Video Metni

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  Take a stroll on the Internet and it's hard not to notice that everyone's giving away points and badges...
  

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  ...for things like visiting a website or posting a comment...
  

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  ...or having your status update liked by social networking friends.
  

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  The trend is called gamification and it's not just on the Internet.
  

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  Now that everyone has a computer in their pocket,...
  

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  ...more and more physical world experiences are becoming gamified.
  

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  Location - based services like foursquare award you with badges and status.
  

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  You can compete to be mayor of your local pub, for example,...
  

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  ...just by checking in with your phone's GPS.
  

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  Other services are springing up to award you with things like...
  

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  ...discounts on your health insurance for walking to work...
  

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  ...or giving you a virtual sword for your video game avatar if you buy a particular brand of soda.
  

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  You can now even choose to get paid in virtual game currencies for doing real bits of work.
  

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  It's all a bit gimmicky at the moment...
  

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  ...but there is some reason to think that blurring the line between real life and video games might have an upside.
  

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  For one, our brains have evolved to give us a little squirt of dopamine when we play games.
  

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  And we humans tend to be dopamine fiends.
  

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  We get it for doing things that would have helped us back in the day,...
  

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  ...like eating, sex and, so the theory goes, play.
  

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  And it's not just us humans. Animals all the way down the evolutionary tree play.
  

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  Social mammals like apes, dolphins, monkeys and coyotes play all the time.
  

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  But so do creatures that we branched away from a long, long time ago...
  

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  ...like turtles and even wasps.
  

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  The games they play are all quite different and the exact purpose is a matter of some debate.
  

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  Some think play is a way to learn and practice useful skills,...
  

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  ...others think it helps to build and maintain social bonds.
  

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  Others still think it's just a way to relieve stress.
  

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  Human play does all of this with the added bonus that we have language and writing...
  

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  ...and can create elaborate games with rules and points and reward systems.
  

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  Some think this kind of play gets us ready to navigate the complex rules that allow civilization to work.
  

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  But whatever the reason, there's no denying games have power over us.
  

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  The thing is, it's only gonna get crazier. Why? Technology.
  

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  Our phones already have GPS to track our locations,...
  

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  ...accelerometers to measure our movements, cameras to see our surroundings and screens to help us make sense of it all.
  

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  But sensors and screens are getting cheaper by the day.
  

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  Many predict that we will soon live in a world where it will be possible to embed cameras and screens...
  

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  ...in even the most mundane objects.
  

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  Tie these altogether with the ubiquitous connection to the Internet...
  

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  ...and you have a world where everything we do can be tracked and measured.
  

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  And anything that can be measured can be made into a game.
  

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  How? Just add points.