Any hardcore gamer can expand on that feeling of the ‘zone’– intense focus that outright abandons oneself –or showing minimum requirements for Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. Given that level of disregard for self, how much more so for the people around them? Gamification has transcended out of this stereotyped, lone nerdom in the dungeon. Gaming essentially seeped into every possible facet of app or user interface, mostly all of us don’t go a day without clicking down a red notification icon; essentially everyone with a phone, has been cattle herded into being a gamer, susceptible to the profit driven goal of keeping everyone in the ‘zone.’
Therein lies a contradiction. In seeking relaxation, if the first temptation that comes to mind, taps into the internal trigger– “boredom,” without question, by default are digital distractions waiting to snatch our unassuming attention, sharply keen on profiting off the “time-on-device quotas,” keeping it going infinitely as humanly possible.
The cycle continues, bum rushing content into the windows of our mind, with voices and influences to run circles in our brains, rent free. Before starting, the chance of actual relaxation is already shot, paralyzed to stay zoned with perpetual hits of dopamine; till it wears thinly off and requires more and more hits like a true addict’s needs.
And to the extent of what?
For one, we’ve normalized phone walking ‘zombies,’ launching themselves into direct traffic when the magnetic pull of these apps are too strong for free will to tap a tiny lock button. But two, what does it say about a society ignorant of another human being’s life, leaving him passed out with a heart attack, while everyone else is zoned out of their mind to even care?
