Can you gamify your phone habits?

Breaking old habits and starting new ones is hard work. There’s friction when getting into a new routine, it’s unavoidable. There are, of course, tactics that can help you along the way. James Clear has an entire career based solely on helping people to reshape their habits. 

One popular tactic? Gamification. I first heard of the phrase “gamify” when my sister told me her “gamified brain” couldn’t handle the 60 seconds it was taking her Apple Watch to sync her workout and complete her “rings” – a fitness tracking feature used to track your active calories burned, your daily exercise, and how often you’ve stood up in a day. 

Gamifying, or gamification, is quite simply adding gaming elements to a non-game. Inherently, learning a language is not a game. Duolingo turns it into one with levels, leaderboards, and streaks. Buying coffee is not a game, but Starbucks gamifies the experience with their Rewards Program. Doing your job is not a game, yet your leadership might make it feel like one by incentivizing your goals with bonuses. 

At its core, gamifying is a behavioral change technique. It’s in our human nature to chase rewards, to compete, and to seek achievements. Gamification takes advantage of that desire and turns it into motivation for change. So if Starbucks can use gamification to sell coffee, how does it apply to habit change? 

Gamifying habits 

In my research, I found a great study that aims to understanding if optimized gamification can be used to make behavior change interventions more effective.

The study opens with a great insight – “Building a good habit is especially difficult when the benefits of the desired behavior cannot be felt immediately.”

I think about food (there’s always a food metaphor with me). If I drink an entire milkshake in one sitting, my stomach will hurt an hour later. But that is not an immediate effect. What’s immediate is the rush of delicious cold chocolate on my tongue. As I type this, I’m wondering where the closest Steak & Shake is. 

Creating new habits is even more complex than my milkshake dilemma. Even when you have a flawless new habit routine, it typically take weeks or even months to see real change or results.

From Centrical, “One thing about habits is that they take time to form and require repetition to be acquired and mastered. Desired behaviors need to morph into the automatic activity that requires little or no thought to perform. Gamification can be the tool that drives repetition and makes desired behaviors into habits, effectively removing the need for gamification since the activity has become intrinsically motivated.”

Gamifying your habits takes something tedious and turns it into, well, a game. Your internal reward system sparks when you hit a streak. Your competitive nature will thrive by sharing your progress with friends and family who are working to hit the same goals.

Best of all? It seems to work. The study I mentioned above showed that when gamifying is optimized, it can result in true behavioral change.

Is it that simple?

Are there drawbacks to gamifying habits? 

I understand the effectiveness of gamification, but is it healthy? It feels like you’re simply replacing one dopamine source with another dopamine source. And what happens when you lose a big streak? Will you be motivated enough to get back on the horse or do you fall back into bad habits? 

From an essay in Business Insider, the author writes, “With gamification and habit-tracking apps there's an invariable risk of becoming overly dependent on them and carrying on solely for the external rewards — not because we enjoy the activity. Ultimately, a habit has to be self-sustaining for it to stick around, meaning it has automatic cues like waking up and an internal reward like a sense of satisfaction upon completing the task. If we don't find that internal motivation, we're just building a pattern of behavior to receive that external reward, not a habit.”

It brings to mind modern parenting books that caution pushing rewards on children for concern that they may never develop true internal motivation. 

Streaks have always been a big motivator for me (hi, Wordle, I can’t quit you). The streaks kept me going on Duolingo, until they didn’t anymore. As soon as my big streak was over, I used it as an excuse to finally drop the app (and that strangely passive aggressive owl, IYKYK).

I’m not alone. From Business Insider, “A survey Duolingo conducted in India found that 60% of people may give up on developing a habit if they break their streak.”

I set an aggressive goal for my phone usage with ScreenZen, and I haven’t been able to surpass a 4 day streak. I’ve questioned if I should change my goal so I can hit it more easily or simply find acceptance that some days I may not hit the goal?

I think a lot about the habit mindset that change is cumulative. It acknowledges that you will have bad days, but what’s important is getting back on track. I haven’t found any apps that use this approach (please chime in the comments if you know of any), but maybe the solution is analog – a physical habit tracker. 

Should you gamify your phone habits?

Gamification isn’t perfect, but I suppose no habit-building strategy is. There are effective ways to gamify your phone habits and ideally build lasting change. What’s important is always keeping the end goal in mind. If you’re focusing on hitting streaks or earning rewards, and you forget your overall motivation, you’re going to struggle to get back on track if gamifying falls short. 

Here’s some ways you can use gamifying to your advantage when reshaping your phone habits:

• Set a daily phone usage goal and use a habit tracker to track days you hit the goal. Plan a reward for when you hit 30 days cumulatively (or a streak if that’s more motivating for you). Avoid rewards tied to your phone (aka your reward should not be a binge session on Instagram). Think of another external reward - treat yourself to a nice dinner, order that new novel that you’ve been eyeing. 

• Game it with your friends or family. Start a text thread with other people who have similar goals as you. At the end of each day, screenshot your phone usage and send it to the thread. You’ll motivate each other to stay on track.

• Use app-blocking apps and set a goal to never override any of the blocks 

• Use a habit app, like Habatica, to create goals and habits, and then earn rewards when you complete them

  • Note on Habatica: There is a feature of this app that’s a bit like gaming. Do not engage in this feature. You will simply be replacing one phone habit with another. If this will be tempting you, do not download this app.

Does gamifying habit change work for you? Chime into the comments, I’d love to learn more.