I this episode I explore gamification as a remedy to the crisis of engagement in vanlife.

Music: Road Trip (https://soundcloud.com/user-427503922/road-trip)by Lane Petrosenko featuring Racquel Deveau (CC BY-NC 3.0) User-427503922 – Road-trip


Soundcloud Lead Image: Dolomites (https://flic.kr/p/SFY5rC) by Louise Feige (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0)

Sound Effects:


Regular Game Sound Effects 28 (https://freesound.org/s/219975/
) by B Lamerichs (CCby0)

Regular Game Sound Effects 20 (https://freesound.org/s/219983/
) by B Lamerichs (CCby0)NC-ND 2.0)

Sound Effect; Typewriter (http://soundbible.com/827-Typewriter.html
) By tamskp (CC BY 3.0)

My Blog: communication-generation.com/

Transcript:
As we have explored previously, Vanlifers, in a tradition traced from the transcendentalist’s trough to the #vanlifers suffer from a crisis of engagement in what mainstream society is offering them.

You already know about gamification, because of flyby rewards systems. LinkedIn prompts us to complete profiles and a big balloon shows 80% complete. But whatever I do I can never actually reach 100% because the more data LinkedIn has the more money they can extract trough advertising.

I instead gave the SuperBetter resilience building gamified platform a try as an elixir to this crisis of engagement. Resilience is the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult obstacles. Dounds good to. The founder Jane McGonigal sees gamification as a means of building collective intelligence to improve the quality of human life and combat social ills. I’m in.


I signed up, modified my avatar and I choose a chellenge.

I then had to choose a realistic but challenging Epic Win - something that is hard right now and will involve some degree of difficulty to achieve. I typed in “Enjoy Life”.

Supper Better then used almost all the available game like mechanics and elements to help.

Quests built confidence and optimism by providing practical concrete steps.

Future boosts provided incremental rewards.

Power-ups provided the strength and energy to achieve quests.

I killed bad guys which were the thoughts, habits, and situations I wanted to avoid.

I found Allies to encourage my progress.

M progress bars which measure my current physical, mental, emotional and social resilience went up and I earned badges. I faced tougher challenges without giving up and my resilience grew further both in my life and on the screen.

I relish challenges and have become stronger, happier, and more connected to the positive people I surround myself with. I’m focusing less on outcomes and goals and enjoying the moment and each small victory.

Gamification and resilience can work together to help individuals and society achieve hard-earned wins.

Can gamification can work in countering the malaise of contemporary society and the crisis of engagement from which the #vanlifers have long suffered?