Gaming addictions & others

[Crankin]

I don't play video games because I don't have the eye hand coordination to do so. Of course, I don't play board games either, except maybe Trivial Pursuit. But, I think I can comment on "kids today" and the idea of books vs. video games.
I disagree with the fact that you are not getting any cognitive stimulation while reading. Yes, it is a solitary pastime, but there is plenty of research that shows how (kids and maybe adults) you develop more neural connections while reading. Please don't ask me to cite studies now, but I read a lot of this research about 10 years ago. I think about how much knowledge I gained from reading! Both of my kids, too. My husband, who is very smart, doesn't read much, except magazines and newspapers. Sometimes he has no clue what the rest of us are talking about.
I am not against video games, but I am against too much of anything. I let my kids play violent games on the computer... but I knew that I had to restrict the youngest one a bit because he has an obsessive personality with this stuff. But, again, he also read, played outside, and did a lot of creative stuff.
I found that most parents had no idea how to establish structure in their kid's lives. There were no expectations. I started teaching in 1976 and quit in 2007... there were always parents who had no clue and those were great. I guess it did get worse over the years, but that was why my last job was in a district that stressed social and emotional learning as much as academics. It was assumed that we had to teach this and our daily meetings and activities around this gave some of the kids their only way to learn appropriate social and emotional skills. And they all had to do community service. It was not easy and many teachers fought this, but I still think ALL kids benefited, even the ones from super families.
Irulan, your kids sound a lot like mine! Even my son who is in the military is extremely well read and has a wide variety of interests. But, this started when he was little, when most parents don't have a clue.

[salsabike]

If you read the whole article, you will see that the quote about reading was partially tongue in cheek. He was using it to make a point, and clearly did not mean it to be taken literally.

[Crankin]

I just saw a thing about this book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf. She is a professor at Tufts Child Development Center. It discussed how reading improves the brain and compares it to the effects of technology on the brain.

[OakLeaf]

I just saw a thing about this book, Proust and the Squid: The Story and Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf. She is a professor at Tufts Child Development Center. It discussed how reading improves the brain and compares it to the effects of technology on the brain.

I started that book in the fall and never got around to finishing it... I'll have to pick it up again as soon as I'm done with the novel I'm reading now.

Another fascinating book - less scientific I thought, but interesting nonetheless, and the author is a surgeon so not entirely lacking in scientific qualifications - was The Alphabet versus the Goddess by Leonard Shlain. He discusses how written language causes the brain to conform to literally linear, black-and-white thinking, and how the abstractions inherent in alphabetic writing take that to an even greater level.

This conversation reminds me a bit of the news stories a few years back about how the drug MDMA causes "brain damage." They didn't bother to mention that the brain changes brought about by that drug are identical to those caused by pharmaceutical anti-depressants.

The bottom line is that the brain is a dynamic organ, especially in childhood. Everything children do changes their brains; everything they do repetitively shapes the structure of how their brains will function in the future. I don't think it's possible to make value judgments beyond saying that a sedentary lifestyle is not good for anyone. As long as you're only spending a couple of hours a day alone in that darkened room, who's to say that a book is better than an online message board is better than a video game?


ETA: there's a great irony here, because of course computer programming, including video game programming, is about as linear and black-and-white as it gets. And yet most of today's game designers were yesterday's gamers.

[lph]

Oakleaf, love your sig

This is a fascinating discussion and I'm soaking it up. Will look for both those last books. I'll pipe up with my personal experience: I love reading, and I read a lot of fantasy and sci fi for relaxation. In addition to more challenging stuff. As a kid and teenager I could read for hours on end (academic family that approved greatly of reading) and could easily miss a nights sleep. Today I read a lot less, I need my sleep much more and just don't have the time. Besides, I'm used to being more active now so my body just plain protests against sitting still that long. I've tried playing video games, and have sat up until 2 am playing Myst. It was much of the same experience as reading fantasy books, getting lost in a different world, but the effects are much stronger and I can feel how easy it would be for me to get really, really addicted. I don't feel there's a big value difference between reading for fun and relaxation and playing similar video games for the same reason, but games are more addicting, especially if you have that type of personality. My son does, and I have to pry his latest book out of his fingers to get him to eat breakfast without spilling porridge everywhere.

There are many excellent books out there that can change or challenge your views, inspire you and teach you stuff you didn't know. I know there are some truly brilliant games out there too, but there's a lot of stuff, both books and games, and movies for that matter, that are mostly "just" entertainment. Entertainment and relaxation isn't a bad thing, it's just a problem if you have trouble fitting the meaningful and necessary things into your life as well, imo.

I encourage my son to play games with his friends when they're here, I try to discourage him from playing the same, repetitive games over and over he plays alone when he's bored.

[Veronica]

It's like circle surfing - going around to all the sites you read over and over to see if there is anything new.

My big worries about video games/television and kids:

I have students who are reading 2 - 3 grades below grade level. They never read at home, but they play video games/watch tv for hours. I know this from talking with them and their parents. The parents will restrict the activities for awhile, but they won't take that time to read with their kids.

Lack of parental involvement - I can't believe some of the games/shows/movies my students are allowed to watch or play. I would feel differently about it if the parents were then discussing the inappropriate things in the kids see with the kids, but they don't. I do a few read alouds that are a little on the edge in my classroom, partly so I can discuss these things with my kids because the parents aren't stepping up to the plate and doing it.

I don't know what parents are doing with their children these days. It baffles me. And I don't want you to think I have 30 hoodlums in my class. I have 26 kids who are typical - they make mistakes, they shock me with their generous and caring natures, some of them are diagnosed ADD, a couple are on serious meds. They work hard and they get lazy. They mess up and they have remorse. They drive me crazy; they make me smile.

The other four make me question daily why I am still teaching. These 4 have the ability to bring about ten of the others down to their level and influence them in ways that scare me. These 4 don't show remorse. They are bullies, instigators, defacers of property. They are well on their way to being hoodlums and thugs. And they encourage that behavior in too many of the other kids.

I've always thought it was the parents job to instill community values into their children. But I often wonder if that notion is old fashioned, pie in the sky and there are no community values anymore.

Veronica

[OakLeaf]

Oakleaf, love your sig

I wish I could claim credit for it. It's from a NY Philharmonic pre-concert talk we went to this fall, where the lecturer was discussing Mozart's A Major Violin Concerto. The line cracked up the whole audience, and I knew I'd found a new sig line.

[Crankin]

Veronica, I think your 4/30 hoodlums was pretty much par for the course in every classroom I had! The way you described the other 26 made me cry. I guess inside, I will always be a teacher.
And I also read many things to my kids that were "on the edge" because I knew their parents didn't discuss anything important with them. I would preface it by saying,"maturity alert." And then I would tell them that since I was their teacher they would have to "get over it" and not be embarrassed by frank discussions of human relationships because this is how we learn stuff. I also would say that after having 2 sons, there wasn't anything that would shock me.
And yes, I think that mostly there is very little sense of community left, unless one intentionally sets out to build it. That is why we moved back east. I was getting more and more discouraged with the transient nature of the community in AZ. Not that I didn't have a great life, good job, nice house, friends, etc, but something always felt like it was missing. Now I know what.

[shootingstar]

If you read the whole article, you will see that the quote about reading was partially tongue in cheek. He was using it to make a point, and clearly did not mean it to be taken literally.

Salsa: I simply read your quote excerpt for the original text ....during my lunch hr. break. I didn't have time to click around and read the entire article. Do not take my comments above personally. You would have the best interests of children in mind since you have been a school counsellor.