In the TED talk presentation by Jane McGonigal brought up some interesting ideas regarding video game play by people. The 3 billion hours a week the world spends on playing video I feel like is a ridiculous amount. Even though the Jane feels like it is a good thing to play video games, I see it as a bad thing. I don’t like the idea of living a virtual life instead of real life. I believe that people need to get outside and interact with other real people. Playing a sport outside can be just as fun as in a video game. The whole idea about achieve that epic win is still present. I also feel that it is important to know that there are no do over in the real world, if some one fail they normally are unable to make up for their mistake.
I agree that people should spend time outside but I was incredibly interested by the TED talk because it brought up some really interesting points that I had never thought of before. People who play these games end up having to think very critically about each move and if they are trained to think critically about the worlds issues they could make a huge difference. I think that if there is more research about this issue we might be able to have people become experts at critically thinking about solutions to the worlds issues.
I too was really taken back by the amount of time people spend playing online games, and to think she wants people to spend even MORE time. I have always thought online games/video games were not the best use of time, but this video did highlight some advantages. Developing the idea of never giving up, and a work ethic are some examples. However, I still believe that you can develop those skills and greater, if your time was spent elsewhere. Lack of interaction I think is the most alarming to me. Speaking from experience, the people who spend most of their time ‘gaming’ lack social skills! I wrote my senior paper on media violence, and video games were a huge contributor. The virtual violence transfers into real like all to often. It would be a difficult job to convince me that people should spend more time playing video games.
I think your point about the epic win being translated to other areas of like, like a real-life sport where you can socially interact was a good point. In regards to what Krice says about the lack of social skills in gamers, I think this has real grounds. The social interaction between people playing a video game is very different than if you are in person. How can they put these skill that Jane thinks they learn through video games into use in the real world when they aren’t active in the real world but instead stuck in their game world? What I thought was interesting that Jane left out of her discussion is that not all of these interactions (here I am talking about how people can be connected via internet while playing video games through microphone pieces) are always positive, but instead they are trash taking each other or saying discouraging and rude comments. It is not a healthy social interaction, in my opinion, to aggressively trash talk a stranger or even a friend.
-Michelle
(Of course, all of my assumptions here do not apply to every gamer and are not meant to offend!)
Hi,
You said you think playing video games has bad effect to human beings. I don’t think so at the beginning, and after watching the TED video, I think I am more correct to this topic. We can be heroes, or bad men in the electronic world. Maybe someone play video games everyday. However, my friends and I just play games for releasing the pressure in the real life. I am not going to convince you that playing video games is good for us. Because I treat games as art, and art can be determined in different ways from different people with different culture.
—Houzhi