Headline March 01, 2016/ ''' * TAKING *.. -!WOW!- .. SERIOUSLY '''

''' * TAKING *.. -!WOW!- .. 

SERIOUSLY '''

*GOOD AND KIND HUMANS*   -the world over, have stepped forward and volunteered every conceivable support and assistance to !WOW!. 

We at !WOW!  -are grateful for these great accolades,  and honours and assurances of every support. 

!WOW!  is the exclusive and total shared ownership of every student in the world......and is governed for the students and by the elected students under the watchful eye of a global committee.

IN THE WALT DISNEY FILM ,  Mary Poppins proves herself an early proponent of gamification..........

''In every job that must be done there is an element of fun,................. Marium, Rabo, Haleema, Saima, Dee, Sarah,  Malala [Nobel Prize], Paras, Aqsa, Sorat, Shazaib , Salar. Bilal, Jordan, Vishnu, Hussain, Ali-.........

Noman, Hamza, Armeen, Toby, Zaeem, Hazeem, Danyial, Rahym, Faizan, Mustafa, Eman, Ibrahim, Reza, Ghazi, Mahnoor, Sanan, Ehsen, Armeen, Nina, Tooba, Mayna, Haanyia, Merium,''................she sings:

''You find the fun and snap! The job's a game.'' With brevity that few contemporary gamification gurus can equal, Poppins encapsulates the movement's mantra.

As the game designer Jane McGonigal argued in her 2011 pseudoscientific manifesto,  ''Reality is Broken.''  the most mundane task can be made palatable, even alluring, if framed not as a chore, but as a contest.

In  ''SuperBetter,'' Ms. McGonigal's follow-up, she pursues Poppin's train of thoughts in the lyric  ''a spoonful of sugar helps the medicine go down.'' the principles of game design, Ms. McGonigal argues, can be used to turn leisure into productivity, sickness into health.

By reframing recuperatives tasks such as going for a walk, reconnecting with a friend or writing a short story as gamelike quests, healing can be systematized. Moreover, when you begin to tackle these life quests [Ms.McGonigal provides nearly 100 examples] you will, she writes-

Enter a  ''gameful''  state, becoming more optimistic, creative, courageous and determined. By applying the psychological attributes that games unlock to real-world scenarios, we become like Mario as he guzzles to a powerup and transforms into  Super Mario.

Ms. McGonigal's promises come thick and early, propped up by the results of two clinical studies. The 30-day program contained in the book will, she writes  ''significantly''  reduce symptoms of depression and anxiety and decrease suffering.

It will increase optimism, make you  ''more satisfied''  and even lead, incredibly, to a life  ''free of regret.'' Ms. McGonigal claims every day for more than five years she has heard from someone telling her that the program his or her life.

Ms. McGonigal developed her ideas after suffering from a concussion that left her with lingering headaches and suicidal thoughts. To conquer her depression she turned to metaphor of her profession. It was a timely choice.

Video games have become a core ingredient in the entertainment diet of many Westerners. We are familiar with the paradigms of quests, and the idea of having our every effort rewarded. she also benefited from  our obsession with personal data.

This is an era of quantification. Every step we can be recorded, the length of each night's sleep measured and the number of calories we ingest counted.

In this way our survival acts have become a high-score challenge and, it follows, somehow winnable.

Like many self-help books,  ''SuperBetter'' operates exclusively in the hyperbolic register. The first four quests promise to be ''life changing''. Alas the mission turns out to be mundane. One asks you to stand up and take three steps forward or hold your fists aloft for five seconds-

Another to  ''snap your fingers exactly 50 times''. Ms.McGonigal argues that these tasks improve your natural abilities, but this is an appropriation of the language and metaphor of games, without much of the substance.

Failure isn't valuable in the SuperBetter program. You don't learn much when you neglect to ask a friend about her dreams [Love Connection Quest 5]. There is no strategy to master when attempting to enjoy a favorite song [Ninja Quest 14]

What's being sold here is not a game so much as self-incentivized to-do list.

Like all self-help books, ''SuperBetter'' takes familiar techniques of personal care       -drink plenty of water, cultivate a robust support network, keep mentally stimulated.............and repackage them.

The prose, true to genre, swings between lullaby and war cry, seeking either to woo us with promises or to rev us up declarative sentences about inner strength and power. 

Each paragraph is a needle bed of exclamation points, and  the book's wiser claims appear flimsy, the arguments irksomely over sold. 

The Honour and Serving of the ''Life and Knowledge Operational Research'' continues. Thank You all for reading and sharing.

With respectful dedication to the Students, Professors and Teachers of the World. See Ya all on !WOW!   -the World Students Society and the Ecosystem 2011.

''' On The Record '''

Good Night and God Bless

SAM Daily Times - the Voice of the Voiceless