Gaming and the Art of Happiness

To become happier, wiser, and more loving, sometimes you have to swim against ancient currents within your nervous system.

The above quote is taken from "Buddha's Brain", a book written by Rick Hanson, Ph.D., a Neuropsychologist, and Senior Fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley. The book outlines the role of our thoughts on our mood and outlines how, through meditation / conscious focus on positive thoughts, we can live happier lives. That may sound like some new age rubbish to you, but there is substantial science behind his findings.

To summarize his theory simply , we are programmed by evolution or by our creator, to be negative and to focus on negative things, and it makes sense. You see, in nature, escaping a dangerous situation is more important that missing an opportunity. Your brain places a lot more resources on the things that could end your life than the things that could improve it. It wants to make sure you survive for as long as possible because that increases the odds of having offspring and passing on your genetic material. Food and mates are also important, but very few of our ancestors died from a missed meal...or blue balls. A predator, on the other hand, can end your life in seconds. We see problems easily because that is what our brains are designed to scan for. Opportunities are harder to elicit because a lot less of our mental activity is directed towards it.

The society we live in is also one based in negativity. You may spend your entire life doing good and being a productive citizen without any semblance of reward or recognition. However, one mistake, one bad decision, may forever alter your life trajectory and cause suffering and consequences disproportionate to the life you have lived. It is this flawed system that has led to fear and pessimism as the default mode in the approach to life, living and decision making. Your brain always ponders the worst outcome first because this is the outcome with the most impact.

The moth-to-flame mentality of the brain to negativity was exploited early by the media and in particular, the rise of "Yellow Journalism", overseen by William R. Hearst, is one example that comes to mind. It involved the exaggeration of the atrocities of General Weyler in Cuba for the sole purpose of selling newspapers. And it worked. And it still works to this day. People are obsessed with the things that go wrong because logic dictates that they want to avoid similar mistakes. Sex sells, but negativity runs the economy.

In gaming, negativity predominates for a number of reasons, but at the very foundation is this primitive response, this fascination with doom and gloom. Nothing is shown in gaming without cynicism and sarcasm. The easiest thing to predict is failure and the easiest way to make a career is to predict it. We have all seen consoles fail, so the first thing that comes to mind when one is announced, is failure.

When you predict failure, people are more apt to remember because that was also their first reaction, their primal reaction. Can you remember anyone that predicted that the Wii would be successful? Of course not (there were people that predicted that though). However, I'm, sure you can remember the people that predicted the PS3 would be a disaster even though it turned out quite different.

Such reactions may even be re-enforced by similar products in the past where the consumers' optimism turned to disappointment when the product failed. I'll give you an example. No-one who invested in HD-DVD will ever invest in a media format early, nor will they ever meet a new format with optimism. Neurologically speaking, "Once bitten, forever shy."

The focus on negativity by your brain has more implications than internet media and posts. Combined with self-awareness, it means that being unhappy may be the default state of the brain. According to Hanson, all is not lost. See, the funny thing about the brain is that it has trouble determining reality from fiction. That sense of accomplishment in finishing a game is very real, even if performed away from reality. Similarly, the emotion evoked by your TV, movies and your own thoughts are very real and affect mental outlook.

This is why people like mushy, unrealistic happy endings to their entertainment and why endings like those in "The Last of Us" test poorly with most. Entertainment is not just an escape from reality, its therapy. The happy ending in a movie or series in which you are invested in makes you happy literally and biochemically.

Its an opportunity for us to tilt that mental needle to "sunshine and rainbows" before reality pushes it right back to "apocalypse" early Monday morning. What Hanson suggests is a conscious effort to inundate your thoughts and experiences with a positive outlook. In simpler terms, the old adage "think happy thoughts" is actually sound advice. A deliberate focus of positive thoughts and past accomplishments can significantly alter your mental outlook and well-being. This is not unheard of, one of the time tested methods of lifting a teams' confidence and spirits is to re-live past victories and accomplishments in game tape or a rousing speech. While it may sound ridiculous, make a list mentally or physically of past achievements and every morning, take some time to remind yourself of them. See if it helps your outlook for the day. You have everything to gain.

While he suggests meditation and other mental exercises like the one i just described in his book, choosing the right mix of games can also help in some respects. I loved The Last of Us, but after playing that and Far Cry 3 and Bioshock Infinite in quick succession, I found myself strangely drawn back to the sunshine and rainbows of Kirby's Epic Yarn, a game that always puts a smile on my face. We all have an example of such games, and its important to keep them in rotation.

Aside from anatomy and biochemistry, there are other reasons for the prevalence of negativity in gaming.

“The first human who hurled an insult instead of a stone was the founder of civilization.”
― Sigmund Freud

Another reason for the prevalence may be the opportunity to assume a new personality. The anonymity of the internet allows us to adopt any personality we desire without any real-world consequences. Being mean to someone who can most likely not track you down and administer "consequences" is a truly unique opportunity for catharsis, and is not easily replicated in other facets of life. One can pander to the more base instincts that drive us and behave in ways that we would not dare replicate in our daily lives.I for one have typed many things that will never leave my lips in real life.

For the individual, this may in fact be quite healthy exercise in Schadenfreude, but for the community, it is obviously quite toxic. Ever since we first recognized the need to suppress our violent and base tendencies as an essential part of the social contract that keeps society functioning, we have always sought avenues to vent anger and frustration in ways that attract minimal repercussions from those around us. The internet may in fact be a very good indicator as to the true nature of man.

Unlike the movie industry, which is covered by television, newspapers, magazines and the internet websites, gaming is covered predominantly by the internet websites with magazines quickly disappearing. One of the metrics involved in internet media is "engagement." Its not just enough to get people to visit your site and read/view what you created. You have to get a response. You have to either get users to "like" your content or you have to get them to leave comments.

Getting a "like" or eliciting a comment is easy. Just parrot popular opinion or profess to have a controversial opinion (ie troll). That opinion is usually negative, so you write something negative and that, in turn produces more negativity in your comments section. Its an auto-catalytic process that has skewed the conversations in gaming to one of hate, cynicism and vitriol.

The very nature of gamers makes them even more susceptible to this tactic. We do not like to be passively entertained. If we did, we would be watching television instead. No, we want to be actively involved. We don't want to see people being shot, we want to do the shooting. In a similar manner, we don't want to just want to hear an opinion, we want to voice ours at the top of our lungs (WELL IN ALL CAPS AT LEAST). We want to be part of that conversation immediately, so much so, that most never get past reading the headline. We have become old men shouting racist and crazy shit at the television, except now, the television agrees with us, and that just makes it worse.

The mindset of a person depends on many things including biology, society and the media we consume. While one may not have much control over the first two, we can definitely improve our mental outlook by being more selective about the games and media we consume on a daily basis.