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Title: Are video games improving children's IQ? Post by: Graham on August 24, 2007, 10:53:45 AM
BBC Newsnight recently ran a feature examining how video games and other aspects of youth culture may be improving IQ scores. The programme examines the fact that the IQ of children in rich countries have been increasing by 3 IQ points every decade since the 1950's and looks at the possible reasons. One of the interviewees, Steven Berlin Johnson (http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/), argues that modern gaming technology presents learners with abstract problem solving, finding information and adapting to different interfaces. All skills required for the 21st Century. See the BBC clip here (http://news.bbc.co.uk/player/nol/newsid_6950000/newsid_6959600/6959630.stm?bw=bb&mp=wm&news=1&ms3=6). I'm a fan of Johnson's work after he wrote the book "Everything Bad is Good for You (http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/0141018682?ie=UTF8&tag=handheldlearn-21&linkCode=as2&camp=1634&creative=6738&creativeASIN=0141018682)". There's a particular extract I like where he compares video games to books:
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"Imagine an alternate world identical to ours save one techno-historical change: videogames were invented and popularized before books. In this parallel universe, kids have been playing games for centuries 末 and then these page-bound texts come along and suddenly they're all the rage. What would the teachers, and the parents, and the cultural authorities have to say about this frenzy of reading? I suspect it would sound something like this: Reading books chronically under-stimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying 末 which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements 末 books are simply a barren string of words on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices. Books are also tragically isolating. While games have for many years engaged the young in complex social relationships with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off from interaction with other children. These new 'libraries' that have arisen in recent years to facilitate reading activities are a frightening sight: dozens of young children, normally so vivacious and socially interactive, sitting alone in cubicles, reading silently, oblivious to their peers. Many children enjoy reading books, of course, and no doubt some of the flights of fancy conveyed by reading have their escapist merits. But for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory. The reading craze of recent years cruelly taunts the 10 million Americans who suffer from dyslexia 末 a condition didn't even exist as a condition until printed text came along to stigmatize its sufferers. But perhaps the most dangerous property of these books is the fact that they follow a fixed linear path. You can't control their narratives in any fashion 末 you simply sit back and have the story dictated to you. For those of us raised on interactive narratives, this property may seem astonishing. Why would anyone want to embark on an adventure utterly choreographed by another person? But today's generation embarks on such adventures millions of times a day. This risks instilling a general passivity in our children, making them feel as though they're powerless to change their circumstances. Reading is not an active, participatory process; it's a submissive one. The book readers of the younger generation are learning to 'follow the plot' instead of learning to lead." Update: Steven Johnson's keynote at Handheld Learning 2008 http://blip.tv/file/get/Grahambm-HandheldLearning2008StevenJohnson795.flv (http://blip.tv/file/get/Grahambm-HandheldLearning2008StevenJohnson795.flv) |