Gaming addictions & others

[OakLeaf]

I'm old school. I haven't been able to graduate from NetHack and Bejeweled.

[Tuckervill]

By Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote Blink and Outliers, a review of the book, Everything Bad is Good for You
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200...0516crbo_books

Addresses the video game issue.

Karen

[LBTC]

With a long spell of time off I have learned (again) that it's a good darned thing we haven't invested in any of the gaming systems!! Skype (the VOIP system) has a game called Jeweller's Adventure (probably a knock off of Oakleaf's Bejewelled). I can't believe how much time I have wasted playing this game!!! Yes, I'd be an addict if I had the games in the house. Much like I'd be 40 pounds heavier if we bought chips all the time.

Hugs & butterflies,
~T~

[salsabike]

By Malcolm Gladwell, who wrote Blink and Outliers, a review of the book, Everything Bad is Good for You
http://www.newyorker.com/archive/200...0516crbo_books

Addresses the video game issue.

Karen

Here's the part I found really interesting from this review:

"It doesn’t seem right, of course, that watching “24” or playing a video game could be as important cognitively as reading a book. Isn’t the extraordinary success of the “Harry Potter” novels better news for the culture than the equivalent success of “Grand Theft Auto III”? Johnson’s response is to imagine what cultural critics might have said had video games been invented hundreds of years ago, and only recently had something called the book been marketed aggressively to children:

Reading books chronically understimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical sound-scapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. . . .
Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. . . .
But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one."

[lph]

Yep, that is a really good point. Books have an undeserved good reputation compared to video games and tv, and this comes from an avid reader who rarely plays video games.

[teigyr]

But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can’t control their narratives in any fashion—you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. . . . This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they’re powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it’s a submissive one."

See...I think reading inspires creativity and imagination. Maybe it's just me but movies (or games) are never as good as what I see them as in my mind.

It drives me bonkers to see technology used in the place of interaction. I see people pushing strollers and walking dogs all the while talking on their cell phones. I'm not the parental sort but I'd think that time could be better spent bonding with the child? Or the dog?

Of course this is all coming from the person who would be upgrading to play Bejeweled. Nope...my style is more like Zork

[shootingstar]

Unless we have had real classroom teaching experience of several hrs. per day per week for several years, where our primary role was teaching children under ages 18 or age of consent, it IS very presumptous for many of us to understand styles of children's learning and behavioural patterns while in a structured classroom setting with their peers.

I have several long-term friends who are teachers at the primary and high school level. And they have had their full-time careers for over last 15 years by teaching in several different schools.

My personal thoughts are:

*Some video games are better than others for creative problem solving, interaction, etc. (Let's not overjustify videogames.) Video games do not necessarily teach one to read or write, there are some games that do having these specific learning outcomes. But there is no requirement in video game design.

Reading, criticized as non-interactive and passive vs. videos: Of course reading appears to be non-interactive. BUT please remember that reading, particular reading of any materials with acceptable grammer and stylistic logic, develops a DIFFERENT set of skills: how to spell words correctly, seeing and undertanding grammar, syntax, organization of persuasive written style, understanding how different writing styles are adjusted to a person's reading comprehension level/type of audience.

Have we lost this very basic fact what reading a book/document means in terms of improving our reading and written fluency?

We cannot compare playing video games as the same thing as reading..or writing. The benefits are quite different.


By the way, I do agree that reading does require creative thinking, but in a totally different way. It allows....uninterupted time to reflect and absorb information or solve a problem. It allows a user to be non-linear...a reader can jump around in a book,...and go to the final chapter.

[Tuckervill]

We cannot compare playing video games as the same thing as reading..or writing. The benefits are quite different.

And of equal value.

That's all I'm going to say about that.

Karen