Why is it that people are addicted to the unstoppable synthesis of watermelons?

Produced by: Science Popularization China

Produced by: Chen Yufeng

Producer: Computer Network Information Center, Chinese Academy of Sciences

Whenever someone says “nothing is perfect”, the spectators will proudly take out their own “synthetic watermelons”!

This little game has become popular all over the country recently, breaking through the siege of hot gossip searches and attracting countless badgers running around in the melon fields.

The rules of the game are simple: random fruits fall from above, and the same fruits collide with each other and eventually combine into a big watermelon. You can also understand it as 2048+Tetris+fruit.

This seemingly ordinary little game has made many netizens unable to stop playing... During the all-night night, no fruit is innocent.

Why is this little game so addictive?

Image source: Screenshot of the game "Synthesize Big Watermelon"

Why do we become addicted?

We are not unfamiliar with the behavior of addiction, especially in this era, happiness is not difficult, and addiction is also easy. Why do we get stuck in a certain behavior? This has to start with the reward system and inhibitory control system in the brain. Reward is a goal that an individual needs to spend time, energy or effort to obtain. The reward system is responsible for the cognitive process related to the reward, regulating our attention, memory, pleasure and motivation. From maintaining basic survival needs, such as primary rewards such as eating and drinking, to the pursuit of secondary rewards such as wealth and power, they are all closely related to the reward system.

There is a very famous experiment in psychology, the "Skinner Box Experiment", which studies the psychology of addictive behavior. The experimenter put a mouse that had been fasted for 24 hours into a box with a lever on one side of the box. Every time the mouse pressed the lever, it could get food, so when the mouse wanted to find food, it would keep pressing the lever.

Image source: Gomez & Alstrøm, 2009

This also reveals the basic principle of addiction. Once we find that a certain accidental behavior can bring happiness or satisfaction, we will continue to repeat this behavior in the hope of getting happiness from it.

But humans are far more complex than animals, and even pleasure has a certain tolerance. Just like if you eat a favorite food every day without interruption, you will easily get tired of it. At this time, it is not that the food cannot fill your stomach, but the taste of the food can no longer bring me pleasure. I will continue to look for other foods that can fill me up and bring me taste pleasure.

Although many products are trying to attract our attention, there is still a lot of learning and work waiting for us to complete, and this is when the inhibitory control system is needed. It is the ability of an individual to inhibit irrelevant information when completing a set goal. College student A plans to read a book in the library today, but as soon as he arrives at the library, he starts playing with his mobile phone. He does not even look at the book when he leaves the library. At this time, the inhibitory control system fails to successfully prevent the interference of irrelevant events.

When people are addicted, they often find it difficult to control their inner desires and thus become addicted. Other studies have shown that when people are addicted, their ability to delay gratification also decreases, which means that people only want to get the immediate pleasure and are unwilling to endure to get a bigger reward. This is because the individual's inhibitory control ability is reduced, making it difficult for the individual to successfully eliminate the interference of irrelevant information and make rational judgments.

Image source: Pixels

How did the “synthetic watermelon” make us addicted?

From the principle of addiction, it is not difficult to find that the key to addiction is to create the following cycle:

So, what design of the game "Merge Watermelon" makes us fall into this cycle?

1. Easy to use and requires almost no cost.

The rules of the game are extremely simple, and they also incorporate the rules of popular mini-games. It is very easy to play, and the learning cost is almost zero, so people don't need to spend any effort to come up with the idea of ​​"trying it out". Unlike some large stand-alone games, it takes a long time just to learn how to play the game, although these large stand-alone games may give you more pleasure after you get started.

2. Multiple rewards with appropriate benefits produce lasting pleasure.

Every time you merge fruits, you will get points. The bigger the fruit, the higher the score. You can also get an extra 100 points by merging a big watermelon. The step-by-step positive feedback encourages players to keep brushing high scores. The game results will also pop up a prompt "You beat a few percent of players in the world". A high victory rate can arouse a huge sense of accomplishment for players and also provide "capital" for social show-off.

Moreover, the fruits that appear above are random each time. Players cannot predict the type of fruit that will appear next time. Each step is relatively random. Reinforcement theory believes that random rewards can make people continue to behave accordingly. Therefore, the huge pleasure generated by randomness also tempts players to continue playing. You may never guess what chain collisions the fruit that falls in the next second will bring, bringing you to the climax of emotions and the peak of happiness.

3. Unconsciously, "very refreshing and stress-relieving"

You may have noticed that the sound effect of merging fruits is "boom~pop~", which is very similar to the sound when we squeeze plastic bubble wrap. Although there is no relevant research yet, many people do think squeezing bubble wrap is very enjoyable and very stress-relieving. Especially when multiple mergers occur in the game, the continuous blasting sound effect is accompanied, and the short-term concentration achievement makes people more addicted.

Image source: Screenshot of Synthesized Watermelon

In general, players have a continuous positive emotional experience in this game (including the most direct sensory pleasure, or a higher level of sense of achievement, etc.), and in order to prevent the pleasure from quickly becoming "boring", the game is also designed with a certain degree of randomness. At the same time, the time to obtain pleasure is also very short, and small rewards are combined into large rewards. Players can continue to have new expectations and can immerse themselves in it as long as it is not over. Therefore, this game can easily reduce the player's control ability and make the player addicted.

Synthesis is fun, but be careful not to get too high

In life, even if we know that certain behaviors will bring adverse consequences if they exceed a certain limit, we still continue to repeat these behaviors, such as habitually staying up late, playing games day and night, etc. We all have "addictive" behaviors that are difficult to give up. Although the game design itself can also make us fall into an unconscious addiction, for most people, many times "addictive" behaviors will only affect life for a short period of time and can be easily adjusted.

Image source: Pixels

However, if you are addicted to games for a long time and cannot extricate yourself, and it seriously affects your life, you should pay attention to whether you have pathological "game addiction". The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (Fifth Edition, DSM-5) included online game addiction in the manual in 2013, and listed 9 diagnostic criteria for online game addiction. If at least 5 of the following criteria are met within 12 months, it can be diagnosed as pathological game addiction:

(1) The urge to play games dominates daily life;

(2) Withdrawal symptoms occur when the game cannot be played, such as irritability, anxiety, and sadness;

(3) Tolerance symptoms, i.e. the need to play for longer and longer periods of time;

(4) Unable to control the desire to play games;

(5) Loss of interest in other hobbies due to gaming;

(6) Even though they know the potential harm of playing games, they still find it difficult to stop;

(7) Concealing or lying to others about the time and cost of gaming;

(8) Using games to escape from real problems or relieve negative emotions;

(9) Playing games harms work, study, and interpersonal relationships.

In 2018, the World Health Organization (WHO) also included "gaming disorder" in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), defining it as the loss of control over games and increasing addiction to games, to the point where other interests and daily activities give way to games. Of course, this behavior must last for more than 12 months to meet the diagnostic criteria.

Wherever there are melons, there are crowds of people rushing to eat melons. The small games that everyone is addicted to have brought a little happiness to everyone's life, and everyone's psychology of being easily "addicted" has been firmly grasped. But in the final analysis, no matter how popular the game is, it is only a part of daily life. Staying up late with red eyes is not worth the loss. The game addiction behavior that completely dominates life needs to be paid attention to in time and controlled. Moderate gaming is a healthy lifestyle.

References

[1] Gong Xiang. Research on the causes and mechanisms of online game addiction[D]. University of Science and Technology of China, 2019.

[2] Wei Lei. The impact of online game addiction on inhibitory control function and its neural mechanism[D]. Southwest University, 2018.

[3] Wang Lingxiao. Brain function and structural characteristics of the reward system in online game addicts[D]. Zhejiang Normal University, 2017.

[4]Daniel L. King,Paul H. Delfabbro. The Cognitive Psychopathology of Internet Gaming Disorder in Adolescence[J]. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 2016, 44(8).