The Right Amount of "Challenge" In IT & Gaming

boyko.at.netqos writes "In an essay entitled 'An Epiphany I Had While Playing Pac-Man,' the author talks about how smart people need to find a certain amount of intellectual challenge from day to day. If they don't find it in their workplace, they'll end up playing complex, 'smart' games, like Civilization IV or Chess — and if they do find it in their workplace, they're more likely to sit down with a nice game of Pac-Man, Katamari Damacy, or Peggle. Quoting: 'When I look back on my life, and I compare the times in my life when I was playing simple games compared to the times in my life when I was playing complex ones, a pattern emerges. The more complexity and mental stimulation I was getting from other activities — usually my day job at the time — the less I needed mental stimulation in my free time. Conversely, in times when I was working boring jobs, I'd be playing games that required a lot of thinking and mental gymnastics.' The author then goes on to speculate that some IT workers might subconsciously be giving themselves more challenges by choosing to deal with difficult problems, rather than performing simple (but boring) preventative maintenance and proactive network management."

Comments

Games Are Boring

[curmudgeon99]

In general, I have found most games to be dull. I stopped watching TV in the 8th grade for the same reason. The most interesting of all? Write your own books.

Look at me!

[DNS-and-BIND]

Allow me to translate the summary:

Look at me! I'm so smart! I'm also a vapid hipster who plays Pac-Man for intellectual stimulation! I also think that games that are difficult to learn are only for smart people (like me!) The author goes on to speculate that there might be more people like him out there, but he's not sure, can any smart people in the audience post some confirmation in the comments?