My Great Grandchildren (and Jesse Schell) Motivated Me To Read More Often

I glance over a few hundred headlines per day via Google Reader. Because of that, I often read headlines and only get around to reading the content of those headlines that bombard me. DICE 2010 had a guest speaker named Jesse Schell. I hadn’t heard of him, but I don’t follow the industry that closely. 

So I saw dozens of posts within a window of about 2 days saying how great this “Future of Games” talk was. So I listened to it. He’s a great speaker and made me want to be interested in what he was talking about. For the most part, all I gathered was that external rewards are a very strong psychological motivator. Competing over silly points makes people jump through a lot of silly hoops and consider it entertaining. I shamefully agree, because I can think of no other reason that I so willingly totally reset my entire progression in Call of Duty only to do it all over again. I’m insane. But at least I’m higher level than everyone I know.

The talk was indeed great. I enjoyed it, and it really made to stop and think about what I think is enjoyable in interactive entertainment. None of that is what really struck me though. What really struck me was around the last two minutes. He’s talking about all areas of our life being monitored for gaming purposes to track what we accomplish and reward us with these points:

You sit down with your new Kindle 3.0 … You’ve finished 500 novels and this is a big achievement. … but you’re thinking that ‘I’m really embarrassed that my 500th novel is some dumb Star Trek novel. … You realize you have no idea what books your grandparents read or where they went on a daily basis. … Our grandchildren will know every book that we read. That legacy will be there and will be remembered. … Is it possible maybe that since all of this stuff is being watched and measured and judged, then maybe I should change my behavior a little bit and be a little better than I would’ve been? …

Obviously, this was where he was really bring his point home. Man, did it work! I HAVEN’T READ A THING! Sure, I’m regularly reading technical books in hopes of advancing my career. Sure, I read hundreds of headlines and dozens of articles per day. Those don’t count! I want to read novels. I want to read a piece of writing that is more than 8 paragraphs long and doesn’t have { } or () in it.

I don’t want to disappoint my grandchildren. I want them to be able to read my Amazon Kindle profile 50 years from now and be curious about the titles I’ve read. I want my literature profile to challenge them. I fear that the children growing up now and thereafter won’t be able to digest a contiguous piece of writing more than a page or two long.

With that said, I’m having trouble writing a post much longer than this one. Oh, and I’m doing my reading on Kindle for iPhone which allows me to read just a few paragraphs at a time while I’m on the go.

… wait a minute…

Full talk: