This is really interesting Rick. It wouldn't surprise me if my "old fart" perspective on video games is completely wrong! It might wire the brain for a type of quick thinking better than anything else.
Here is why I have the perspective that video games can have a negative influence on kids. I have a friend with a teenager who is a good student and athlete, but who spends hours each day playing a video game. Trying to limit use of it meets the same type of angry aggression you get from an addict about their fixation. On a beautiful day when she would like to have her son outside interacting with the world, or other people, he is glued to the game. It also continues long into the night. So that was one input for my perspective. She feels that is is limiting his social development. She is a special education teacher and her research is that it can be a problem at his level of involvement, but she feels powerless to limit it in any way. When he gets together with friends they all plug in and communication stops. I think there is some evidence that it is limiting his development of the communication skills he needs to hook up with chicks. But as I said he is a good student and athlete so who knows? >From my own experience as a musician I know that we only have time for a limited amount of skill acquisition in our lives. Same for athletic skill. I could never include video games in my day because it would take time away from skills that I need to constantly hone with my instruments. ( it might also limit the all important TV watching that I do!) So for all these thousands of hours kids spend playing these games, I can't help but think they are missing out on developing other skills. As a teen, when I would get together with friends, we would play instruments as well as have conversations while listening to music. Was it better? I don't know, but I do know that it was different from the style of plugged in interaction that passes for hanging out today. So are they gaining certain neuro-skills at the expense of language skills? More visual rather than auditory stimulation? Does this lead to a style of quick visual info-graphic style of thinking that misses important details that might be gained by more reading, where complex ideas have time to unfold? These are all fascinating questions and we will just have to see how it plays out. The kids are not giving up their games and they will continue to spend countless hours developing whatever it develops. Thanks for broadening my understanding of this topic, I would like to read more. --- In [email protected], Rick Archer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > From Ken Hassman > > For each of the twelve years I taught school (4th -6th grades, mostly > 6th grade) I regularly and unscientifically polled the students to get > an idea of their diets, the hours spent watching tv, time spent > engaging in physical activities, and how many hours per day they > played video games. Besides discovering how many kids put soda on > their breakfast cereal, I was always amazed to discover, each and > every year, that the top students in the class typically spent the > most hours playing video games. > > Then, not so long ago I read an article that talked about surgeons who > play 3 hours per week of video games made a lot less mistakes in > surgery. > http://www.usatoday.com/tech/news/2004-04-07-surgeons-video-games_x.ht > m > > Kenny H. > > > > > > tv watchin I -- In [email protected], Rick Archer > > <groups@> wrote: > >> > >> on 9/24/06 8:53 AM, curtisdeltablues at curtisdeltablues@ wrote: > >>> > >>> On the big negative side are those freak'n video games! Worse than > >>> any of the drug use of the 60's for soul crushing, mind numbing > >>> effect. (Now gramps is going to take my walker over to my cassette > >>> player to listen to some old blues so you kids keep that video > > game down!) > >>> > >> I thought that about my nephew, who spent his youth playing video > >> games, when I would have been outside in the fresh air having all > >> sorts of adventures. But he has become a gifted artist and just > >> graduated > > from a year > >> of animation school in Vancouver. He¹s full of ambition and has all > > sorts of > >> employment opportunities. May go to China in six months. So the > > video games > >> didn¹t rot his brain. > >> > > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > Rick Archer > SearchSummit > 1108 South B Street > Fairfield, IA 52556 > Phone: 641-472-9336 > Fax: 815-572-5842 > Skype: Rick_Archer > http://searchsummit.com > [EMAIL PROTECTED] > > > > > ------ End of Forwarded Message > To subscribe, send a message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Or go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/FairfieldLife/ and click 'Join This Group!' Yahoo! 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