Hello everyone! We are back again today with another edition of Splinterland Economics - a series in which we introduce a basic economic concept and then apply it to Splinterlands. If this is your first time reading, just to tell you a little bit about myself: my day job is in an unrelated area but I consider myself a little bit of economics nerd - I read a little (or maybe way, way) more news than I should, double majored in econ, and am obsessed with optimization. I love the way Splinterlands is equal parts card game and resource allocation game. My goal with these articles is to share a little bit of what I know with you all.
Our subject today is something that can help you to use small levers to achieve big effects. If used properly, it can help you to encourage desirable habits or behaviors in yourself and others. Today, we'll be talking about Nudging!
Nudging, or Nudge Theory, is the idea that you can use small actions in order to influence actions and get a much larger overall result. Someone who has been reading my recent blogs on behavioral economics may recall that we, as human beings, often make irrational decisions. Nudging is one way to try and influence decision making in order to attempt to make more rational decisions. And yes, you may be thinking here that nudging could be used for nefarious purposes just as easily as it could be used for good - and you're correct! And on a related note, I personally enjoyed Eliot Peper's Analog series, in which nudging is an important plot point. But we are going to focus more on the positive ways to use nudging in our discussion today.
Some examples of nudging may be to use smaller plates at meals in order to make food appear larger and encourage reasonable portions, or to organize your fridge, pantry, or snack collection in order to make the healthier options more visible or easier to access. Nudges are not limited to your food or eating habits either. Prominent placement of trash or recycling bins, for example in a convenient location or with a fun design, can nudge people to not litter and to recycle more. My power company recently made it the default option to to opt in to a billing plan which is structured in order to reduce load on the power grad at peak times - the old billing method is still available, but we need to manually switch back over to it.
An important thing to remember here is the magnitude of the effort involved in the nudge. Nudging is a SMALL action. Reorganizing your pantry or purchasing some additional tableware is (relatively) more easy and much less intrusive than, for example, hiring a personal trainer to watch you 24/7 and constantly monitor your food choices. What we are looking for here are small actions, with (hopefully) larger effects.
In order to apply nudging to Splinterlands, or any area, we need to first identify areas for improvement. Are there activities that we should be doing more of, or less of? Or maybe some new processes or habits that we want to start. Look for the portions of your daily or weekly routine that you would like to change in some way. Personally, a couple of my own goals are to take more time to think over my card purchases, and to be more careful with my team submissions while playing matches - they have resulted in far too many bad investments or lost ranked battles!
Once you know what you want to change, then you can come up with your "nudge". Remember, think small! You can solve nearly any problem by throwing a bunch of money at it, but that is not our goal here. Think of ways to remind yourself of things, or making it easier to do whatever actions you are aiming to encourage. For me, keeping funds for a purchase in a separate account and jotting down reminders on post-it notes usually (though unfortunately not always) work well as nudges to take more time to think about what I may be buying or sending into battle. Everyone is different though, and you may find that other methods work better for you - try out other small changes to your environment or routine and see what is best for you!
If you are in a position to be building something in Splinterlands - a tool, your guild, or maybe another game community, then you have additional opportunities to apply nudging to whatever you happen to be in charge of. Do you want to encourage everyone to try their best in guild brawls? Maybe you can shout out players who did well in previous brawls and recognize them for their efforts. Or if there are particular features or updates of your tool or website that you want users to try out, then you may want to make sure that the buttons to do so are prominent and easy to find. As you may notice, UI design can play an enormous role in order to nudge users towards particular actions.
Nudging is a great way to help yourself to form and maintain good habits and reduce bad ones. When applied properly in the long run, you can help yourself to make more rational decisions and ultimately be better off. This is by no means a cure-all - it still requires work to determine where and how to apply those nudes. However, if you can figure out the right kinds of nudges to reduce your own or others irrational behaviors, then you are likely to see large effects relative to your applied efforts.
Thank you so much for reading all the way to the end. Interested in seeing some more of my writing in the future? Be sure to give me a follow! In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of my recent posts:
Someone Call an Exterminator - "Using" Crypt Beetle in Battle! - Last week's battle challenge, featuring Crypt Beetle!
Splinterlands Economics: Loss Aversion - An introduction to loss aversion, and how being aware of it can help us in Splinterlands.
Splinterlands Economics: Asymmetric Information - An introduction to asymmetric information, and how being aware of it can help us in Splinterlands.
Thinking about giving Splinterlands a try but haven't signed up yet? Feel free to use my referral link: https://splinterlands.com?ref=bteim, and be sure to reach out to me if you have any questions!
All images used in this article are open source and obtained from Pixabay or Unsplash. Thumbnails borrowed with permission from the Splinterlands team or made in Canva.
