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

depends

[Tirel]

.. which games you are playing. Sure, quake might be good for reflexes, but you don't exactly learn anything else. Baldur's gate 2 has great learning potential, especially if you play a solo mage. Simulations are great for teaching physics, etc.. I think most can be learnt from RPGs where you have enough freedom for bad choices to reflect in the game, fallout 2 was excellent in this.

But think about it for a second? What about other software? If a windows user installs unix, doesn't he (eventually) learn a shitload of beneficial things? Things not only intellectually stimulating, but also great if you're looking for a job, and it's fun too. My opinion is that for instance, learning linux (or any unix really) has more good effects than playing games, combined with todays internet information services (bookwarez;), who needs school?

Re:depends

[GiMP]

I think the point is that games like Quake teach you skills that are often learnt by hunters. These skills are that of remembering paths, solving puzzles, etc. I would not be surprised if playing Quake strenthened one's ability to learn and perform such tasks like programming or learning linux/unix.

Note that my references to Quake are in respect to the one, original Quake.. the versions 2 and 3 of Quake are wholy diffenent animals.

"exercise and enhance our information processing"

[Andy Smith]

we use computer games to exercise and enhance our information processing capabilities

No we don't. We use them for fun. Any enhancement of our "information processing" is an accidental bonus. There may be rare cases when specially written/selected games are used by carers to help people who are suffering from physical or mental problems. But games are never designed, marketed or purchased on the strength of how they might enhance our information processing.

Re:"exercise and enhance our information processin

[vaporakula]

You have a point in that it is never a deliberate thing (buying a game to "enhance our information processing"), but a lot of the "fun" you are talking about is about pushing our brains: where to best fit this L-block, learning the pattern of the spikes shooting out of the ground, how to stop the enemy from repairing their tank.

Its all about Situational Awareness, a concept the military has known about for a long, long time. Good games (the fun ones) are all about situational awareness: knowing the environment, the actions of other characters, the potential for your own character or moves. The more you know about what is happening in the game world around you, the better a player you can be. To improve in the games, we improve our situational awareness (information processing capabilities) within that game.

I wonder if there were any activities 100 years ago that demanded anything like the continuous attention to several different things at the same time as a modern RTS game (production status, resource gathering, unit health, enemy status, all in different places)? I'm sure there was, I just can't think of a decent example... either way, it is a good way to show how games are training people to do lots of very different tasks at the same time.

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 ;)

Female Gamers and Multitasking

[quinkin]

I agree with this article in general, but it is not only the management of the mutiple information streams that is learnt, but also management the of stress induced by this information "overload".

All of us have had the experience where we felt we should have been able to complete some task/race/frag/whatever but became "flustered" and hence failed to respond appropriately within the time constraints.

I had previously considered this exact subject as a contributing factor in the different percentages of game type usage between males and females. In particular with regards to the physiological differences in brain morphology between the sexes.

Women have a measurably larger corpus callosum and anterior commisure - both resposible for interconnecting hemispheres of the brain - and this has long been assumed to be the cause of the equally measurable advantage that women have over men in (non-spatial) multi-tasking.

I assume this would have an effect on exactly what, on average, representatives from each sex would find challenging or tedious in the contect of gaming.

I have wondered how much research the game production studios have put into these concepts. The game market is maturing very rapidly, and any companies that can effectively leverage this previously largely untapped audience will have a huge advantage over their competitors...

I would love to hear any feedback from women /. readers, especially any games that you really like/dislike.
(And before the "there are no women on /." posts start, my wife reads it so STFU).

Q.