What Not to Say In My PresenceNovember 28th, 2007 by Leslie
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While visiting my parents for a wonderful Thanksgiving Day holiday weekend, I was struck at how obnoxious a commonly uttered parental phrase had become. I hadn’t heard it in over a year, and quite frankly I wish to never hear it again.
We were discussing my work, my education, life as I now know it in my semi-new city. How are things? What have you been up to? Still playing those mindless video games? Excuse me? Just stop right there for a moment.
Are all video games an avenue to mindless brain off-switching? Do we benefit from playing them in more ways than just entertainment and relaxation? If you actually sit down and play a video game then think about it for a minute, you’ll probably be able to draw the conclusion: yes, there are benefits. The general idea that video games are undermining critical thinking and intelligence in today’s gamers and kids couldn’t be farther from the truth.
For my obligatory anecdote I’ve chosen to showcase my poor skills in mathematics. It’s no secret: I often mix up the numbers 5 and 7, and if that weren’t pathetic enough don’t ask me about division and squares and anything relating to pre-algebra. But there’s one thing I do know about math, and it is something I will never forget; something my peers struggled with during school, yet I mastered with absolutely no trouble. I know my percents (and from that, fractions), and I learned these seamlessly as a child by playing a video game.
The game’s mechanics relied solely on parts of wholes, and if I wanted to know anything about the game – my damage, how much a card will help or hurt me, what my level gains me, the interaction between two different items - I needed to calculate it myself.
That may not sound like a big deal being that it’s only a simple mathematical process (hey, that stuff was hard back then), but it’s based on a concept that you generally only hear spoken very strongly for in linguistics. This concept is immersion.
If you are attempting to learn a language, the best approach is to completely immerse yourself in the language you have chosen. You will be surrounded by the native speakers and their cultures. You will eat, sleep, breathe, live this new language. And you will learn by example, interrogation, and experience. It’s not a bad way to learn anything at all, if you think about it. Going back to Monique’s post earlier in the year about video games and their mastery of immersion, I’ll honestly be pretty dumbfounded if you told me you didn’t see any potential there.
“Immersing” yourself in something you are learning can be difficult when it’s being presented through textbooks and lectures. And in many ways that’s just not what immersion really is. But the simulated worlds of a video game have boundless potential for creating virtual immersion realties.
Most entertainment video games on the market won’t present as much direct contextual learning as my example above. They won’t all possess the power of simulation games for teaching economics (Lemonade Stand) or anything else you can dream up (Second Life). I can’t see a whole lot of educational benefit that I have gained directly from my current vice, World of Warcraft, but that MMORPG has taught me many things indirectly. Most video games will be like World of Warcraft, with its indirect osmosis of social knowledge (if an MMO), or a system of funneling the user to an end (the quest system), or perhaps coming across a concept, word, or idea you just have to Google.
By now you’ve probably realized that I’m talking mostly about games not designed with learning specifically in mind. No, I haven’t forgotten Oregon Trail or Word Munchers, I certainly grew up with those as well. However, most of the games to which we attribute extreme replayability are not designed as learning games, yet somehow many of them still manage to have a great capacity for expanding our knowledge and skills.
What have you learned from a video game? Have you gained and/or honed knowledge or skills through the use of this digital medium? Or do you think the notion is hokey at best?
November 28th, 2007 at 11:31 am
Final Fantasy VII pretty much made my English exams cake back in 3rd-5th grade in elementary school. I had the motivation to learn these new words to get more out of the game, so I did, and it helped me tons when we had to write essays.
(My native language is Finnish.)
November 28th, 2007 at 12:28 pm
I think WoW taught me a lot about the realities of small-group (guilds and the cliques therein) dynamics, especially in regard to goal-directed interactions.
And, of course, I wrote my undergrad thesis on WoW economics…
But overall, I’m sure I’m not the only one who’d admit that the educational return really doesn’t merit the time invested. Hence I guess I’m happy to be on hiatus for the time being..
November 28th, 2007 at 2:25 pm
I got a large vocabulary of useless words which helped me get an 800 on the SAT verbal. That’s literally all it ever helped me with, but still. I remember killing Innocuous Dolls in Asheron’s Call, and learning the word from there, then seeing it on the SATs a year later.
November 28th, 2007 at 3:50 pm
I have to admit that if anything video and computer gaming has taught me patience You can’t just get levels without having to grind out missions or quests, so you have to be patient on some of those that are multiple parts. I also learned attention to details. If you don’t pay attention to certain aspects of a game you are more than likely to miss something important and never be able to get where you want to be. I can’t say I learned as much playing video games as I did in school, but there is a potential for some knowledge there! So keep playing and have a blast!
November 29th, 2007 at 5:05 pm
I reckon the devious puzzle solving of Monkey Island (pre internet especially, when I couldn’t turn to a walkthrough even when frustration was at its height) had a pretty good impact on my logical thinking/sequencing. I also reckon FF7 helped my fiction writing skills, since it inspired me to write my first lengthy story/fanfiction.
November 29th, 2007 at 6:31 pm
Selphie : I loved messing with the foreign versions of games to learn languages. Whenever I play Guild Wars, the UI absolutely must be set to Japanese. I believe they do have a German setting for it too, and I plan to use that as well. I wish more games had multi-language interfaces.
Peter : No, these games weren’t actually designed for learning in mind, and as such it’s no surprise they don’t hold an immense amount of direct value. Sometimes it takes a while to really think and realize the potential they have, but again, they weren’t made for that purpose. That being said, they certainly aren’t mindless either!
Erin : That’s another aspect of gaming that I didn’t recognize until you mentioned it (which is why collaboration is so important) - the development of patience and attention to details. I’m quite glad you didn’t learn as much from games as you did in school because I’d wager the majority of those games were entertainment related and that would reflect poorly on the school! But I digress… Imagine what an education game, design with the replayability and(/or) total attention grabbing power of an entertainment game, could do. What I’ve seen done with Second Life amazes me (though on that note what is mostly done in SL should be considered simulation and not really gaming).
Suzie : Oh Dear God, Monkey Island. That was the stuff of legend. In a lot of moments it put the Water Temple to shame. I also like hearing all this talk of the RPGs lending to writing and language skills. It’s almost like immersing yourself in the language by being surrounded not by people, but little robots. Or something.
November 30th, 2007 at 3:55 am
My geography and history skills crapped all over those of my schoolmates back in late primary school and early high school, and it’s all thanks to games like Civilization and Age of Empires which made me want to know more about the places and people behind the themes.
Even a mindless game like Diablo II used many many odd words to name enemy creatures and the like, which I had no idea existed. But there they were in the Oxford dictionary. I would just never have used them in conversation - or writing for that matter. I mean come on… “Hierophant”? Whatever.
December 2nd, 2007 at 6:41 am
I’m interested to know what you said back to them.
December 3rd, 2007 at 10:06 am
I learned an awful lot about creative problem-solving from games. From Indiana Jones I learned that sometimes you can smooth-talk your way through and sometimes you just have kick people in the head (metaphorically of course). Day of The Tentacle (along with the Back to the Future films) showed me the problems inherent in time travel
Years of playing text adventures (sorry, interactive fiction) and RPGs taught me that when one thing doesn’t work, try a different approach and suddenly the impossible becomes easy.
OTOH an awful lot of popular console games encourage the brute-force more-firepower approach to every problem. Either that or those awful Press Y NOW reaction “puzzles”. I’m no longer convinced that games beneficial.
December 7th, 2007 at 10:19 am
[…] interesting article at Girl’s Don’t Game about the impact gaming has on academic behaviour. Of course, playing 10 hours of WoW a day instead of studying is always going to be a negative […]
December 8th, 2007 at 10:57 pm
As far as WoW is concerned yes not made as a learning tool but oh so much to be learned from it. As mentioned previously Socializing even if only virtually is important. But more then that in this day and age typing skills are a must and I can’t tell you how trying to out type IF chat to answer someones question has improved my typing speed not to mention my reading. Interestingly enough some of the smartest players I knew in WoW were around 11. And not to mention a very simple but accurate Mass Market thru the auction house system, I watched as a few of my friends cornered markets only to be driven out by others noticing the profit they were making.
December 11th, 2007 at 2:54 pm
Nice article. I had never considered the immersive side of video games as a positive but for languages or learning a new skill set(elitistjerks + wow = math major) I can see that it would help.
February 5th, 2008 at 9:38 am
I’m not so sure WOW is so good for socializing.
The majority (atleast on my server) use having a screen and miles between them and people as a way to release their inner asshat. 
(Or they could just be asshats, can’t tell when you’ve never met them). I disable any chat channel I possibly can. ^_^
(It’s the same reason I’m geeky enough to take lots of trivia quizzes online, I liked tests in school if it wasn’t math ^_^)
I’m not sure if I’ve learned anything applicable in outside life from games. I enjoy adventure games as I like solving puzzles etc, but I’ve always been that way and I don’t know if I can say solving puzzles in them helps me solve puzzles since I seek those games for my love of being tested.