{"id":638354,"date":"2024-09-15T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-09-14T21:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/the-linkedin-games-are-fun-actually\/"},"modified":"2024-09-15T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-09-14T21:00:00","slug":"the-linkedin-games-are-fun-actually","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/the-linkedin-games-are-fun-actually\/","title":{"rendered":"#The LinkedIn games are fun, actually"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I have a guilty pleasure, and it\u2019s not that I just rewatched \u201cGlee\u201d in its entirety (yes, even the awful later seasons), or that I have read an ungodly amount of Harry Potter fan fiction in my time.<\/p>\n

My guilty pleasure is that I play the LinkedIn game<\/a>s.<\/p>\n

To answer the obvious question: Wait, LinkedIn has games? Yes. In May, LinkedIn launched three puzzles through LinkedIn News<\/a>, like a knock-off version of New York Times games. There\u2019s the logic puzzle Queens (my favorite), the word game Crossclimb (pretty good), and the word-association game Pinpoint (not a great game, but whatever).<\/p>\n

LinkedIn is adopting the classic tech strategy of seeing what works for another company and then trying to replicate that success, even if it might seem odd to play games on a professional networking platform. But it\u2019s no wonder why NYT Games has spurred this inspiration. In a way, The New York Times is a gaming company<\/a> now \u2014 as of December 2023, users spent more time<\/a> on the NYT Games app<\/a> than on its news app.<\/p>\n

LinkedIn isn\u2019t alone. Everyone has games now. Apple News. Netflix. YouTube<\/a>. There are so many games for us to indulge in. And yet, once I finish my various New York Times puzzles, I still want more. It\u2019s not like I\u2019m itching to play LinkedIn\u2019s Crossclimb before Connections, but the games are good enough to give me that sweet rush of dopamine.<\/p>\n

Usually I play LinkedIn\u2019s games during the workday (sorry to my boss). Sometimes it\u2019s because I\u2019ve gone on LinkedIn to fact-check something or search for a source, but then I remember I can take a few minutes to play a little game. Other times, my mind is scrambled after staring too long at the same draft of an article, and taking a break to solve a colorful Queens puzzle makes it easier to go back and confront that Google Doc again.<\/p>\n

But it turns out that there\u2019s a science<\/a> to why we love these quick, once-a-day brain teasers.<\/p>\n

I recently spoke with DeepWell DTx co-founder Ryan Douglas, whose company is predicated on the idea that playing video games (in moderation) can have mental health benefits. In some cases, the brief distraction of a game can pull us out of negative thought spirals or help us approach a problem from a new perspective.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you\u2019re playing Tetris, for instance, you can\u2019t have a big conversation in your head about how terrible you are, and how you suck, and what\u2019s going to go on next week, and all that,\u201d Douglas told TechCrunch.<\/p>\n

On a neuroscientific level, Douglas explained that when we play games, we activate the limbic system in our brains, which is responsible for navigating stress. But even if these stressors are simulated, they get our brains accustomed to overcoming that stress in a variety of ways.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou start learning on a subconscious level, creating new neural pathways at an accelerated rate, and choosing them preferentially on a subconscious level for how you\u2019re going to deal with these issues in the future,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you cope with [a stressor] in this particular environment, you\u2019ve gained agency. You have control.\u201d<\/p>\n

This isn\u2019t to say we should all go and play Pok\u00e9mon all day \u2014 the video game developer tools that DeepWell makes are approved for therapeutic use in 15-minute doses. Maybe that\u2019s why we\u2019ve all become so enamored with games like Wordle, as well as other games from The New York Times (and LinkedIn), which have a finite ending. You do your one puzzle per day and then you move on.<\/p>\n

Josh Wardle, the creator of Wordle, spoke to TechCrunch about his viral success, back before his game was acquired by The New York Times.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m kind of suspicious of apps and games that want your endless attention \u2014 like, I worked in Silicon Valley. I know why they do that,\u201d Wardle said. \u201cI think people have an appetite for things that transparently don\u2019t want anything from you.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wardle is right, though \u2014 of course, my beloved LinkedIn games do want something from me: my attention. And if I\u2019m being honest, I\u2019ve spent way more time on LinkedIn in recent months than I ever have.<\/p>\n

According to LinkedIn\u2019s own data, my behavior is not an anomaly. The company said that since the start of July, new player engagement has grown about 20% week over week. LinkedIn has also noticed strong traction in users starting conversations after playing games. When you complete a game, you can see which of your connections have also played, which I guess some people take as an opportunity to #network. I don\u2019t do that, but then again, most of my conversations on LinkedIn are just me messaging my friends \u201chi,\u201d because for some reason that\u2019s funny to me.<\/p>\n

So, get on LinkedIn and play your heart out\u00a0\u2026 and then about four minutes later, get back to the relentless grind of global capitalism.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I have a guilty pleasure, and it\u2019s not that I just rewatched \u201cGlee\u201d in its entirety (yes, even the awful later seasons), or that I have read an ungodly amount of Harry Potter fan fiction in my time. My guilty pleasure is that I play the LinkedIn games. To answer the obvious question: Wait, LinkedIn…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":638355,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/techcrunch.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Combined-Game-Play-1920x1080-1.webp?w=1200","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[10751,31059],"class_list":["post-638354","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-gaming","tag-social"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638354","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=638354"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/638354\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/638355"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=638354"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=638354"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=638354"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}