Jane McGonigal

How games can help us achieve extraordinary goals We spend 3 billion hours a week as a planet playing computer and videogames — and these 3 billion hours are far from an escapist waste of time. Gaming is actually one of the most productive ways we can spend our time. It produces positive emotion, stronger social relationships, a sense of accomplishment, and for players who become a part of a bigger online community, a chance to build up a sense of meaning and purpose. Scientific research shows that all of these feelings and activities can trickle into our real lives and impact our real-life confidence, ambition, likability and willingness to help others. In fact, when we play a good game, especially multiplayer games, we become the best version of ourselves: the most optimistic, most creative, most focused, most collaborative, the most likely to set ambitious goals, the most resilient in the face of failure. In this talk, find out how you can unlock the power of games to achieve extraordinary goals in your real life and how gaming can become a source of innovation and collaboration for your most important work. Whether your goal is bettering your mental and physical health, transforming learning and education, or strengthening your business and beyond, gaming can help you achieve it.

How often do you think about the future? Is what you imagine sunny or quite bleak? Or perhaps just a blank space, a void? Futurist and game designer Jane McGonigal wants you to think about the future with intention and become resilient in the face of uncertainty through urgent optimism. Urgent optimism is not a fixed personality trait that only the lucky are born with. It is a mindset that can be built in even the world’s most anxious pessimists with practice and the proper tools. In this high-energy, interactive talk, Jane will introduce you to the concepts of mental flexibility, realistic hope, and future power so that you can “unstick” your mind, find balance in the ups and downs, and discover the agency you have to make change. Through science-backed games designed by McGonigal herself, you’ll be asked to think about what could be different in the future and assess whether you are prepared for it. You’ll learn fascinating insights on why our brains have such a hard time anticipating certain kinds of futures and the neuroscience behind removing those mental blocks in order to think the unthinkable and imagine the unimaginable so you can be ready for the next great disruption.

When you think about your future self, your brain does something weird: It stops acting as if you’re thinking about yourself. Instead, it starts acting as if you’re thinking about a completely different person, someone you don't know very well and, frankly, someone you don't like very much. This glitchy brain behavior makes it harder to take actions that benefit our future selves, or future society. But new research suggests a way to change how your brain reacts to the future. In this session, the Institute for the Future's Director for Game Research + Development Jane McGonigal will show you how to make friends with your future self — and help you sharpen your foresight to think more creatively about the possibilities for tomorrow.