More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
Read between
October 18 - November 9, 2023
well-designed game helps players develop exceptional mental toughness.
The players hadn’t failed passively. They had failed spectacularly, and entertainingly.
When we’re reminded of our own agency in such a positive way, it’s almost impossible not to feel optimistic.
The more we fail, the more eager we are to do better.
right kind of failure feedback is a reward.
To optimists, set-backs are energizing—and
the more energized we get, the more fervently we believe that success is just around the corner.
Justifiable optimism
“It’s only fun to fail if the game is fair—and you had every chance of success.”
FIX #4: BETTER HOPE OF SUCCESS
Fun will always morph into boredom, once we pass the critical point of being reliably successful. This is what makes games consumable : players wring all the learning (and fun) out of them.
Learning to stay urgently optimistic in the face of failure is an important emotional strength
When we’re energized by failure, we develop emotional stamina.
optimism is closely correlated to a higher quality of life in pretty much every way imaginable: better health, a longer life, less stress and anxiety, more successful careers, better relationships, more creativity, and more resilience in the face of adversity.
Hope primes our minds for real success.
“flexible optimism”:
When we practice flexible optimism, we see more opportunities for success—but we don’t overstate our abilities, and we don’t overestimate the amount of control we have over an outcome.
we reduce our optimism when we get feedback that we’re pursuing unattainable goals or operating in a low-control environment.
time and energy would be better spe...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
our tendency to set unrealistic goals, may be the cause of much of the current depression epidemic in the United States. We set extreme goals: fame, fortune, glory, and supersized personal achievements. We’re encouraged, says Nesse, to believe that we can do anything we set our hearts to, and then we try to achieve dreams that are just unrealistic.
inject some flexible and appropriate goals into our daily lives whenever we need them most.
You haven’t so much failed as achieved partial success. And the higher your percentage gets, the more capable and confident you feel—and the desire for one more go at the song kicks in.
One of the biggest hopes we have for our own success is to share it.
optimism makes us more likely to seek out social support and develop strong relationships.
FIX #5: STRONGER SOCIAL CONNECTIVITY
Compared with games, reality is disconnected. Games build stronger social bonds and lead to more active social networks. The more time we spend interacting within our social networks, the more likely we are to generate a subset of positive emotions known as “prosocial emotions.”
Grim Fandango
Happy Embarrassment
Teasing each other, recent scientific research has shown, is one of the fastest and most effective ways to intensify our positive feelings for each other.
Vicarious Pride
Ambient Sociability
“playing alone together.”
gamers under eighteen spend 61 percent of their game time playing with real-life friends and family, rather than alone or with strangers.
Becoming a Part of Something Bigger Than Ourselves
More than 15 million people had fought on behalf of the science fiction game’s United Nations Space Command. That’s roughly the total number of active personnel of all twenty-five of the largest armed forces in the real world, combined.
don’t have value doesn’t mean they don’t have meaning.
Meaning is the feeling that we’re a part of something bigger than ourselves.
belief that our actions matter beyond our own i...
This highlight has been truncated due to consecutive passage length restrictions.
best way to add meaning to our lives is to connect our daily actions to something bigger than ourselves—and the bigger, the better.
To experience real meaning, we don’t have to contribute something of real value. We just have to be given the opportunity to contribute at all.
FIX #6: EPIC SCALE
Compared with games, reality is trivial.
A good working definition for “epic” is something that far surpasses the ordinary, especially in size, scale, and intensity.
Awe is what we feel when we recognize that we’re in the presence of something bigger than ourselves.
and more importantly, a desire to serve.
awe doesn’t just feel good; it inspires us to do good.
Epic Context for Heroic Action
epic scale of their collective service.
Halo series first went online in 2004—all laid out and perfectly documented in one place.
There are data visualizations of every possible kind: interactive charts, graphs, heat maps. They help you learn about your own strengths and weaknesses: where you make the most mistakes, and where you consistently score your biggest victories; which weapons you’re most proficient with, and which you’re weakest with; even which teammates help you play better, and which don’t.
