I think the premise from the TED talk given by Jane McGonigal
in which she states that in order to “survive” the next century, we will have
to up the amount of time we spend playing video games to 21 billion hours is
probably one of the craziest things I have ever heard – for a number of
reasons. She offers the idea that video
games help our critical thinking skills, and in turn will be able to help us
solve larger social problems with these new and finely tuned skills. It also supposedly teaches us about teamwork
and working together, with people who have similar skill sets and gives us
goals we are capable of achieving, given this skill set. I wonder however if she considered the idea
that if we were successful in getting people to play 21 billion hours of video
games, if we would be able to get them to stop long enough to change or solve
any social problems. I think addiction
to video games is already a real thing and by her promoting video games and
saying they are “good” for you, it will only further hinder, NOT help, our
society as a whole.
The other, and more important issue that I have with her
argument is that she specifically says that we need to play more video games in
order to “survive” the next century and yet does not address the fact of all
the energy and electricity that will be used if we do increase our video game
time. In an interview of the former By
the time we have reached Jane’s goal of playing 21 billion hours of video games,
and (assuming she is right) we finally have the skills to solve the energy
crisis, it may already be too late.
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