Gamification today is used from corporate to learning environment.
It is considered as one of the best ways to enhance team building and pass on knowledge. However, gamification is also about competing a task and receiving a reward for achievement. The gratification is comforting obviously but it has now gone onto other level especially in the virtual world.
The ‘challenges’ on the social media has reached such a level that it has been devastating for many families.
The recent one is the ‘Blackout Challenge’ on one of the social media platforms. This particular challenge has individuals choking themselves until they blackout. What has been devastating is that at least seven children have died trying this challenge so far and all of them are under 15 years of age.
The families must be going through shocks till now and some of the parents are taking up the incident to the next level by suing the digital platform.
So who is actually responsible?
The victims are younger than 15 with some of them being 9 and 10 years. Children as young as these ages are present in the social media. Many of them may not even be able to differentiate between virtual world and reality. They may not even realise that some of the videos they see could be fabricated.
Some experts also suggest that gamifying can make risks look not dangerous at all.
This young age already has school life that can be overwhelming, but here they are living in the virtual world too. It is not just a classroom and classmates they are handling but a unique space that can bring them followers from the whole world. It is so easy to fall into being the prey for likes and comments and so the challenges could be inspiring too.
Could it be this very gamification that attracts people to cross a running wadi or take risks with nature?
Why are we losing touch with reality?
A few decades ago we did not have platforms to post our pictures or our drone videos. We would have taken pictures and placed them in our family albums. If anyone else were to have taken our pictures we would have talked about privacy. Now images are just floating around and to top it all there are the challenges.
To think we do not know what children are watching, videoing and posting makes it one of the biggest challenges for parents of this generation.
It is time to think loud on what is healthy for children.
It seems it is similar to the issue of journalism, journalists and social media influencers. What is responsible journalism will continue to prevail while people might be attracted to online news and viral videos.
But the safety of children online might be the responsibility of parents but shouldn’t the virtual world also be responsible?
After all life is not a game, the children were thriving in their secured environment and parents must have had numerous dreams. Dreams that will never be fulfilled now.
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