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Up, Up, Down, Down: Part Three
Younger Americans are used to being denounced as ignorant, violent, obsessive, even uncivilized. Increasingly, they don't care; they've stopped paying attention. Involvement in gaming can be seen as both manifestation and cause this schism, a profoundly significant force in culture and society. Gaming has affected almost everyone who grew up with it -- which is to say, just about half of the country.
Adults may quake at the transformation, but kids are completely at home with the joystick, the key to a new kind of civilization. "They take the powerful sensory presence and participatory formats of digital media for granted. They are impatient to see what comes next," writes Janet Murry of MIT.
How is the influence of gamers showing up in society? Hardly anyone has studed that systematically, but a decade of e-mailing, talking with, teaching, visiting and working with gamers has given me some impressions.
We know something about gamers. They're quick decision-makers, sometimes to the point of impulsiveness. Since their virtual lives depend on fast reactions, their real-life decision making processes become visceral, instinctive. Wishy-washy gamers are unsuccessful gamers, so gamers make a lot of quick decisions and feel confident about them. Therefore, gamers grow impatient when real world institutions and situations plod cluelessly along. Delayed decisions are costly.
Social stereotypes aside, gamers are team players, not loners. They may sit along at their consoles, but ultimately few game alone. They share strategies, tricks and accumulated wisdom on sites all over the Web. They learn to work in pairs and groups, anticipating their teammates' or partners' reactions, learning how to move, build, create and hunt in groups and packs, often with total strangers. When they do game with people they know, they can form powerful social bonds; they came to know their friends' intellects and instincts in unusual depth. (Check out this UC Berkeley study of Sims users.)
Gamers become strategic thinkers. Their imaginations have been continuously stretched. In the same way that chess players learn to think many moves ahead, gamers are always anticipating the games, their moves, and the moves of their teammates and opponents, virtual and human. In a way, gamers are more battle-tested in their decision-making than most people get to be.
And gamers are bringing much of what they've learned to the workplace:
Gareth e-mailed this message after Part One of "Up, Down ... appeared: ".. gaming has also inspired me to take ideas to the software engineers within [my] company. There are several increidle advances in game technology that could be directly applied to the corporate environment. For instance MMORPG's (Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Games) have provided a system where people can virtualy interact while still mainting the visual cues that are required for large converstations to take place. This is a key component missing from the standard audio conferencing that occurs in the workplace. Visual cues are absolutely important for maintaining a sense of order during meetings, it prevents the vocal 'free for all' that occurs otherwise."
It seems inevitable that similiar kinds of ideas will be brought by gamers to educational environments, perhaps even politics.
Gamers are story-tellers. They inhabit increasingly imaginative virtual environments; they spent a substantial portion of their formative years interacting with stories, graphics and representations on screens that nearly become part of their neural systems. They are always telling tales, to one another and to themselves. In the mid-1990's computing power had become cheap enough so that companies like Silicon Graphics could build enormously powerful machines devoted to computer simulations, including their Reality Engine, which began to approach the long sought figure of 80 million polygons a second. Like the PS 2, the Reality Engine turned out to have a powerful impact on gaming and virtual reality.
Finally, gamers are smart. Again like chess players -- except that many video games are more complex -- gamers are often mentally over-stimulated. They can grow tense, keyed-up and narcissistic. They can also become obsessive (and yes, irritable) from focusing so intently on a narrative, character or conflict. Needless to say, they're competitive, as well as resourceful and extremely determined. Successful gaming requires a level of patience and commitment rarely associated with entertainment or, for that matter, education.
Kids of this generation will be different from any that has preceded them. But whether they will able to bridge the generational chasm that separated them from their elders, whether they apply their strategic thinking, creativity and problem-solving skills to our broken educational and political systems -- it's too soon to say.
The computer is the most powerful representational medium ever conceived. Seers like Murray have argued that computing should be put to the highest tasks of society. We know that gamers are the new prophets and story-tellers of society, that gaming is approaching a universal generational experience. So gamers are important. It seems clear that the future is in their hands.
Chill dude.
Fact is the more you play (with words, with toys, with props, with yourself,) the smarter you are because play is learning.
Gifted children are recognizable as gifted adults because the one who managed to survive the educational system still exhibit almost childish delight in learning. New sh*t is "kewl".
Sadly, (for them,) a lot of people young or old, feel that play isn't worthwhile or take their play entirely too seriously to gain any cognitive benefit.
It becomes rote, repetition and drill instead of wonder and enlightenment. And they become Republicans or merely anal-retentive.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
It reads as if a gamer wrote it. One who is a team player that shares strategies or cheats with others, not a loner who figures out the game on her own. Apparently writtein by one who assumes that all gamers are like themselves.
Well, I think its prone to be a little of both, no?
Let's start with selection bias. I think if you have a game that requires fast spatial manipulations and logical problem solving, people who just aren't good at that sort of thing aren't going to get hooked -- there has to be a balance between effort and reward.
On the other hand, you can improve abilities by practice, and this certainly can improve your ability to perform on tests. I recently have begun to study fine art when I realized my GUIs and web pages really sucked aesthetically. I don't know yet whether its going to make me a better designer, but I definitely can see things in dimensions I did not before, and expect that I will be able to use these new abilities in my work.
Taking the practice makes perfect position to its absurd extreme, if you measured spatial and logical reasoning using the game as a test, clearly practicing on the game would make you operationally "smarter". To the degree that IQ tests measure skills that are in common with the games, then it seems to me that your IQ scores will very likely rise when you play games repeatedly.
That this will make gamers more effective people seems rather unlikely to me. I think that people who will be the visionaries and leaders will take skills they learn from the games and put them to good use, but that they probably have done the same from ham radio, team sports, etc. Maybe Winston Churchill would have been a gamer -- probably would have been given what I've read of him -- he liked guns and danger, and had a highly addictive personality. He might even have attributed his leadership to what he learned in Quake; except we know he managed to become what he was without computer games.
Perhaps a more interesting question is how the leaders and visionaries of tommorow are going to be different because of their exposure to games.
By the way, Jon, I was a bit harsh; I think you're raising some interesting questions, its just that the way you express yourself can get so breathlessly utopian it cries out for counterpoint.
Gaming, it seems to me, would have at least as much impact on a mind as chess or othe pursuits society deems worthwhile.
Probably so, but my point is to hell with society. Getting back to my martial arts analogy, I do find spiritual values in my martial art, but only when I am not looking for them. The pursuit of spirital development for its own sake is full of pitfalls -- self delusion and wishful thinking. I believe the true path is to do a thing that is hard for its own sake, even if it may be frowned upon or perhaps be a bit "bad" for you.
Likewise, I think its futile to think that any program can turn a person into leader, make him creative. You train faculties that they will need -- a capacity for independence, the ability to work with others, a good database of factual, practical and aesthetic knowledge. Then you have to let nature take its course.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Jon says, "We know that gamers are the new prophets and story-tellers of society, that gaming is approaching a universal generational experience. So gamers are important. It seems clear that the future is in their hands."
/.er's heart, but this sort of connection is ridiculous. Game designers are no more important to society than Gygax, or the guy who invented monopoly.
Can anybody thing of any other universal generational experiences? I know I can - and ones that are far more universal. But no one ever equates them with the future of society.
I mean, what about books? what about TV? what about mass-brand shops?
I'd be more likely to pay attention to a thesis on the power of the universal Starbucks experience, or the way half the under-twelves of the Western World have all read Harry Potter, or how every one in the UK can sing the theme tune to the Bodyform advert despite the fact it hasn't run on TV for three years.
I know computer games are close to many
what are these "books" you speak of?- -------
can you use them to kill things with?
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There are some odd things afoot now, in the Villa Straylight.
Wow, actually got a response, maybe we can have an interesting conversation. :)
;)
Concerned parents who take an active interested in their children's wellbeing and letting them only watch Mary Poppins don't exactly go hand-in-hand.
Yes, I do believe nowadays that crappy parenting is a problem. Neglect is a problem.
No, I don't have any children. And I'm glad I don't, and I'm not going to have any for some time now because I know I'm not suitable for being a parent at the age of 21.
Let me see here, out of about 10 of my close friends, 8 of them are married. 6 of them have kids. 4 of them have more than one kid. And NONE of them are above the age of 23.
I'm sure that you want the absolute best for your kids, and I'm not questioning that, I'm simply questioning what's the best way to go about it?
I do believe that it's extremely important for kids to find out for themselves what is right and wrong, what they should do and what they shouldn't. And I also believe it is extremely important for kids to be respected. It's also extremely important for them to respect you.
I don't think that sheltering your kids from TV or society in general is the way to go about it.
I respect my parents, I love em, I think I had the greatest upbringing. I have respect for just about every individual I run across. I'm generally a nice guy.
It really disgusts me to run across kids who have lived a really sheltered life. In general, they are more shy, they don't have fun with the other kids, and they are generally confused most of the time.
Case in point, my cousin Mason. I'm the oldest in my family, and I have around 30 cousins. Mason is around 13 years old now. His parents are the sort that don't have cable on their TV, they don't have a computer, they don't have any video games. They generally try to keep the rest of society out of their children's lives.
Now, when we all meet for family gatherings, he never plays with the other kids his age. In fact, he doesn't play with any of the other kids. He's extremely shy, he doesn't talk to people, he generally stays by himself. Same goes with his sister Tracie.
I mean, I really do think it is important for kids to be respected by their peers and by other people. And I think it's important that they have respect for you.
I hope to be a great parent one of these days, whenever I'm through with being a kid.
Mike
"I would kill everyone in this room for a drop of sweet beer."
The kids who spend 0 minutes playing them are usually motivated by other things, such as reality. THESE are the kids who will run the world. They're the ones who have learned the necessary social and leadership skills. The kids who spend x*6 minutes playing the games will spend the next 40 years of their lives shoveling the 21st century equivalent of coal, mad at the unfairness of the world that lets "suits" who make all the money.
Sure, these are rather extreme viewpoints. Certainly there are good, smart kids who play video games, and there are also slugs who probably aren't smart enough to figure out video games. As a matter of fact, other than in the extreme cases, I suspect that video game experience doesn't relate to real life at all. But the kids who get no exposure to life outside of a PlayStation are quite ill prepared to be kicked out of Mommy & Daddy's basement. Don't raise them up on some kind of virtual pedestal -- you're looking in the wrong direction.
John
John
Now, I don't game, so I can't really say much about this. But I sure as hell don't know any women who look like Lara or Johanna Dark in real life. And I am not sure that adult fantasy figures are a good thing for young minds. Just a thought.
This is another view of the world.
Jon that average does not mean that every child in America plays videogames for 49 minutes a day and that some play longer. That average includes all the children who do not play at all along with the children like mine who get a couple of hours a night (I think it is better than TV in many ways) So your implication at the start of this is just wrong. No I did not read the whole thing but that put me off so I just had to reply.
Cypherpunks: Civil Liberty Through Complex Mathematics. Those who live by the sword die by the arrow.
Here's a bit of my own, totally non-scientific, research:
Kids don't care if the games are full of the latest 3D-mega-graphic technologies or not. The games I've seen kids play are very often old platform games on the Nintendo emulator (the old 8 bit NES). OK, the graphics and sound aren't up to par with the newest games, but the gameplay keeps the kids involved for hours and hours, month after month.
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Gamers are the new artists, visionaries, and story-tellers of our time, sparked by astonishingly inventive new technologies like the PS 2. Ready or not, they will become increasingly influential.
Bah. Sounds way to serious to me to be fun.
This is just like the cant you get from athletic "supporters" about football turning kids into leaders.
My hobby is martial arts, and we're totally infected by the ego tripping idea that just participating makes us better/more spiritual/more disciplined people. The fact is that plenty of us are short sighted, mean spirited and impulsive. The really important things -- leadership, creativity, spiritual development don't come from our hobbies -- they're more a matter of character. Sure there are a rare few in the martial arts world who do find a kind of transcendence in the practice, but I expect that it has more to do with who they are than anything else. Perhaps they'd find a kind of spiritual transcendence in philately. Frankly these people aren't the crashing bores who are droning on and on about their terrific spiritual development or superhuman discipline.
I expect that there's been too much hype about how video games rot your brain and degrade your morals. The answer to that isn't counterhype, just the recognition that sometimes you just need to have some fun, even if it isn't completely wholesome. I'm not going to stop eating chocolate because it has saturated fats and refined sugar, I just don't make it my total diet.
Freud said sometimes a cigar is just a cigar; sometimes a game is just a game. Even nascent ubermen to be need to take a break now and then.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
Uh, no. Game developers are, maybe. And I'll include gamers who make levels or skins. But players? They're at best the new audience for artists and story-tellers.
Anyone else get the impression that Slashdot now functions largely as a self-esteem booster for teenagers? First, everyone here was made out to be an "open-source hacker". As the site filled with readers who can't compile, let alone code, everyone with a Red Hat CD he may or may not have installed became a "member of The Community".
Then the Columbine stuff drew a crowd that a) couldn't care less about Linux and b) craves flattery even more than the old gang did. Jon Katz steps forward with article after article about how Napster kiddiez, game console owners and pompous, disgruntled teenagers are "geeks", "visionaries", "artists", "revolutionaries"...
Come on, kids. If you're not willing to go outdoors or to talk to girls, at least learn to use your computer. Read this largely unnoticed Ask Slashdot and see what being a geek is really about.