Gaming Can Make a Better World & Why We Play

In the film we watched in class, "Gaming Can Make a Better World" and the reading "Why we Play" both talk about the motives behind why we play games and more specifically video games. Although they are two different authors and perspectives the motives are generally the same for the reasons on why we play. One way both stories compare are when they talk about goals, challenges, an rewards. In the reading why we play the author explains that we play these video games because while we are playing we are being motivated to reach a certain goal or reward. This concept also compares to the video we watched when Jane McGonial talks about an "epic win". She defines an epic win as an extraordinary outcome that the player had no idea could happen.The two of these motives relate because the video gamers are trying to reach a goal or reward when playing which motivates them to play longer. Another motive that are covered in booth stories are social contact and social fabric. In the reading,  social contact is described as a motive we are drawn to because it allows us to put ourselves in a world where we are able to play with anyone and everyone and even communicate with them as well. McGonial talks about the social fabric which is generally the same motive which is explaining how we like people more or better after playing a game with them because we develop some sort of trust. Trust and the fun we have with online friends are the reason behind the motivation of playing these games. Finally, a motive that also compares among the reading and video are fantasy and game world. Why do we play describes the fantasy world as a place where we are able to be any type of person we want to be and portray any image we want people to see. The fantasy world allows people to use their imagination to be someone we have always wanted to be and never were able to in the real world. This type of motivation is talked about in McGonigal's video but is described as the "game world". Game world is the best versions of ourselves. This is the same as fantasy, in which they are both who we are in the game world. Were motivated to create these characters and continue playing because it allows us to be in our dream world and control and dictate what does happen and how it does.

Media Phobia

In Media phobia by Kren Sternheimer she talks about how panics about pop culture are shown throughout history and that they are often masked by putting the blame on the less powerful social groups in society at the time. She shows how this works in several examples throughout the reading. One example she talks about is popular music at the time. More specifically Rock and Roll music. At the time this sort of music was very new to society and caused a lot of panic because the powerful music often made people intermix races because they all had similarities and enjoyment for that music genre.

Keren talks about other genres of music. For example she talks about how society does this by bringing up the genre of rap music. Rap music when it first came about caused a lot of fear and panic because of the language that was used and the talk of violence, drugs and even gangs. The media and society as a whole even till this day puts the blame on violent acts and the way teens act now on the type of music that they affiliate themselves with. When society panics they pin the blame on something that is smaller and much easier to pinpoint a reason for the issue on. These groups are less powerful which makes the blame just that much easier for others.

Keren also brings up the fact that panic occurs due to the fact the it's usually two different generations intermixing ( Parents and Children). Parents were raised and lived in a different generation. Therefore parents do not know everything in their child's new generation. This also causes panic to occur at times.  Newer generations spend a lot of time in private with pop culture without parents super vision. Parents blame less powerful social groups in these situations as well.

Digital Nation

When watching the film digital nation they introduced us to four main themes that technology affected. These were home & social life, work, school, and military. The theme that stuck out to me the most was the way that technology use affects student in school. In the film we saw many examples of how technology affects children and even college students. For example, they showed an underprivileged middle school was on the verge of getting shut down due to low attendance and scores on state tests. It showed that in the film when the children were giving the opportunity to receive laptops and both of these things improved tremendously for the children. Another example showed in the film of how technology affected students were the students the attended MIT college. These students were using laptops also at school, but the technology use affected them negatively. The students were incapable of paying attention enough in the classroom and also ended up being horrible at multitasking. This was an example of how technology affects students negatively.

When looking at the pros and cons of technology use in schools I find several interesting facts. For example, " After George middle school in Portland, Oregon introduced a social media program to engage students, their grades went up 50%, absenteeism went down 33% and 20% completed extra credit". This fact came from Oregoned.org, which is a site dedicated to education. This site includes articles, experiments, and also advice for those involved with education in some sort. A con that I found from the pro con website was "31% of students say that using social media during homework reduces the quality of their work". This fact came from Commonsensemedia.org, which is also another credible source that. This site gives advice to parents on how to control their kids digital well-being. Both sites give advice, information on recent articles, and also movie rating that are appropriate or not for children. I find these sources both credible based on the fact they are often stating helpful advice not quantitative facts or evidence.

Sherry Turkle

Technology Use

During Sherry Turkle's TED talk she explained the impacts of technology and our lives that so much revolve around them. She went into detail about how technology today is a way for people in our society to stay connected, yet alone at the same time. Society, in essence, allows us to never leave our homes but yet still gives us the opportunity to talk to all of our friends and family. We even see at times we are "alone together", sitting in a room full of friends or family but are completely drawn into our social media world and even connecting through it while in the exact same location. Sherry also speaks about how society has now altered how we communicate with each other. It's so much easier to just text what we want and have more control over what we do say and how we say it.

With many pros of how technology has impacted the human relationships there are also the same amount of cons. First, technology affects are learning tremendously. As Sherry mentioned we often multitask while at school or meetings and we will be on our phones during a lecture but tune out the boring stuff and only give some what of our attention to the things that we find important. This is changing the way we understand things and sometimes can even alter our interpretations of what we think we hear.  Second, phones and social media change what we do and who we are. On social media we share "important" things or things that make us seem interesting. Sherry mentions that this can sometimes create an entire new persona for our online life in real world life. Lastly, the ability to hide behind a cell phone so easily it is affecting our ability to have a real conversation with people. Sherri also mentions that while using our smart phones we are capable or copying, pasting, editing and deleting what we want to say before we press send. This is effecting society as a whole to where we see it as so much easier to just text to have a conversation than it is to have a real one face to face, so why do it. The younger generation doesn't see the problem of how texting does not help us learn and understand each other and it is affecting us more and more everyday.