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Quantifying Human Engagement into Playful Activities
David Reguera1,2, Pol Colomer-de-Simón1, Iván Encinas3
1Departament de Física de la Matèria Condensada, Universitat de Barcelona, Martí i Franquès 1, E-08028, Barcelona, Spain.
Scientific Reports
|March 7, 2020
Summary
Human engagement in playful activities follows a "happy-get-happier" scaling law, revealing a phase transition where some individuals permanently engage in challenging, intrinsically rewarding activities.
Area of Science:
- Behavioral Science
- Complex Systems
- Human-Computer Interaction
Background:
- Playful activities like music, language learning, and sports are integral to human life.
- Understanding engagement dynamics in these activities is crucial for motivation and sustained participation.
Purpose of the Study:
- To quantitatively analyze engagement dynamics in playful activities.
- To identify underlying mechanisms governing long-term participation in challenging, intrinsically rewarding tasks.
Main Methods:
- Empirical analysis of engagement data from millions of casual video game players.
- Identification of a power-law scaling law governing player engagement.
Main Results:
- Discovered a universal scaling law for engagement dynamics, indicative of a multiplicative "happy-get-happier" mechanism.
- Identified critical exponents that determine a phase transition: either universal quitting or persistent engagement.
- The findings suggest a generalizable model for human engagement in intrinsically rewarding activities.
Conclusions:
- Engagement in challenging, rewarding activities exhibits predictable scaling laws.
- A phase transition exists, differentiating between temporary and permanent engagement.
- The discovered mechanism may apply broadly to human engagement beyond video games.
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