Games

Johnson, S (2005). Games. In S. Cohen(Ed), 50 Essays (p,196-201)

Johnson talks about the same thing that Marie Winn brings up with her essay, Television: The Plug-In Drug. In S. Cohen(Ed.), 50 Essays (p.438-447). Are video games turning our kids away from more important things such as reading or family time? Though there are ups and downs to playing video games, how much and how far in life will it benefit you? Johnson asks, what would be said if video gaming were to have "existed" before reading. People would talk bad about reading like they do now towards video gaming. Gaming could set a bad example to our kids with all the violence and aggression they put in it, but reading also has its downside with its faculties of putting in the effort, have concentration, attention, the ability to make sense of word, to follow narrative threads, to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on the page. Those, what kids might call it, are the steps to reading and too much work. To conclude, Johnson believes that, "the printed words remain the most powerful vehicle for conveying complication information." Do you think what is bad can be good for you sometimes?