News/Research

The First Five Minutes of the Future with Jane McGonigal

29 Sep, 2020

The First Five Minutes of the Future with Jane McGonigal

The First Five Minutes of the Future is a new future forecasting game developed by the Institute for the Future’s Director of Game Research and Development, alum Jane McGonigal. It premiered at IFTF’s 2020 Ten Year Forecast. It is published here under a Creative Commons license that allows you to distribute, remix, adapt, and build upon the material in any medium or format for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator.

The article introduces the game as Day1 to Day5 since each day a new game scenario will appear on this page. This game is based on a clinical intervention called “specificity induction,” developed by neuroscientists and psychologists to help people imagine and plan for the future more effectively.

From the article:

Specificity induction strengthens the neurological pathways that allow us to think about possibilities that have not yet happened. In studies, people taken through a series of specificity induction exercises similar to this game were able to describe future scenarios in more vivid and plausible detail. When asked to come up with strategies for solving difficult future problems, they came up with more detailed plans, and their strategies were rated by experts as more creative and more likely to be effective. Empathy scores went up when they were asked to imagine what other people might do in the future. And hope, self-motivation, willpower and urgency to act increased — because they were more inspired to prepare today for a future they could envision more vividly.

To read more, click here.