Up: [[Thinking]] Created: 2025-01-09 Why do so many people, kids and adults, play online or video games? I think a large part of the answer can be found in the concept of ‘hard fun’. This term was coined by mathematician and educator Seymour Papert (2002) when he was visiting an elementary school where students were learning to program computers using LOGO, the computer language Papert developed. One student was overheard to say that the work was hard and fun, which Paper understood to mean that the task was fun *because* it was hard. The concept of hard fun may have its roots in the biology of the brain. > [!Orbit] Gregory Berns in *Satisfaction: Sensation seeking, novelty, and the science of finding true fulfillment* > Much of what is known about motivation has to do with the neurotransmitter dopamine, which, until the mid-1990’s, many scientists thought of as the brain’s pleasure chemical…. Actually, dopamine is released prior to the consummation of both good and bad activities, acting more like a chemical of anticipation than of pleasure. the most parsimonious explanation of dopamine’s function suggests that it commits your motor system — your body — to a particular action. If this idea is correct, then satisfaction comes less from the attainment of a goal and more in what you must do to get there. Berns wrote this in 2005. What’s the latest about dopamine?