[Intrepid Homoludens]

Beyond Good & Evil; Fable; Splinter Cell: Chaos Theory.

Hooray for backlashing!

Video games not necessarily turning kids' brains to mush

Video games might be about the best thing your kids can do to ensure their future success. Better, even, than reading. At least that's what two books (ironically enough) and a growing chunk of conventional wisdom are saying.

The most prominent argument for video games comes from Steven Johnson, author of the much-discussed and often tsked-tsked book Everything Bad is Good For You: How Today's Popular Culture is Actually Making Us Smarter....[and] Mind Wide Open...

"With most video games, at every point you have to make decisions," Johnson says. "You have to think about patterns and long-term goals and resources, and then you make decisions and get feedback from the game, and use that to adjust your decisions."

"And whatever the benefits of reading, you are not making decisions," Johnson says. "You are following someone else's decisions."

Pair that with the social research in a book out late last year, Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever, by John Beck and Mitchell Wade. They say that video games' importance in the lives of anyone growing up in the 1990s and beyond is changing the way coming generations will work and manage data.

Part of the book's message is: If your kids aren't fluent in video games, they'll wind up at a disadvantage on the job and socially.

"It's hard to see your kids playing a game and feel happy about it," says co-author Wade, a mid-40s parent who struggles with his own boomer instincts that say reading is better than gaming. "But it's worth asking how we know gaming is NOT good for them. If the assumption is that kids should be reading a book, I'm not sure how much good reading will do because it's so unrelated to the way they'll be living their lives."

[Reading absolutely has its benefits, however]....the authors are challenging the belief that books are automatically better than video games.

[Starflux]

It's also good for our motor. AND, I believe that the braincells generated in your head reflect on what you're doing at the time, so playing games will provide you with flexible, agile braincells. Just like the ones when you're picking your nose, which is an exercise in motoric control.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

Originally Posted by Flux

Just like the ones when you're picking your nose, which is an exercise in motoric control.

I'll make sure to remember not to shake your hand if I ever meet you in person.

[Shodan]

I doubt I'd be half the person I am today without games. And I don't mean that in a fashionably self-depreciating way.

[Intrepid Homoludens]

And here I am currently playing Manhunt.

[Starflux]

Just trying to gross you out here

But I always knew games were good for us in that way. Of course books shouldn't be "replaced" or anything, nothing's going to get replaced. But if you look at the sheer control you are required to have over your game if you're expected to finish/beat it, it's pretty obvious you're learning quite some skills in controlling your body and mind.

Of course, some games will be better at this than others...

[James]

Of course games are good for you - that's why were here right - mental exercise?

[Jazhara7]

Something similar was on the news recently. But they didn't mention books - They just said that children that have their own computer are better in school, than children that don't. Also, they mentioned that children that often watch TV are generally not as good in school.


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[squarejawhero]

Games stimulate the same area of the brain as sex and increase your dopamine levels.

...

...what? WHAAAAT? Quitlookinatme!

[SakSquash]

This is old news. I remember seeing something on Dateline or something about 8 years back on how videogames are good for kids because it helps their timing and motor skills.

[artwking4]

Back in '96, I wrote my 10th grade research paper on "The Value of Video Games" and totally got an A+ on it and a special commendation by the teacher in front of the class (which was kinda embarrassing, of course - especially when she was a real hardass most of the time. It was ruining my street cred. --hehe).

[syntheticgerbil]

I'd just like to point out that I know a lot of dumb people who read tons of books a month.

[artwking4]

Originally Posted by syntheticgerbil

I'd just like to point out that I know a lot of dumb people who read tons of books a month.

Are they members of the Oprah book club?

[Shodan]

Originally Posted by syntheticgerbil

I'd just like to point out that I know a lot of dumb people who read tons of books a month.

I agree with what you're implying I'd be more interested to see research that tests kids' street smarts in relation to game-playing, not just book smarts.

[gillyruless]

Originally Posted by squarejawhero

Games stimulate the same area of the brain as sex and increase your dopamine levels.

Yea but do you light up a fag after smoking some dude's ass in BF2? I don't think so.

[squarejawhero]

I shall maintain an air of mystery as to what I get up to when playing BF2.

[syntheticgerbil]

Originally Posted by artwking4

Are they members of the Oprah book club?

Mostly emo kids, romance novel enthusiasts, and sci-fi guys.

[samIamsad]

Originally Posted by gillyruless

Yea but do you light up a fag after smoking some dude's ass in BF2?

I thought squarejaw was straight? Uh, never mind.

[Aj_]

Meh, I seen this story on digg.com, and I remember using these arguments with my parents in the mid nineties because 1. it's common sense, 2. not the first study to do this. I don't think it's saying games are great, I think it is saying "Why are you demonizing games you stupid arseholes?".

[smashing]

I'm not so much in touch with cognition studies, though I probably could dig out some raw data on the hormones produced by stimulation during a gaming experience, which may "indicate" certain benefits or harm that gaming do (basic logic... if a equals b, and b equals c, then a should be the same as c).

From a personal point of view though, I'm in total agreement that games are good for you, as most games would broaden your knowledge sphere one way or another.

I could vividly remember one or two games that have introduced so many concepts that it'd led to the broadening of my knowledge. For example, I remember playing Civilisation when I was barely 13, and got acquainted to the idea of the differences between the different political system (which subsequently spurred me to read up on Lenin and Engel's communist manifesto, Mao's little red book, English civil war and Plato's republic amongst many others), the wonders of the world that nobody even bothered these days, as well as learning how to manage at different levels (micro and macro manage). I doubt any textbook could introduce that much at one sitting!