Games As A Multitasking Aid?

Thanks to the MIT Technology Review for their article discussing the value of videogames in teaching multitasking skills. The opening paragraph posits: "Playing computer games doesn't shorten kids' attention spans - it helps them to manage competing demands in the new era of 'continuous partial attention.'", and goes on to suggest that "...much as earlier civilizations used play to sharpen their hunting skills, we use computer games to exercise and enhance our information processing capabilities", although the article's author, Dr.Henry Jenkins, warns that these new skills "...should not come at the expense of older forms of literacy."

Comments

Video Games made me smart!

[The_Listener_1985]

I love how video game skills can be applied to real life. Thanks to video games, when the enemy of the moment's invasion comes, I can multitask my ammunition, objectives and keep my health points in check while everyone else is left in a confused huddle at a save point.

Windows Gaming and the dreaded pop-up

[realdpk]

Definitely. Windows programmers like to *enforce* multitasking by way of focus. So you can be in 1st place in a race, doing really well after trying 5 or 10 times (Midnight Club II, heh, just happened to me), and then all of a sudden the whole thing goes away to pop up an IM window.

Why do Windows folk put up with this?

Appropriately timed article it seems ;)