Author Matz in his 1960’s book Psycho Cybernetics did substantial research into habit forming. His finding centered on the amount of time required for a habit or viewpoint to become ingrained in a lifestyle. His findings, really the beginning of the ‘self help’, has been often copied by subsequent authors. In pursuing his research he found the ideal time for a new ‘normalised’ behavior to take shape was at minimum 21 days. More modern research into the field of habit formation by Lally, Van Jaarsveld Potts and Wardle(2010), points to a far more realistic :

“The time it took participants to reach 95% of their asymptote of automaticity ranged from18 to 254 days; indicating considerable variation in how long it takes people to reach their limit of automaticity and highlighting that it can take a very long time. “

In readings over the last year, reviewing the many varied ‘self help’ guides I stumbled across an acronym DOSE. It neatly explains in a simplified way the brains reaction to the normal situations humans find themselves in: Dopamine, Oxycontin, Serotonin, Endorphins. This albeit simplified notion outlines the chemical responses our brains have in day to day situations – greeting a person in the street and acknowledging them, exercise completion, and gamified rewards. This is the underlying cause to the rewards systems which Dr. Oakley recognised in her book and course “Learning How to Learn”.

½ hour learning with the “Pomodoro method“

“I find the key is to think of a day as units of time, each unit consisting of no more than thirty minutes. Full hours can be a little bit intimidating and most activities take about half an hour. Taking a bath: one unit, watching countdown: one unit, web-based research: two units, exercising: three units, having my hair carefully disheveled: four units. It’s amazing how the day fills up, and I often wonder, to be absolutely honest, if I’d ever have time for a job; how do people cram them in?” – About a Boy(2002)

In her numerous books and online course Learning How to Learn, Dr. Oakley outlines a methodology for strategic learning which refers to the “Pomodoro” method. Where in you take a simple definable task, and have a timer set for a stretch of useful time – advice here starts at 20-30 minutes. With in this time you dedicate yourself to working on the given problem trying your best to ignore distractions, for example – turning your phone to do not disturb, turning off music, working at a specific study space etc. Once your timer has gone off you then have a reward for 5-10 minutes checking your social media, having a snack, listening to music, etc.

In this way we learn to reprogram our mental processing to; extend the time with which we can concentrate by slowly working to extend the timings, learn to associate the hard effort of study to a reward instead of a inbuilt negative. We are also believed to be more effective at study when the break happens as any distraction is reduced by the timing – you might lose 5 minutes at the end of a block, but in moving off to a reward you then restart the concentration cycle again. We see the take up of this with applications like Forest where the user is rewarded in a non-physical way by the growing of trees in a virtual forest on their phone for concentrating for a defined stretch of time.

#100day challenge

A recent example of this method of small incremental steps can be seen in the recent social media learning movement of the #100daysofX challenge. Started by Alex Kallaway as a coding challenge it has evolved into various social media challenges as diverse as doing Yoga to cooking. The idea being to take small 1hr or less time intervals daily for 100 days to complete a task in a structured fashion – as an example working for an hour in coding a day for 100 days following one of the many books or website coding examples. Again we see the breakdown to a realistic time frame, specific goal orientation, and tangible results on a daily basis. Crucial to this is the mutual support networks that have been built via social media and Twitter are especially interesting to observe in recent weeks do to the Covid-19 outbreak. With many people searching for an avenue to learn something new in this uncertain time. This positive collaborative ideal really harasses peoples inner sense of wanting to belong, and the ease of creating a positive reward speaks directly back to Dr. Oakley’s reward mechanism.

References:

Lally, P, VAN JAARSVELD, C , POTTS, H & WARDLE, J 2010 “How are habits formed: Modelling habit formation in the real world” European Journal of Social Psychology, 40, 998–1009 DOI: 10.1002/ejsp.674

Numerous studies show us that gamification can have far-reaching effects on changing habits and effecting change in people’s lives. But what about changing something as basic as a recruits base level of fitness for entry into the military? Can gamification change the diminishing fitness levels of recruits trying out for entry into training? Or are other methods as, if not more valuable?

With the change in fitness levels seen for recruit screening most western military has had to adapt or outright change the expectations that recruits into the military will be at a decent level of fitness. Nor can the military pass over these willing yet unfit candidates with recruitment numbers reducing in recent years. We see the rates of overweight and obese candidates increase drastically over the last decades as the Western diet has gotten worse for the majority of peoples.

The Australian and British armed forces both use gamification in their new apps. The Australian Army’s application ADF Active has a very similar basis to the recruitment levels of fitness training regime before gamification, the program has various instructional videos, badges, in-app awards, etc. All very standard fare for a simple gamification application. Beyond that, I am unable to find any information in a change of the details of pre-recruit training. The expected entry levels are made away clear to any potential entrant, and the application is available, but no further input into actual training is given in support of entrants.

Military fitness regimes have changed drastically in recent years. Especially in the case of the British one. Far more effort is spent in working towards functional strength and cardio instead of just endless rounds of sit-ups, pushups, and running as was the staple diet of previous fitness programs*. The British application again has a very limited scope in applying gamification principles. Whether these gamification elements help users maintain committed to the outlined fitness regimes is difficult to assess. I am unaware of any meaningful research into whether these systems have changed the application outcomes for recruits. More general research into gamification of fitness shows it can have lasting effects(Harris 2019).

The application of gamified elements is very superficial in both applications. But this is probably due to the limited functionality of the applications – as such, they are only meant to be used for a limited time, before entry into the military when people start directed training. Therefore the gamification elements used are minor and can often time be seen as very superficial. The applications have none of the equivalent commercial applications more in-depth socialisation functionality.

Interesting to note is the American Army’s response in part to the crisis of recruit numbers. In various settings, the Future Soldiers training has used a combination of Social Media marketing with in-person fitness training. The US Military has various gamified applications but is the first to instigate in attendance regular training for potential recruits. This takes the form of regular training sessions to guide the potential recruits in building a level of fitness required to undertake training before any ongoing commitment to the military.

It is interesting to note the change of styles between the different armed forces and the outcomes of the various application of gamification versus other methods. What and how effective these changes are in changing the outcome for applicants is certainly worthy of future study.

*The previous system had been widely published by the Guardian newspaper in the UK during 2008. It was edited by the U.K. Army, and reproduced included as an exclusive insert with a series of weekly papers and also made available online.

I am a student currently living in the North East of Victoria, Australia. My studies include Religious Studies, photography, and Digital Media – or you could say I like taking photographs looking into the Anthropology of Social Media usage of the faithful, although that is probably a stretch.

More generally I make things and do stuff. I have a wide range of interests from organic horticulture, vegan cooking, landscape photography, to bushcraft.

I have worked in engineering as everything from both Artistic and Industrial Blacksmithing, through to CAD Designer/CNC programmer for the Aircraft Industry.

You can connect with me on a variety of social media platforms: Say hello through Twitter. View my photos on Instagram. Watch my vlogs on YouTube.