Gamification - a playful way towards Net Generation institutions
Fromann Richárd
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NIIF Intézet
The representatives of certain societal stereotypes of online games often and fondly state the question: Can online games cause aggression or addiction? Doubts and disbeliefs would not be problems themselves, if the possible positive effects of games were examined with the same intensity by the public and the media. Practices indicate that - despite of the serious amount of information available - people tend to focus on the putatively representative bad examples, where conclusions are often superficial and lack any objective or scientific approach.
We are living in an era that requires all major social institutions to redefine itself, to face the fact that new (net) generations are growing up - having been socialized in a continuously developing highly technological environment –, and they all have a radically different approach, attitude and way of life like the former ones. If our goal is to keep the existing institutions viable in the future, they must be radically converted - especially in the fields of education and employment.
We need to understand the net generations’ new language, as well as their communication and motivational structures, and - on the basis of that knowledge - we have to reconsider and re-engineer the operating mechanisms of our social institutions.
One of the most important issues is to recognize that online social games might have a key role in the reform of educational institutions by incorporating game mechanics into learning processes.