It’s interesting, he writes, to see what happens when scores are introduced into activities where they’ve previously been absent. He finds, for instance, that scorekeeping has pushed skateboarders to focus more on obvious, badass tricks than on “steeze,” or stylish ease, which is more difficult to quantify. He suggests that the advent of scores for... See more

The problem is that metrics are seductive. Once something is being ranked, it becomes almost impossible to get that ranking out of your head. Over time, this can lead to what C. Thi Nguyen calls “value capture.” In “The Score: How to Stop Playing Somebody Else’s Game,” Nguyen writes that “value capture occurs when you get your values from some... See more