just have a spare moment and going to take a quick look at social media, and before you know it it is not just a moment that have gone by but two hole hours. With 3,2 billion daily active social media users, this scenario probably happens to a few of us once or twice.( Maryam Mohsin,2019)

When I started learning about gamification I got a real awakening about the ways social media is designed to motivate us to keep on using it. Even dating apps like Tinder and happn are designed for you to keep “playing the game”.  Gamification combines two types on motivation to keep you motivated by using extrinsic rewards that you typically find in games such as levels, points and badges and to also wanting you to strive to raise feelings of achievement, autonomy and belonging.(Muntean, 2011) Both points and badges is something you can find in almost any social media platform in forms of both likes, comments and trophies.

Facebook have began using badges with their newest features “top fan” and “valued commentator” and is a smart way to get both the users and the side/group owners motivated to use facebook actively. The badges are displayed right beside your name on facebook, and are awarding you if you are active on a page/ group or if you frequently comments on a page/group. Snapchat is also using different gamified elements to motivate us to keep being active users. One of them is the trophies you get when you have completed certain missions like “reward for having sended a snap between four and five in the morning”. Another gaming element on snapchat is something I remember was very important to have, often with your best friend or boyfriend when snapchat first came out. Actually when I start thinking there were two very important elements, and that was the strike and the heart badge. They are still there, but maybe more popular for teenagers then people my own age.

So as you can see there are several ways that social media uses to trick or motivate us to keep “playing the game” and stay active. So back to my question of having I become addicted to social media. The answer is probably yes, I have a small and growing addiction to social media and a big fear of FOMO(fear of missing out). So much that it is becoming kind of a problem, when I have to do important things that sometimes kan be a bit boring, like studying. A few days ago, in the middle of juggling two assignment and working at my internship, I remembered a friend at uni that used a program on her mac to block social media sites when she was studying. I instantly began researching if there was an gamified app for that, because why not, when there are gamified apps for almost everything. And luckily I found a website that recommends 7 apps that help you limit time on social media. So check it out you too! I am definitely trying one off them next time I have to work on school work.

References

Muntean, C. I. (2011). Raising engagement in e-learning through gamification. Proceedings 6th International Conference on Virtual Learning ICVL (pp. 323–329), Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Europe.

Maryam Mohsin,2019 10 Social Media Statistics You Need to Know in 2019, Oberlo.com https://www.oberlo.com/blog/social-media-marketing-statistics

Srishti Sisodia 2019, 7 Best Apps That Block Social Media On iPhone And Android,Systweak https://blogs.systweak.com/best-iphone-apps-that-block-social-media/?fbclid=IwAR06fOYIxiCUNsBgQ73MES1McHU9D4tFNnNUYKD-BCKL8IWsRywuaAhT1JY

head Photo by Anthony Tran on Unsplash

Photo by ROBIN WORRALL on Unsplash

The older I get the more certain I get that there are some things in life that you simply can’t change. Like your race, where you are born, or how your body look. One thing I am really certain on is that I never going to be one of those perfect skinny models with long legs, perfect skin and big eyelashes that you see in magazines or on billboards. It is simply not human to be perfect, and at the age of 27 I have sadly began to realise that. But that doesn’t mean that I don’t have tried to be perfect, because you should know I have tried, and not just once but alloth of times. Especially when my life gets too messy with work and uni and there are hundreds of things I should have done but don’t seem to have time for. It is strange because just at that moment I often feel a urge to get control over my own body and health and strive to be perfect. And yes you thought right, that is not healthy and those changes and habits never going to last long, because they never do!

So I got really excited when I started this unit called gamified media and learned about gamification and gamified apps. And specially about how they can help motivate us to get a better health and create new habits that actually work.

I began looking at my phone and found out that I have almost 20 apps that are gamified. I found out that most of them was related to health in some way or another.  This fascinated me because I have tried out many of these gamified apps and still don’t have good long lasting habits. Of Course I have a few favorites that I use from time to time like headspace and Lifesum. So, is the problem me, or is it the aps ? After some research I found out, that the apps that really got me motivated, was the ones where I could add friends that had the same app and “compete” against each other. Like Nike run club and My fitness pal or a norwegian app called “stikk ut. Hopefully now that I know what motivates me It will be easier to actually stick to the plan and get new habits.

Gamification is a great tool and it’s not just used by ordinary people trying to get in better shape. Did you know that It is also used in the medical world to help people with serious health conditions. There are several promising gamified applications and programs helping with all from getting statistics about your blood sugars, taking your medication on time and helping with pain management. One app that really fascinated me is Panda, the application help provide parents keep track of their child’s pain and easily manage medication following a surgery. It is fantastic if we can make sick children and their parents life a little easier with the use of gamified apps.

But it is also kind of scary when you think of the reality that most off the gamified pain aps that is available, don’t have a strong theoretical foundation or have been empirically tested by healthcare professionals. (Hunter,Kain & Fortier, 2019) This raises not just a few red flags at my end. Because if they are not tested or have a strong theoretical foundation how can we then know if these apps are safe to use. This is not a issue when we talk about superficial “get in better shape” apps but it can be the difference of life and death if the app say you should give a bigger dose of pain meds that you should. And not to talk about the dangers if a application get hacked.

There are a lot of ethical and complex issues that arises when an app used in healthcare are not tested and vetted the right way. But we can only hope they still find up smart and safe ways to use gamification in healthcare because I think it will make many lives better.

Reference

Hunter JF, Kain ZN & Fortier MA .2019” Pain relief in the palm of your hand: Harnessing mobile health to manage pediatric pain”. Pediatric Anesthesia

https://doi-org.ezproxy-b.deakin.edu.au/10.1111/pan.13547

Hi everyone thank you for stopping by my blog. My name is camilla, I am a third year cloud student at Deakin uni studying a Bachelor of communication that focuses on public relations. At the moment I am doing a very intresting unit called Gamified Media, where one of the assignments is to make several blog posts. So in the upcoming days I am going to post a couple of blog posts about gamification. Hopefully I am going to continuing to use this blog after I am done with the unit.