UPDATED 27/08/2014
After a few more responses, I have realised I missed off Learning as a type of fun!!!
As many of you will have seen by now, I am running a short survey on what people find fun. So far I have had 155 results, for which I am truly grateful! Of course, I need more – so tell your friends, I am missing any answers at all from the 17 or younger age group!
However, I thought it would be fun to share some of the findings so far, show those of you that have answered so far that there is something happening with your answers. I have been categorising the answers into various types of fun, creating new types as I find answers that don’t fit into those I already have. So far this has given me 21 types of fun. Part of this process is to get your feedback on the types I have so far – are they all separate for example, or can I group a few. Also, can I group them generally beyond what I have already. I really need your feedback to help this process!
But, until there, here is what I have so far! (updated 27/08/2014)
| Type | % | Description |
|---|---|---|
| Challenge | 15.8% | Over coming obstacles. Attaining a sense of achievement. |
| Fellowship | 12.6% | Relatedness. Being with others. |
| Problem solving | 8.9% | Puzzles, use of problem solving (specifically) to over come challenges. |
| Exploration | 8.3% | Deliberately looking around and testing the boundaries. |
| Sensation | 6.7% | Joy in physical sensation. Smell, activity, sport, touch etc. |
| Discovery | 6.0% | Finding new or interesting things, deliberately or not. |
| Creativity | 5.5% | Building, inventing, creating new things (music, art etc) |
| Surprise | 5.0% | The joy of the unexpected. |
| Competition | 4.6% | You vs. the world. |
| Fantasy | 4.4% | Make believe |
| Learning | 3.2% | Learning new things, mastery. |
| Collaboration | 3.2% | Working with others on a common goal. |
| Narrative | 3.0% | Stories and plot lines. |
| Family | 2.8% | Joy from your relatives – not that same as fellowship. |
| Humour | 2.5% | Different for everyone, but jokes, funny stories and situations. |
| Altruism | 2.1% | Selfless acts, sense of some kind of greater purpose. |
| Progression | 2.1% | The feeling that what you are doing is leading to something. |
| Immersion | 1.1% | Believing in the fantasy world totally and losing yourself to it. |
| Curiosity | 1.1% | Wanting to know what is in the box, what happens next, what is around the corner. |
| Flow | 0.9% | As described by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, losing your sense of self in an activity |
| Schadenfreude | 0.2% | Pleasure in the suffering of others. |
There are a few there that look like they may be the same, but I have also split them in my mind between facilitated experiences and internal. So the joy of creativity is intrinsic – you don’t need external guidance or facilitation. However, something like narrative needs to be created and facilitated extrinsically.
Challenge comes up a lot as something you guys find fun as does fellowship. This does not surprise me though, Relatedness and Achievement! Things related to Autonomy are also high up, such as exploration. Altruism is low scoring, but other ideas related to greater Purpose are in there, but lower than I might expect.
If nothing else, it shows that defining fun is really REALLY hard! People find so many things in so many combinations fun. Just because you find it fun, doesn’t mean others will. You have a good shot if you add challenge though it seems.
As I say, this is just the first run at the results and I hope to collect a lot more data over the coming months. I am sure some of the ideas will change!! Please comment and add ideas though and if you have not done so yet – take the survey!. Oh, one thing to note. No one there has said they enjoy collecting points and badges 😉
Quick note. The thickness of the circles just shows how often the type has appeared in the survey – does not relate to importance.
