An article that appeared on CNN.com last week about the future of technology featured the projection of game designer Jesse Schell that eventually there will be a “gamepocalypse,” meaning every aspect of our lives will be a game.  It’s a rather radical idea, but considering the innovations and predictions mentioned, as well as the realistic analysis of our habits, it doesn’t seem so far-fetched.
Consider the Wi-Fi enabled toothbrush that is currently in the works.  Toothbrush makers are developing the capability to connect one’s brushing habits to Twitter so that each time one brushes, the frequency and duration of the brush would be tweeted onto the Internet, in essence incentivizing consistency with one’s brushing habits.  A similar device already exists, a scale with a Wi-Fi connection that tweets one’s weight, offering the same incentive to improve since it is made public.  The technology provides interesting insights into the psychology behind what motivates our actions, and the implications that this “gamepocalypse” has on the future.
When you think about much of the technology that exists today – really, really think about it – it all boils down to games disguised as necessities.  Smartphones and iPods are essentially gameboys for adults, especially with the advent of new social media networks such as Foursquare, a program designed for smartphones that allows users to score “points” for logging in to certain places and unlocking badges in various locations.  It’s more or less a socially acceptable adult scavenger hunt.  Roughly half of the applications available for Apple’s newest device, the iPad, are games.  At $499 and up, the iPad is essentially the newest gameboy available on the market.  Certainly there is a multiplicity of practical uses for the iPad, but to be cynical, it’s really just the newest, shiniest toy for adults.      
Schell also mentioned the point system that exists at Starbucks, where the more acquired on one’s Starbucks cards can amount to rewards such as free beverages.  Starbucks has even made it possible to pay with an iPhone now, making “the game” accessible via your gameboy.  A similar incentivizing device exists for bikes, a tracker that records and calculates precisely how much gas one saves by biking instead of driving.
Even thinking critically about the main social networking sites, Twitter and Facebook, one realizes how the element of competition is so apparently integrated into use of the sites.  Who has the most friends, the sauciest updates, the most impressive photo albums and the best fan pages is paramount in our use of the sites.      
So are we all just a bunch of gamers?  Schell’s projection, as well as critical observation of the Western world today reveals that much of what compels us has the elements of one big, competitive game.  This article does not serve to critique or criticize our habits, but to simply point out the competitive elements that manifest in our day-to-day lives.  Politics, war, technology, education and other aspects of humankind today seem to be motivated by adversarial relationships directed toward a reward, and whether the victory be ownership of land, a free caramel macchiato, the most amount of weight lost and tweeted onto Twitter via Wi-Fi enabled scale or the highest score on Farmville, it is undeniable that the gamepocalypse is coming.