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juliecinci
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This article from Wired Magazine is just amazing. I am enjoying the excerpts I include here because I love that they validate what so many of us would limit because we are suspicious of that games are wasted brain energy.
The strange thing is that my kids are amazingly adept at problem solving (from VCR, DVR, cell phones, computer settings, board games, math puzzles, learning new software, operating machines, reading maps, rudimentary study of languages and so on). I had often assumed that computer literacy helped these skills but I hadn't really considered the fact that video gaming may have an even more potent effect on the brain.
Check it out:
Twenty-three years ago, an American philosophy professor named James Flynn discovered a remarkable trend: Average IQ scores in every industrialized country on the planet had been increasing steadily for decades. Despite concerns about the dumbing-down of society - the failing schools, the garbage on TV, the decline of reading - the overall population was getting smarter. And the climb has continued, with more recent studies showing that the rate of IQ increase is accelerating. Next to global warming and Moore's law, the so-called Flynn effect may be the most revealing line on the increasingly crowded chart of modern life - and it's an especially hopeful one. We still have plenty of problems to solve, but at least there's one consolation: Our brains are getting better at problem-solving.
Dickens and Flynn showed that the environment could affect heritable traits like IQ, but one mystery remained: What part of our allegedly dumbed-down environment is making us smarter? It's not schools, since the tests that measure education-driven skills haven't shown the same steady gains. It's not nutrition - general improvement in diet leveled off in most industrialized countries shortly after World War II, just as the Flynn effect was accelerating.
Most cognitive scholars remain genuinely perplexed. "I find it a puzzle and don't have a compelling explanation," wrote Harvard's Steven Pinker in an email exchange. "I suspect that it's either practice at taking tests or perhaps a large number of disparate factors that add up to the linear trend."
Flynn has his theories, though they're still speculative. "For a long time it bothered me that g was going up without an across-the-board increase in other tests," he says. If g measured general intelligence, then a long-term increase should trickle over into other subtests. "And then I realized that society has priorities. Let's say we're too cheap to hire good high school math teachers. So while we may want to improve arithmetical reasoning skills, we just don't. On the other hand, with smaller families, more leisure, and more energy to use leisure for cognitively demanding pursuits, we may improve - without realizing it - on-the-spot problem-solving, like you see with Ravens."
When you take the Ravens test, you're confronted with a series of visual grids, each containing a mix of shapes that seem vaguely related to one another. Each grid contains a missing shape; to answer the implicit question posed by the test, you need to pick the correct missing shape from a selection of eight possibilities. To "solve" these puzzles, in other words, you have to scrutinize a changing set of icons, looking for unusual patterns and correlations among them.
This is not the kind of thinking that happens when you read a book or have a conversation with someone or take a history exam. But it is precisely the kind of mental work you do when you, say, struggle to program a VCR or master the interface on your new cell phone.
Over the last 50 years, we've had to cope with an explosion of media, technologies, and interfaces, from the TV clicker to the World Wide Web. And every new form of visual media - interactive visual media in particular - poses an implicit challenge to our brains: We have to work through the logic of the new interface, follow clues, sense relationships. Perhaps unsurprisingly, these are the very skills that the Ravens tests measure - you survey a field of visual icons and look for unusual patterns.
The best example of brain-boosting media may be videogames. Mastering visual puzzles is the whole point of the exercise - whether it's the spatial geometry of Tetris, the engineering riddles of Myst, or the urban mapping of Grand Theft Auto.
The ultimate test of the "cognitively demanding leisure" hypothesis may come in the next few years, as the generation raised on hypertext and massively complex game worlds starts taking adult IQ tests. This is a generation of kids who, in many cases, learned to puzzle through the visual patterns of graphic interfaces before they learned to read. Their fundamental intellectual powers weren't shaped only by coping with words on a page. They acquired an intuitive understanding of shapes and environments, all of them laced with patterns that can be detected if you think hard enough. Their parents may have enhanced their fluid intelligence by playing Tetris or learning the visual grammar of TV advertising. But that's child's play compared with Pokémon.
Wired magazine
Isn't this something?
Julie
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Cindy
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Ooh.. Julie! My boys are gonna love this article! 
Thanks for sending it on. Amazing. I agree with the problem solving aspects. It really gets interesting when the kids start wanting to program as well. They are doing logic level stuff I did in college!
I also read an article a while back that said many kids that go to public school are told what to do all day and rarely get any decision-making experience. But, then they GET HOME from school and start playing video games and that is where they start learning the logic, etc! 
I have been involved with most of the games my boys play and see there is a tremendous amount of logic and problem solving invovled. I see it translated to daily life, as you mentioned.
We have also used video and computer games to teach self-management. Many games are built to create the need to get to that 'next level' so there is an incentive to keep playing... great opportunity to help discern when 'enough is enough' and how to self regulate. A skill that will be valuable for life, I think. Many adults still struggle with that... hopefully we can work on it now!
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Willa
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Hi Julie and Cindy,
Great topic. My DH is a computer game programmer so I'm invested in it, I guess!
I wanted to ask a question about video game use in homes where use is not limited. Does it tend to taper off? DO the kids find other things to do with their time?
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momwise
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Willa,
I have a 13 yo ds who really wants to learn game programming. Is there a how-to book for kids his age? Where should he start? Thanks for any info you can suggest.
Come Holy Spirit!!
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Cindy
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momwise wrote:
Willa,
I have a 13 yo ds who really wants to learn game programming. Is there a how-to book for kids his age? Where should he start? Thanks for any info you can suggest.
Come Holy Spirit!!
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Hi Gwen!
I'm not Willa.. and hope she posts some ideas.. but here are some resources that worked well for us.
Game Programming for Teens by Maneesh Sethi
He was a teen when he wrote it and it includes a CD with a simplified programming language (Blitz Basic) to use to learn how to program. My boys took the book (they were 10 and 13 at the time) and taught themselves to program.
I found it at Barnes and Noble (and got my 20% teacher discount) I bet it is available on line, too. The list price is $29.99 which is much cheaper than the full blown programming languages were were looking into.... I wasn't ready to make that committment...
If you have a PSII, I highly recommend the RPG Maker 2. It is by Agetec designer sereis. It is about $50.00 My boys have just loved this. You do not do the line by line coding that the previous book teaches, but all the logic of programming is there. You can design characters, dungeons, bosses, a town, building, events, weather etc.- basically all RPG elements possible into a computer game. When you are finished you have a whole adveture game you can go through and 'events' happen and you character has to figure out the scenarios you have set up.
To program, you have to do if/then statements, create events, set flags, test, etc. Having a background in some logic management, I see it all included here.
And, if you are the lucky mom, you get to test the final game! I just can't get the hand eye coordination down well...
Hope this helps!
Cindy
(my boys consulted on this post.. if you have any more detailed questions, please let me know and I will pass them on... they love being consulted...:D )
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tovlo4801
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Cindy,
Thanks for the information!
I have another question. My dh and I have decided to break down and purchase a gaming system. My oldest ds spends every afternoon at the neighbor's house playing games because we don't have anything besides the OLD Nintendo's and Sega's from my dh's college years. We've been trying to sell the idea of anique gaming  to our kids and their friends, but they're not buying it.  We're thinking we'll just invest in a system to try to bring the party where we can have a little more control over it. Any suggestions on what the best system is, and what some good games are?
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Elizabeth
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WJFR wrote:
I wanted to ask a question about video game use in homes where use is not limited. Does it tend to taper off? DO the kids find other things to do with their time? |
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In my limited experience, no. Every time I have tried this approach, it's led to uninterrupted hours of gaming with no break for anything at all, even the bathroom. Doesn't work here  ;we impose strict limits on time.
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juliecinci
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We don't control it. We did for years (very tight controls). I wouldn't even buy a gamecube, X Box or Nintendo 64 (that old thing) for years. Finally my husband wanted one to play with the boys so I said okay. About that time, we really changed our home format to a much more relaxed, unschooling atmosphere so we stopped controlling media. It took about two years for two of my boys to self-regulate (they play when they are interested for long stretches and then sometimes go as long as a week without playing at all). My other son continues to play long hours daily. It's his primary passion.
Julie
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Elizabeth
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juliecinci wrote:
My other son continues to play long hours daily. It's his primary passion.
Julie |
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Julie,
So much of the research attributes negative effects to too much screen time.Does that worry you? I'm thinking about Failure to Connect. My new teenager stands while he plays and jumps most of the time. His face flushes; he inhales the scenario and he literally has been known to skip meals and bathroom breaks.He's playing sports games or Star Wars games. It's a passion but is it an altogether healthy one? Perhaps he would self-regulate eventually but I'm afraid his childhood would have passed him by by then. I wonder aobut all the things he's not doing when he's playing games. My dh finally self-regulated, somewhere around 30, I think it was. I remember asking my parents for an Intelevision in high school. I never played it but it sure got Mike to my house frequently and it kept him there .
I do place limits on it. I insist it be turned off and I make Christian go out to play. Once he steps away, I think he's glad for the break.
This article is really interesting. I can't wait to share it with my husband. His interest in video games (particularly sports video games) and irl sports and television have led to a very succesful career producing and directing live sports. When he's in a production truck, it's very much like creating a video game--I guess, depending on semantics, it IS producing a video game. I'll be curious to hear what he thinks of the article. But that will have to wait, because he's in one of those trucks in a stadium in LA, as we speak. Sure seems a far cry from the Classical Education thread I just finished catching up on! What say you, Willa How do the classic and technology co-exist in your house?
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momwise
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Thanks a lot Cindy....and thank your boys too. I think we'll try to get Maneesh Sethi's book. I haven't had any luck at the libraries on this topic.
Come Holy Spirit!!
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"If you want equal justice for all and true freedom and lasting peace, then America, defend life." JPII
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Willa
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Elizabeth, I read Failure to Connect a few years back and was under-impressed. I can't remember the details but for one thing, it was talking mostly about "educational" games and saying that these usually didn't have the educational benefits that one would hope for. It was talking about school computer labs and saying how the kids learn how to just push buttons to get the most fun reactions, and so on, which is probably quite true.
That reminded me of John Holt's story about how schoolkids were given a sort of primitive quiz electronic game which lit up when you got the "right answer"... after a few minutes the kids were bored with that and trying to figure out how it worked, putting in their own silly questions, etc. Classic example of humans not cooperating with being programmed like rats.
But the book didn't deal with "pure games" which my dh and kids would say are better qualitatively and more truly educational than the usually poor quality, twaddly edutainment. That article that I can't seem to find online made somewhat the same point.
On the other hand those games are also usually far more addictive than the silly educational ones. I think the article I read said that "addictive" wasn't really the right word and spoke about the intellectual and motor challenge being very absorbing and congenial especially to some kids. Hmm, I don't know. I have kids who displayed similar symptoms to yours -- my 9yo gets so grouchy when he's played too long! -- and it does concern me a bit.
About how the classics and technology co-exist in my house.... well....  As in marriage, I suppose. DH is much more unschooling & learning from life than I am, and also more technology-oriented. When we talk about childhood classic literature, he's always seen the movie and I've always read the book! I think the latter is better! ANd many of our first dates in college were to the local video arcade, so I can relate to your story about DH! I don't want to be too negative about the good things in video games, because I respect him and he can still out-think me -- his video experience hasn't rotted his brain...
I know that Jane Healy's concern with electronic media is that it develops brains differently than a verbal, literary formation does. I do worry about that .... but my solution is Both.... And.... in some ways, I do think that kids are likely to need to use those visual IQ skills in most career paths open to them nowadays.
I believe I'm rambling and better go. Gwen, I'm glad Cindy spoke up. My oldest learned programming from editing "cogs" for games and just from trial and error. My others don't really program yet or show much interest.
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Elizabeth
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Willa, do you impose external limits or not? Christian is hanging on your response
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Elizabeth
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WJFR wrote:
I know that Jane Healy's concern with electronic media is that it develops brains differently than a verbal, literary formation does. I do worry about that .... but my solution is Both.... And.... in some ways, I do think that kids are likely to need to use those visual IQ skills in most career paths open to them nowadays.
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I have concerns about that and I also have serious concerns about physical skill development. The neighbors behind me had a party recently. It was an outdoor party and there were badminton nets set up and other things to entice children to play. They have two sons, ten and twelve. About half way through the afternoon, I looked out my back window and wondered what kind of party it was. The only children in evidence were all under four. My kids were out in our yard so I wandered out and asked them what was up in the yard behind us. They said the little kids were outside but all the bigger kids were inside. One child was playing Playstation and all the rest were watching him. This is a pretty typical afternoon on this block...seems a sad way to spend a childhood...When these same children are invited to play in the yard, they can't keep up. There is something appealing to me about a child who is physically fit and able to run and play and master his body. I do think that hours in front of the screen inhibits this kind of development.
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Elizabeth Foss is no longer a member of this forum. Discussions now reflect the current management & are not necessarily expressions of her book, *Real Learning*, her current work, or her philosophy. (posted by E. Foss, Jan 2011)
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Willa
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Elizabeth wrote:
| Willa, do you impose external limits or not? Christian is hanging on your response |
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Elizabeth,
I do 
Presently I confine video game use to twice a week after lessons and chores are done. It adds up to 4-5 hours each of the two days. They occasionally watch movies with their dad, another 5 hours or so per week. So it adds up to around that 2 hour a day recommended average for screen time, plus a bit more sometimes.
I am contemplating summer and how much unschooling I am comfortable with so that's why I asked. Presently my 9 year old is the one who always asks for more, more, more time -- the other kids would probably be able to fit a space in their lives for games and still leave time for other things. I am not so sure about this child, who also seems to have excessive attachments to other things, like soft drinks. I like your idea of asking him to take some breaks at least and may try to see how that goes.
Now, does Christian want me to ask my dh what HE would allow if he were the primary caretaker?? I'm sure it would be a little more relaxed
What do you all do? D'you set limits, as unschoolers or part unschoolers? Is it a parenting issue or intellectual one? When I was looking for the link for that elusive article on google, I found several articles by unschoolers on the benefits of unrestricted game playing.... very interesting. I do notice that most serious gamers are fairly intelligent people on the spectrum of things. I know quite a few of them. But I wonder if there's a "type" that uses gaming as an escape from real life relationships -- that "Failure to Connect" though if there were no computers they would probably find something else.
Also, my oldest gave up computer games when he turned 17 or so -- he had been phasing from games to programming throughout his teenage years and then he just quit the games altogether. So I guess he is one of those that self-regulated in the long run. If he goes back to moderate games, which his dad did when it became a job to him and less fun , he probably won't play much.
TAC lets game systems in the dorms but not internet or TV .
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Willa
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Cindy
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Hi Richelle-
About recommended games:
My sons wrote a website with reviews of their favorite games, which would probably give more info than me typing up just a list. The links need work.. so I will either post that site, or if they don't get it back up soon, will give a list of their favorites. Thanks for asking!
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tovlo4801
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Cindy,
I'm looking forward to it...
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BrendaPeter
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Hi everyone!
Does anyone have any experience with "Terrapin Logo" for programming which Timberdoodle sells?
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Patty
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I guess I'm old-fashioned...no Gameboys, no Playstation, and only an ancient Nintendo my son got in a trade with another kid. My kids do occasionally play PC games.
I've been turned off computer games by watching how it has affected one of my nephews, the oldest of three boys. We spent Thanksgiving at their house and although they live in a beautiful country setting with lots of space to play, this boy spent most of his waking hours in front of the TV playing video games. They did watch one movie. His dad finally insisted he go outside...and he did for five minutes. Then it was back to the tube.
We kept our three nephews once when their parents went on a trip. We took all the kids camping at a lake. The oldest nephew brought his Game Boy which he played in the car and at the camp site. The other kids were going on a nature walk, and my dh insisted that this boy go with them. Then he put the Game Boy away in the Suburban.
Maybe we are way behind the times, but I'd much rather have my kids playing the old-fashioned way, and reading good books. Don't they still learn those problem solving skills from Legos, K'nex, soccer, and how to get along with their siblings?
Patty
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juliecinci
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Not much time and I only skimmed recent posts.
Elizabeth asked if I'm concerned about the effects of too much screen time for my one son.
I took time to evaluate and catalog how he spends his time. Because we have five kids, no one can be on the computer/X Box/TV all the time anyway. But my son will have a four hour turn without blinking an eye.
I've noticed that since he had control over when he played (within the natural limit of other kids who also play - they sign up for two hour blocks), he is much more likely to do things with the rest of his time that turn out to be valuable. When we had limits, he spent the time in between turns depressed and wandering. He didn't actually fill up his time with other things. He became easily frustrated by interruptions when on the games, he seemed more addicted (as in nervous, easily riled, oblivious to his physical needs while playing) when we were controlling game time.
Initially when the controls came off, he played a lot and had some of those same reactions to interruptions. But once he really knew that he had control (which took some months), he is actually much more able to play, stop for a reading time, go on a walk, come back, play some more, get to a stopping place on the game, save it and go for a bike ride etc.
For us (and I emphasize that this is just our family - I don't know other kids and their personalities), some of the kinds of behaviors that are flagged as the result of screen time came when that screen time was restricted. They binged or snuck more time and became territorial and possessive and appeared obsessed.
Since they have had freedom to use it as they wished, they just don't fight about it (hardly ever at all) and are more able to leave it when asked to for some other family oriented activity.
But as I said, the process of changing to freedom of access took about two years to see the full fruit of it.
I have done my own research, as well, and feel that what we see currently is in-conclusive. There is a lot of information on both sides (even what I posted in this thread) that is not yet confirmed. It's too early in the technology to tell, I guess.
But I remember the dire predictions about TV too and I was raised on tons of TV. But I don't even wear glasses yet!
Julie
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Willa
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Julie,
My ds -16 showed me this article in our local newspaper, and I thought of you!
Game skills pay off in real life
RESEARCH FINDS BENEFITS OF VIDEO GAMES IN UNEXPECTED AREAS
By Mike Antonucci
Mercury News
At the Charles Schwab company's call-center headquarters in Phoenix, human resources vice president Chip Luman has learned a secret about financial services technology and the employees who operate it:
Video-game players often display exceptional business skills.
``The people who play games are into technology, can handle more information, can synthesize more complex data, solve operational design problems, lead change and bring organizations through change,'' said Luman, 38.
Luman is among a host of professionals -- in fields including business, medicine and education -- who have noticed a surprising number of social benefits from the increasing time that Americans are spending with ``Super Mario,'' ``Rise of Nations'' and ``The Sims.''
Moreover, almost all the games they cite are mainstream hits from an industry that often is vilified as brainless and exploitative. Some of the games that have the most positive potential are either famously controversial or rated Mature because of violent or provocative content.
The industry heads into its annual convention next week -- E3, the Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles -- as anti-game forces in numerous states are pushing for governmental intervention. In California, for example, the Assembly is preparing to vote on a bill that would prohibit the sale of certain violent games to anyone under 17.
But at the same time there's a growing wave of research and firsthand reports about children, parents, workers, corporations and even medical patients experiencing notable benefits from computer or video games. There's also a push to change the mindset of people who dismiss video games as dangerous or worthless.
``I'm extremely interested in scientific validation of gaming for good,'' said Dr. James Rosser, director of the Advanced Medical Technology Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City.
Rosser, also the director of minimally invasive surgery, is a gamer who oversaw research indicating that surgeons adept at video games were less likely to make mistakes during certain forms of operations and suturing. The study, which used games that included sniper shooting (``Silent Scope'') and futuristic racing (``Star Wars Racer Revenge''), generated major publicity for games as possible teaching tools.
The potential teaching value is a key area of research for linguistics professor James Paul Gee at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Gee has studied a wide range of games, including ``Deus Ex,'' ``The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind,'' the ``Splinter Cell'' series, ``Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando'' and ``Fable.'' He concluded that numerous popular games, including many with a Mature rating, are designed with cutting-edge teaching principles that could be adapted for schoolwork or employee training.
For instance, Gee noted that some games, such as the historical-strategy game ``Rise of Nations,'' can be partly customized to suit each player. In choosing different ways to play, the gamer learns how to succeed in whatever manner is best for him or her personally.
But he also believes that some may have inherent educational value, including the seemingly lightweight ``Pokémon'' and ``Yu-Gi-Oh!'' video games. Those games, said Gee, feature such intricate jargon that children who are encouraged to discuss them can build crucial vocabulary skills.
``They're absorbing a tremendous amount of complicated language,'' Gee said.
The standard complaints about most video games are legion: Games make kids sedentary. They're violent and salacious. They're routinely sexist and often racist. They're shallow and addictive.
And all of these allegations have gotten considerable support from a loose coalition of politicians, educators, health officials, law enforcement officers and religious leaders.
The inventory of rebuttals, however, is expanding.
• There's a growing interest in the workout value of dance games that require strenuous activity to perform the fast-paced steps indicated on the screen. The hallmark games are from Konami's ``Dance Dance Revolution'' series, and a PlayStation 2 and Xbox version of the arcade hit ``Pump It Up'' is scheduled for release in August.
One of a number of intriguing projects involves the West Virginia Public Insurance Agency, which is trying out DDR as a health and fitness tool in conjunction with schools, juvenile detention facilities and work-site wellness programs.
• Physicians are studying games as treatment aids. The Associated Press reported in December on research indicating that playing with a Game Boy machine before surgery could relax children more than tranquilizers.
• Luman, the vice president at Schwab, has held other human resources jobs, but also worked as a game company executive. He began to think more deeply about the connections between gaming and other work after reading ``Got Game: How the Gamer Generation is Reshaping Business Forever,'' by John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade.
Beck, president of the North Star Leadership Group, said in an e-mail interview that he and Wade surveyed 2,500 U.S. business professionals, turning up a powerful correlation between managerial behavior and playing video games.
Among the findings: Gamers are better risk-takers, show particular confidence in their abilities, place a high value on relationships and employee input and think in terms of ``winning'' when pursuing objectives.
Beck said the findings are proving helpful to baby boomer-generation managers who lead teams of younger, gamer employees.
``They learn that they have to develop the teams, structure the tasks and build rewards in very different ways than they might have naturally,'' Beck said.
One of the longest-running debates about video games focuses on whether their action and plots contain much sophisticated content, intellectually or emotionally. The most obvious examples of ``useful'' content are simulation games -- railroad-building, zoo-management and civilization-making games -- that include challenges involving economics, physics and political concepts.
But Henry Jenkins, director of the comparative media studies program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, also points to the down-home lessons delivered by games such as ``The Sims.''
In the virtual world of ``The Sims,'' where game players experiment with living alternative everyday lives through character avatars, Jenkins' young adult son discovered he was having personal money-management problems that reminded him of his real life. Except the consequences were more drastic.
``He realized his mistake,'' said Jenkins, ``but his character died of starvation in the back yard just as the pizza he ordered was being delivered to the front door.''
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Willa
hsing boys ages 11, 14, almost 18 (+ 4 homeschool grads ages 20 to 27)
Take Up and Read
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