Another issue with
video games that is of particular concern to educators, particularly
in a liberal-arts school, is that it may affect the ability to focus
on tasks that require extended focus without immediate payoff, such
as reading long books. Video games can be long and involved, but
they tend to be exciting throughout. Some people speculate that the
brain might become accustomed to constant excitement, and therefore
less able to deal with long, dry passages. I could not find any good
research on this issue; so far most of what I found was speculative
and not scientific.
A similar issue
that comes up is “video-game addiction.” The human brain can
become dependent on constant stimulation, and this looks a lot like
addiction in the brain. There is a lot of research on this going on
right now, and it looks like it is another reason to put a limit on
the amount of time you spend playing.
I think the reason
people find video games so compelling is that the tasks you complete
in a game are similar to tasks you would complete in the wild. My
dog loves hunting, digging, and chasing. In the wild, this is how a
dog would make a living – and she LOVES it. If she could spend her
whole day hunting for animals, she would.
While not all
people hate their jobs, it is rare to find people who love their jobs
as much as my dog loves chasing rabbits. I think that this is
because our jobs are so far removed from the jobs we had when we were
hunting and gathering. Video games give us a chance to do the jobs
that our brains are wired to do: looking for things, running from
danger, hiding, chasing, throwing, fighting, and so on.
Now, we live in
civilization, and we have to adapt to more civil ways of getting by
in the world. Maybe the reason our brains become “addicted” to
video games is because we have a natural proclivity towards that mode
of existence. Wouldn't it be cool if we could find a way to make our
actual careers more similar to the careers of our “wild”
ancestors?
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