Reblogged
Game designers should think of their affect on children and see themselves as potential teachers.Recently I visited my sister down in Mississippi. Her 11-year old son spent almost the entire visit in his room playing video games. I hardly saw him. One might laugh and say, “Pretty typical for this generation of kids!” But this kid is way beyond typical in this respect.
As you can imagine, there is a certain degree of tension around this issue. What does one do? You can’t MAKE a child go out and throw a ball. What are you going to do? You can’t MAKE a child embody some image of boyhood.
Moreover, here at the miserable threshold of puberty, the kid has a lot of trouble socializing.
But most painful to think about is that the boy is just beginning … just barely … to understand that he is being regarded a certain way. It’s one thing to be a “weird kid.” It’s another to begin to realize this about yourself.
Think about how young 11 is.
Toward the end of the visit, I went into his room and dialed up Jane’s Ted talk. My sister came in, knelt on the carpet and watched. A bit into the talk, Jane is discussing how lots of gamers are frustrated by the sense that they are better in games than they are in reality. She then says that in gameworld many of us “become the best version of ourselves.”
The boy looked at his mom. They locked gazes. Then he pointed at himself.
Jane Mcgonigal (@avantgame): This post really touched me. I want to hear more of the story. RT @kennynowell: http://tumblr.com/x1xbq4amf
