Tópico: What if... (videogames versus books)

[Osias]

Imagine an alternate world identical to ours save one techno-historical change: videogames were invented and popularized before books. In this parallel universe, kids have been playing games for centuries—and then these page-bound texts come along and suddenly they’re all the rage. What would the teachers, and the parents, and the cultural authorities have to say about this frenzy of reading? I suspect it would sound something like this:

Reading books chronically under-stimulates the senses. Unlike the longstanding tradition of gameplaying—which engages the child in a vivid, three-dimensional world filled with moving images and musical soundscapes, navigated and controlled with complex muscular movements—books are simply a barren string of words on the page. Only a small portion of the brain devoted to processing written language is activated during reading, while games engage the full range of the sensory and motor cortices.


More on http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/movabletype/archives/000248.html

[Alenônimo]

Funny...

[Osias]

Did you read the entire site or just my quotation?

For me, it looses its fun when I remember the reality it mocks. So I get upset to the bone!

[Galileo]

I read the whole text.

As satire, it's very amusing. But of course it has a lot of flaws of reasoning if you try to take it too seriously.

For example, dyslexia would have existed even without books, and would have been recognized as a problem ever since the invention of literacy.

Also, a good argument could be made that video games could not possibly have evolved before the printed word...

Edit: Ooh, I just earned my first "star"!

[Osias]

I read the whole text.

As satire, it's very amusing. But of course it has a lot of flaws of reasoning if you try to take it too seriously.
For example, dyslexia would have existed even without books, and would have been recognized as a problem ever since the invention of literacy.

Huh... I don't see it as a flaw, the author intends to show that parents and teachers today use fallacious arguments, and that one was a satire of this.

Also, a good argument could be made that video games could not possibly have evolved before the printed word...

Yes, it was just a nonsensical conterfactual setting, just to emphasize the ilogical arguments of today's against video games folks.

[Galileo]

Osias:

My point is that I disagree with you. If the writer's intention was to say that people who lament the decline of literacy are merely fighting against progress, I think he's wrong.

I think there are legitimate concerns to be expressed about the decline of literacy and the adverse effect of video games upon it. In my opinion, it would be wrong for anyone in the imaginary hypothetical scenario to make those criticisms of book-reading, because the criticisms are false.

It is not so much that video games are bad per se, because they are not. It is really a concern about people no longer having or making the time to read works of literature or information about the world, which would enrich their lives and their imaginations in ways that video games never could.

[Galileo]

I like soccer.

Me too. Should we start a new thread about it?

[Osias]

In my opinion, it would be wrong for anyone in the imaginary hypothetical scenario to make those criticisms of book-reading, because the criticisms are false.

Yes. It would be wrong.And most critical of games in the actual scenario are also wrong.

I think the author, like me, is not against books, we are just pointing out the bad arguments from the typical game critical one. I believe both are good, and both have advantages.

[Galileo]

OK, Osias, I think we probably agree on this.