The Kids Are Alright

I read recently an interesting book; "The Kids Are Alright: How the Gamer Generation Is Changing the Workplace", published by Harvard Business School:

"Think video games are kids' stuff? Think again. According to authors John C. Beck and Mitchell Wade, all those hours immersed in game culture have created masses of employees with unique attributes. This new generation that's 90 million strong has an amazing ability to multitask, solves problems creatively, and brings unexpected leadership to the table. But to tap these skills, we need to understand and appreciate the different ways gamers think and behave. The Kids Are Alright dispels common myths about gamers and reveals them as committed, team-oriented people who play to win."

The book goes into details trying to prove the obvious fact that the video games present a great way for kids to play in ways that they couldn't do in the past. This is changing for the good and for the bad. I here to remind you that you as a parent can help increase the many benefits and reduce, if not even eliminate the disadvantages. I hope that I can help you in this important task.

The book itself is very academic in nature and full with figures ("...in the United States,
some 39 percent of computer gamers are women (the percentage
is lower for game console players)...), and can't help us with the games of today, but it does have some important points that I would like to share with you.

Inter-Generation Gap

"The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they allow disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children now are tyrants. . . ." —Socrates (496-399 B.C.)
This immortal sentences from Socrates are always important to remember on how much we think that our kids attitude is too much to handle, and that you were so different in their age. We need to embrace their confidence and their ability to handle a changing world in ways that we can't handle. But in the same time we must find the way to guide them into a world that is basically operating in the same way, and our wisdom and experience is priceless.

"IDC calculates that the average gamer spends over two and one-half hours each day gaming—time that once would have been spent in front of the television or at the movies."
We think that the time our kids are playing was once used to play outside with friends, but it was likely be used to stare passively the TV. Our simple task is to direct our kids to play with friends, either in the same room or over the Internet. Even if they are playing alone, they maybe practicing for their next party game, just like they could be practicing in the back yard before their next game in the little league.

"...video games are central to understanding the generation. The relationship between the
gamers and their technology is powerful, more powerful than the boomers’ once-frightening rock and roll revolution, or the insidious teachings of television."
Understanding the simple fact that the revolutions and differences of opinions is only a natural tension between the generations which is perennial.

In the rest of the posts in this blog, we will investigate how to use this unavoidable wave of video games to the advantages of "playing together", "playing to win", "multi-tasking thinking" and other huge advantages that we can give to our kids through these games. Let's just start with the title "The kids are alright", and from here let's make it even better.