Socially, Gameful Persuasion: the Next Level

Persuasive technologies enjoys increasing pervasiveness and user immersion; the ability to create products that can alter user behaviour such as mobile applications is now commonplace within the computer developing domain. Affordable multi-touch devices and the rapid development of technology has helped facilitate this growth and allowed for new terminologies and concepts to transpire. Consequently, one of those, Gamification, is increasingly entangled within the design debates that surround these types of products and applications. Intriguingly, there has been little discourse of how these two concepts overlap despite similarities in design principles primarily focused towards social psychological theory and motivation. This thesis attempts to bridge that gap through the study of Facebook as a case study, while arguing that they both form what is proposed as socially gameful persuasion. The model is based on the intrinsic motivations garnered from persuasive technologies inherent within Facebook.