Play: Super Summary

Play: Games, Humor, & Joyfulness
People need to play and the way to do that is through games, humor, and joyfulness. We need to spend some time getting to know video games. I plan on spending my snow day exploring the games that my daughter loves so much on the Wii, Playhouse Disney, and Webkinz. (I am pretty sure she would beat me if she didn’t have school today.) I will also take the time to watch my son play. Isn’t it amazing how they discover and laugh out-loud.
So, can I interest anyone in a laughing club, a gaming adventure, or just being joyful? After all, tis the season! I will spare you all the agony of me trying to tell or dissect a joke and just get directly to the summary.
Dr. Madan Kataria is a physician in Mumbai, India. He believes that laughter can infect people. His mission is to promote an international laughter epidemic that will improve health, wealth, and perhaps peace. He has created free laughter clubs where people learn to laugh even if there is no joke to laugh at or anything funny to watch. (See more under joyfulness)
The conceptual age: There is a shift from seriousness toward play. According to Dr. Kataria, as told to Daniel H. Pink on page 186, “When you are playful, you are activating the right side of your brain. The logical brain is a limited brain. The right side is unlimited. You can be anything you want.”
Henry Ford thought that work and play were a toxic combination and many other businesses thought the same. Now however there is a shift in this way of thinking. It is now thought that play and joyfulness can help workers become more productive. Daniel H. Pink believes that play is an important aspect of business, work and personal well-being, its importance is shown through games, humor, and joyfulness.
Games:
An example of the game, America’s Army, was not created by gamers, but was designed by the American Army and Colonel Casey Wardynski, a West Pont Professor, as a way to promote recruiting for the armed forces. The game was released for free on GoArmy.com and was so popular on its release that it caused the Army’s servers to crash. Had the Army sold the game, it would have earned about $600 million the first year. The purpose of the game was to promote teamwork, values, and responsibility as a means of achieving the goal. Players of the game start with basic training as any soldier joining the military. These soldiers work their way into a unit and can receive promotions even to the Green Beret Level. The game also involves fighting with enemies and killing enemies, but it promotes completing a mission with everyone in the unit remaining alive. There are also consequences for ignoring the mission and misconduct. A player can be banned from the game for such offences. This game has been so successful that the Army produced a sequel, America’s Army: Special Forces.

Gaming Facts:
• Half of all Americans over age 6 play computer and video games.
• Over 40% of gamers are women.
• The video game industry is larger than the movie industry.
• Visual perception tests show game players score 30% higher than non-gamers.
• One study showed that physicians who spent a minimum of three hours a week playing video games make fewer mistakes in laparoscopic surgery and performed faster than their colleagues who did not play video games.
• Video game playing enhances the right-brain ability of pattern recognition problem solving.
• Some evidence shows a correlation between game-playing and aggressive behavior.
• Some games are time-wasters.
• Gaming is more of a whole-mind vocation.
Many adults have not yet seen the importance or significance of video games. For this generation, video games are the same as television was to previous generations. In colleges, several surveys indicate that all students have played video games such as Super Mario Brothers, and how not all have seen the same movies or television shows.
According to James Paul Gee, a professor at the University of Wisconsin feels that, “games can be the ultimate learning machine (Pink, 193).” Video games allow for students to connect and manipulate facts, not just memorize them.
Gaming and the Six Conceptual Senses
• Gaming is linked with symphony by following trends, making connections, and showing the big picture.
• Gaming is linked with empathy through role-playing games.
• Gaming is linked with design by looking for more artists or designers, producers, and story tellers. Many art schools offer degrees in game art and design.
• Gaming is linked with story through offering real-life situations and people wanting to talk about their gaming experiences.
Humor:
Hearing a joke and recognizing the punch line involves both the right and left sides of the brain. The left side of the brain does not like surprise or incongruity and it wants things to make sense. The right hemisphere is critical to understanding and appreciating humor.
According to Daniel H. Pink on page 198, “Humor embodies many of the right hemisphere’s most powerful attributes – the ability to place situations in context, to glimpse the big picture, and to combine differing perspectives into new alignments.” This is why it is so important in the workplace. According to research, the most effective executives used humor two times more than less successful managers. However we must be cautious of negative humor, which can be very destructive. Humor can help find the soul of an organization and work to bring people and departments together.
An important point is that humor cannot be replicated by computers and it is being seen as a very valuable concept.
Joyfulness:
Laughter Clubs start with exercises like yoga and calisthenics and method acting. The “Namaste laugh”, “just laughter”, and “lion laughter” are some of the exercises. Daniel H. Pink describes the laugher club experience as, “simultaneously weird and invigorating (pg. 201).” Dr. Kataria found that patients got better faster when they laughed so in 1995 he wrote an article, “Laughter: The Best Medicine.”
Kataria decided to combine laugher with yoga breathing. He also states that you do not need humor for laughter. The laughter club concept is “thought-free” laugher. The difference is explained by perhaps the over-simple thought that, “happiness is conditional; joyfulness is unconditional (pg. 202).” One way to demonstrate this is that very young children and infants laugh even thought they do not yet understand humor.
Studies have shown:
• Laughter can decrease stress hormones.
• Laughter can boost the immune system.
• Laughter has aerobic benefits.
• Laughter is a social activity.
• Laughter is a form of nonverbal communication.
• Laughter can create more creative and productive workers.
The Play Portfolio:
• Find a Laughter Club
• Play the Cartoon Captions Game
• Step on the Humor Scale
• Play at Inventing
• Get Your Game On
• Go Back to School
• Dissect a Joke
• Play Right-Brain Games