Gamification of social behavior — Black Mirror is upon us
I was just chit chatting with a younger cousin of mine..20 something. The first thing that you come across when you talk to them is their lack of inhibition when it comes to their mental health. They are very vocal about terms such as trauma, feeling low, validation and peer pressure. But this is passe I suppose. I am not here to talk about this.
While we are talking, she pulls out her phone from her bag and starts taking a picture of the coffee mug in front of her. She tells me that she is posting this on Snapchat — ‘Please hold for a moment, I don’t want to break my streak.’
‘Streak…streak what???’ came my natural and curious response. What I was told is what forms the crux of this article.
On Snapchat, the core behavior is to share photos. However they have managed to make it a part of your habit and daily life by applying gamification principles.
How?
Think of this — you sporadically ping Good Morning to your mother on WhatsApp because you both live in different cities. What if I told you that whenever you wish her good morning, I would give you some points, which will showcase that you are good son.
The more you wish her, the more points you get and the more you can quantify your love for your mom!!
Also, you have to do it everyday and build a streak and not only you, now your mother also has to respond with something each day. I as WhatsApp will track the days that you both have done this activity and I will showcase it to you in the form of a ‘Streak’. If any one of you miss sending this message to each other, the streak gets broken.
Assuming, you both had wished each other for 200 days and then one day all of a sudden, either of you forgets to do this. Assume the anguish. The number 200 will play on your mind. How could this be broken? To add on to this, whoever ended up breaking the streak will face the ire of the other person. There is both internal and external pressure and anguish now.
I as WhatsApp come in to resolve the issue between you and your mother. I say — ‘You know what, you guys have been great with wishing each other, you get one reset free, but next time you break a streak, you will have to pay to reset.’
Voila, monetization via gamification!!
Well, this is precisely what Snapchat has done.
On Snapchat, two friends share photos with other each to maintain a streak. You might wonder, how many photos can one click and of what. Out here, it has just become a language, you don’t say that you are working; you rather share a snap of your laptop and if nothing has happened in your day; you simply share a blank, you cover your camera and share a blank image.
In a way, it about talking via pictures. Your social life via pictures.
I saw that she had a streak of 405 with one, 400 with another…240+ with another and so on. What this means is that both the parties had shared pictures with each other continuously for 405 days, 240 days and so on.
I asked her if she has missed streaks. She is like she has and many a times she has ended up paying for the reset because she has used up the free resets. She has also faced the ire of her friends if she ends up missing the streak but mostly it plays on her mind not to miss. It is like her dopamine hit that she has added another day to her streak.
Snapchat also offers points for activities done on their platform and a total count of your points counts as a social flex. The higher the score the more social you are, the lower the score; the less social you are.
It has become the de-facto pointer towards your active social life or the lack of it.
So what Snapchat has done here is build a behavior and gamify it to make it into a habit. Imagine the habits you can build via this behavior. Imagine it in the context of your product or your business.
Happy to chat with anyone who has any ideas of how to implement this in their product.
