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(Open-Ended) What is fun? (lemmy.ca)

submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

12 comments fedilink hide all child comments

A bit of a lighter topic today: What is fun?

This seems like a simple question that would be tempting to hand-wave away as a "Well you know..." but the more I think about it the less cut and dry it seems.

Some prompts to get you thinking

What are the merits and purposes of fun?
What makes something fun? Though different people find different things fun, is there a common thread that makes those things fun?
Is it easier for some kinds of people to have fun than others? What kinds of situations lend themselves to fun experiences, which make them difficult?
Are there ways for people who have forgotten how to have fun to "get back in touch with fun?"
Do you think you have enough fun? Too much?
How much fun is the right, or a good amount?

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Well, I answered the questions to the best of my ability, enjoyed thinking things through enough to feel comfortable contributing, enjoyed seeing what others had to say, and feel good that I have both more awareness of the characteristics of those things I find most enjoyable and what other people think.

I deliberately left out the words "entertainment" and "fun" in that paragraph, but let me return to them now.

I don't know enough to either agree or disagree with your contention that my separation of entertainment and fun is generally unproductive. You write of objective measures, but I don't know if you've considered whether those measures might be improved. Maybe there are better terms than mine to distinguish between active enjoyment (what I call fun) and passive enjoyment (what I call entertainment). And maybe there is truly no difference in outcome.

That doesn't change the fact that I at least think I get more enjoyment out of active engagement, even if the activity is as slight as trying to understand the specific reasons a particular movie was watched through to the end while another was turned off after 10 minutes.

I hypothesize that a complete set of measurements that captures magnitude, not just a binary state, would be able to distinguish between the passive enjoyment I get from funny animal videos, the somewhat more active enjoyment I get from analyzing a movie, and the much more active enjoyment I get from building a boat or writing a new story or writing a new program. But that is a mere suspicion and actual research would be necessary to determine the validity of that hypothesis.