7 ms·

I agree that playing a game might not improve a class of skills in general like coordination or problem solving, but I don’t think it requires much study to det

I agree that playing a game might not improve a class of skills in general like coordination or problem solving, but I don’t think it requires much study to determine improvement of skills directly used. For example, to improve your reading skills you need to practice reading. If a game is providing reading material and motivation to read, it will improve reading skills. Games can also drive motivation in other areas. In the early 90’s when I started computer gaming, you actually needed to know how to use a computer and understand them to some extent. Half the time I spent gaming was spent figuring out how to get the computer to do what I wanted which lead to a life long interest in technology. Sadly, like the parent poster mentioned, that is probably no longer a thing.

kiba 5y ago
Lot of things improve reading skills, like reading novels. Arguably, writing video games and novels would seem to be more useful way to improve skills. That's how I got started in programming at all. However, video games just doesn't seem life changing at all compared to all the things you could do.
- meristohm 5y ago
  I agree. Games feel like chose-your-own-adventure books, which were novelties and not nearly as engaging as a well-written book to read and visualize and anticipate. A great way to help a child read throughout their life is to read to them every day, enjoy stories together and apart, and not to push too hard in any direction (they may enjoy different things, no problem). Asking open-ended questions helps, too, with time to consider and respond.
  - Jensson 5y ago
    When playing various games you have to manage a budget, reason about logistics, get an intuition for basic physics, understand numbers and basic math formulas etc. There are so many skills you learn there that are seen as very important. How can passively reading a story book even compare to actively being forced to practice and learn these things?
    - cloverich 5y ago
      Also there is quite enough room in life for both.
    - tekknik 5y ago
      EVE is real.
- andrepew 5y ago
  If your goal is to learn a skill, there are better ways to go about it than gaming. The problem in learning that gaming helps with isn’t learning efficacy —- it is motivation. As a child, I simply wasn’t interested in novels and enjoying playing games would be a prerequisite to having the motivation to write one.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- tester756 5y ago
  english english english english english A lot of people learned english via games
- cloverich 5y ago
  Depends on the person. I learned quite a few good habits from video games, particularly how to become more focused, driven, and patient. After getting fairly serious with a competitive game in my mid thirties, I found it translated rather unexpectedly to other pursuits. I am unsure if I would have found these parts of myself otherwise; I certainly hadn't before, and I had no shortage of variety in my hobbies or rigor in my career(s) prior.
lordnacho 5y ago
> Half the time I spent gaming was spent figuring out how to get the computer to do what I wanted which lead to a life long interest in technology. I remember the old days of "extended memory" which meant you needed slightly different configuration files for each game. That meant if you wanted to play a bunch of games, it made sense to learn how to write a bat script to config according to what you wanted to play. You also had a terminal which gave a "computery" vibe, like you were doing something serious, because why else would the interface be so austere? Command lines are like magic incantations, and some people are just drawn to learning how they work. Nowadays that entry route is gone, there's not much peeking below the OS desktop anymore on something like a phone or tablet. On desktop it seems like Steam just abstracts away everything else that you'd care about, though I'm not a heavy gamer anymore.
- maerF0x0 5y ago
  My first computer was a 486 33mhz w/ about 250MB HD . I could only keep a couple games installed at a time, meaning i was always installing and uninstalling. Then I had to play with the autoexec.bat and cmd.com files . Then I broke it. Then i had to fix it cause my mom was still making payments on the computer (like it was a refrigerator with a 10yr lifespan) ... This is how I got into computing. Come to think if of it I owe her some "interest" on how much she invested in my career. :)
  - ethbr0 5y ago
    +1 for breaking autoexec.bat (on a 386). And getting yelled at by my dad, who needed it for work. Thankfully, this led to a great decision when he upgraded -- his old machine became mine. If I broke it, well, that was my problem, and I should learn how to fix it. Cue ~10 year old me learning about the Windows / DOS boot process. In summary, we should encourage kids to play games, but make them harder to install and more prone to break your operating system, because it makes kids smarter.
    - prewett 5y ago
      That's an interesting idea. If I have kids maybe I should tell them "you can play any game you can run on Linux. Here's an Ubuntu CD, helpdesk is at google.com. If you get really stuck tell me what you've tried so far and I'll give you some suggestions on what to ask Google. Oh, by the way, if you'd like to write your own games, I'll be happy to help you."
aeternum 5y ago
For some games sure, but those games now make up a subset. Look at the 'casual' games which are optimized via AI to hold attention and trigger repeat use. It may not be much of a stretch to consider these drugs for the human visual/rewards system rather than videogames. And these attention-grabbing tools are only getting better as we collect more data and develop better algos.
lhorie 5y ago
> If a game is providing reading material and motivation to read, it will improve reading skills. Eh. No, that's not quite how that works. If you look at north american elementary school level reading, you may notice that books are often categorized by levels. Some of this has to do with complexity of sentence construction, some has to do with vocabulary, and some has to do with subject matter. The gist of the educational philosophy around reading is that one doesn't get better at reading by plowing through reading material at high volumes, but instead one needs to gradually level up by going through materials of appropriate complexity. One specific problem that teachers look for - especially in kids that advance quickly - is "skimming without understanding", for example (i.e. reading words/sentences phonetically, but without understanding their meaning/context). Game text is usually not structured with any didactic value in mind (other than maybe appropriate usage of furigana in Japanese in consideration of target audiences). A lot of game categories don't even require any reading beyond recognizing words (which is somewhere between kinder and 1st grade level reading skill) Also, even in games where text actually matters, you're typically spending a large amount of time doing other things (killing monster or whatever). In addition, the notion of games-as-reading-material ignores a fairly common phenomenon: a lot of people simply spam `A` to skip over dialogues - and even get stuck on one-off gimmicks that rely on reading the text carefully for instructions or clues. To be clear though, practicing pre-acquired reading skills can help in the sense that repetition legitimizes, but IMHO that's a bit different than improving beyond a current level, and not necessarily all that different from what you get from reading cereal box/shampoo labels or reading comic books.
- t-3 5y ago
  Grammar/spelling/usage is almost all about memorizing and copying others, so engaging in tasks that use those skills will definitely get you further faster than a step-by-step progression. I was reading and writing at a level far beyond my peers in elementary school, not because I was smarter, but because I actively read books for fun.
- lizard 5y ago
  > Game text is usually not structured with any didactic value in mind (other than maybe appropriate usage of furigana in Japanese in consideration of target audiences). A lot of game categories don't even require any reading beyond recognizing words (which is somewhere between kinder and 1st grade level reading skill) > Also, even in games where text actually matters, you're typically spending a large amount of time doing other things (killing monster or whatever). In addition, the notion of games-as-reading-material ignores a fairly common phenomenon: a lot of people simply spam `A` to skip over dialogues - and even get stuck on one-off gimmicks that rely on reading the text carefully for instructions or clues. This is a consequence of modern gaming trends and by no means an issue with video games themselves. There are a lot of game categories that provide or even require extensive reading. We don't have to accept _all_ games a beneficial; it's not like we use magazines and tabloids to teach reading comprehension either. There are games where killing monsters isn't the primary goal, or even if it is a significant aspect of game play can be averted by finding alternative solutions, usually through the in-game lore. Deus Ex was a great example where several bosses could be entirely side stepped by reading emails throughout the game (though to be fair, only a few of them actually required _reading_ the email as opposed to simply discovering it). Arcanum is another that if you pieced together enough of the backstory and paid attention to the dialog you could talk the final boss down. There are even more out there, as you mention, that offer hints to puzzles and gimmicks, some of which even present it as a riddle ensuring you read and understand the text rather than just found it. Sure, a lot of people will skip these things and save-scum or post on message boards to get the answer, but that's not much different than CliffNotes everyone used. If you want to use video games in school do the same thing we do for books: Select the games the offer quality reading and evaluate based on comprehension rather than completion. You can even require students submit save files to verify they took the reading path.
imtringued 5y ago
Video games gave me the motivation to learn English, about machining, CAD, PCB design, economics and programming. Anyone who is against leisure is falling into the existential trap of capitalism. What is the meaning of doing productive work inside a video game? Since productive work is now leisure you actually run into the existential problem all the time. The video game runs into deflation all the time. People are highly productive, reducing the need of other players to be productive. In fact, the very thing we beg for is an increase in the money supply. We are hoping for inflation. Meanwhile in the real world everyone is scared of that inflation thing. My latest project is literally pumping NPC vendors with basic resources to create money out of thin air to generate inflation. The paradox of creating money is that it makes people work and end up doing more "productive" work.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
miohtama 5y ago
I learnt English thru video games. I would not be here without them. But arguable, modern games with lootboxes and metrics are way worse than 90s offline games.
- steelframe 5y ago
  > I learnt English thru video games To be honest I don't find this argument particularly convincing.
  - miohtama 5y ago
    Haha, gotcha
  - rnjesus 5y ago
    what’s wrong with what he said? that he used atypical (but still perfectly correct) spellings of “learnt” and “thru”?
holoduke 5y ago
Exactly. I want to let my kid experience something similar. So I gave him (6 years old) my desktop pc. He is now playing around with windows settings. Of course looking for games on Steam. But he at least doesnt touch his Nintendo switch anymore.

kiba 5y ago

Lot of things improve reading skills, like reading novels. Arguably, writing video games and novels would seem to be more useful way to improve skills. That's how I got started in programming at all. However, video games just doesn't seem life changing at all compared to all the things you could do.

meristohm 5y ago
I agree. Games feel like chose-your-own-adventure books, which were novelties and not nearly as engaging as a well-written book to read and visualize and anticipate. A great way to help a child read throughout their life is to read to them every day, enjoy stories together and apart, and not to push too hard in any direction (they may enjoy different things, no problem). Asking open-ended questions helps, too, with time to consider and respond.
- Jensson 5y ago
  When playing various games you have to manage a budget, reason about logistics, get an intuition for basic physics, understand numbers and basic math formulas etc. There are so many skills you learn there that are seen as very important. How can passively reading a story book even compare to actively being forced to practice and learn these things?
  - cloverich 5y ago
    Also there is quite enough room in life for both.
  - tekknik 5y ago
    EVE is real.
andrepew 5y ago
If your goal is to learn a skill, there are better ways to go about it than gaming. The problem in learning that gaming helps with isn’t learning efficacy —- it is motivation. As a child, I simply wasn’t interested in novels and enjoying playing games would be a prerequisite to having the motivation to write one.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
tester756 5y ago
english english english english english A lot of people learned english via games
cloverich 5y ago
Depends on the person. I learned quite a few good habits from video games, particularly how to become more focused, driven, and patient. After getting fairly serious with a competitive game in my mid thirties, I found it translated rather unexpectedly to other pursuits. I am unsure if I would have found these parts of myself otherwise; I certainly hadn't before, and I had no shortage of variety in my hobbies or rigor in my career(s) prior.

lordnacho 5y ago

> Half the time I spent gaming was spent figuring out how to get the computer to do what I wanted which lead to a life long interest in technology. I remember the old days of "extended memory" which meant you needed slightly different configuration files for each game. That meant if you wanted to play a bunch of games, it made sense to learn how to write a bat script to config according to what you wanted to play. You also had a terminal which gave a "computery" vibe, like you were doing something serious, because why else would the interface be so austere? Command lines are like magic incantations, and some people are just drawn to learning how they work. Nowadays that entry route is gone, there's not much peeking below the OS desktop anymore on something like a phone or tablet. On desktop it seems like Steam just abstracts away everything else that you'd care about, though I'm not a heavy gamer anymore.

maerF0x0 5y ago
My first computer was a 486 33mhz w/ about 250MB HD . I could only keep a couple games installed at a time, meaning i was always installing and uninstalling. Then I had to play with the autoexec.bat and cmd.com files . Then I broke it. Then i had to fix it cause my mom was still making payments on the computer (like it was a refrigerator with a 10yr lifespan) ... This is how I got into computing. Come to think if of it I owe her some "interest" on how much she invested in my career. :)
- ethbr0 5y ago
  +1 for breaking autoexec.bat (on a 386). And getting yelled at by my dad, who needed it for work. Thankfully, this led to a great decision when he upgraded -- his old machine became mine. If I broke it, well, that was my problem, and I should learn how to fix it. Cue ~10 year old me learning about the Windows / DOS boot process. In summary, we should encourage kids to play games, but make them harder to install and more prone to break your operating system, because it makes kids smarter.
  - prewett 5y ago
    That's an interesting idea. If I have kids maybe I should tell them "you can play any game you can run on Linux. Here's an Ubuntu CD, helpdesk is at google.com. If you get really stuck tell me what you've tried so far and I'll give you some suggestions on what to ask Google. Oh, by the way, if you'd like to write your own games, I'll be happy to help you."

aeternum 5y ago

For some games sure, but those games now make up a subset. Look at the 'casual' games which are optimized via AI to hold attention and trigger repeat use. It may not be much of a stretch to consider these drugs for the human visual/rewards system rather than videogames. And these attention-grabbing tools are only getting better as we collect more data and develop better algos.

lhorie 5y ago

> If a game is providing reading material and motivation to read, it will improve reading skills. Eh. No, that's not quite how that works. If you look at north american elementary school level reading, you may notice that books are often categorized by levels. Some of this has to do with complexity of sentence construction, some has to do with vocabulary, and some has to do with subject matter. The gist of the educational philosophy around reading is that one doesn't get better at reading by plowing through reading material at high volumes, but instead one needs to gradually level up by going through materials of appropriate complexity. One specific problem that teachers look for - especially in kids that advance quickly - is "skimming without understanding", for example (i.e. reading words/sentences phonetically, but without understanding their meaning/context). Game text is usually not structured with any didactic value in mind (other than maybe appropriate usage of furigana in Japanese in consideration of target audiences). A lot of game categories don't even require any reading beyond recognizing words (which is somewhere between kinder and 1st grade level reading skill) Also, even in games where text actually matters, you're typically spending a large amount of time doing other things (killing monster or whatever). In addition, the notion of games-as-reading-material ignores a fairly common phenomenon: a lot of people simply spam `A` to skip over dialogues - and even get stuck on one-off gimmicks that rely on reading the text carefully for instructions or clues. To be clear though, practicing pre-acquired reading skills can help in the sense that repetition legitimizes, but IMHO that's a bit different than improving beyond a current level, and not necessarily all that different from what you get from reading cereal box/shampoo labels or reading comic books.

t-3 5y ago
Grammar/spelling/usage is almost all about memorizing and copying others, so engaging in tasks that use those skills will definitely get you further faster than a step-by-step progression. I was reading and writing at a level far beyond my peers in elementary school, not because I was smarter, but because I actively read books for fun.
lizard 5y ago
> Game text is usually not structured with any didactic value in mind (other than maybe appropriate usage of furigana in Japanese in consideration of target audiences). A lot of game categories don't even require any reading beyond recognizing words (which is somewhere between kinder and 1st grade level reading skill) > Also, even in games where text actually matters, you're typically spending a large amount of time doing other things (killing monster or whatever). In addition, the notion of games-as-reading-material ignores a fairly common phenomenon: a lot of people simply spam `A` to skip over dialogues - and even get stuck on one-off gimmicks that rely on reading the text carefully for instructions or clues. This is a consequence of modern gaming trends and by no means an issue with video games themselves. There are a lot of game categories that provide or even require extensive reading. We don't have to accept _all_ games a beneficial; it's not like we use magazines and tabloids to teach reading comprehension either. There are games where killing monsters isn't the primary goal, or even if it is a significant aspect of game play can be averted by finding alternative solutions, usually through the in-game lore. Deus Ex was a great example where several bosses could be entirely side stepped by reading emails throughout the game (though to be fair, only a few of them actually required _reading_ the email as opposed to simply discovering it). Arcanum is another that if you pieced together enough of the backstory and paid attention to the dialog you could talk the final boss down. There are even more out there, as you mention, that offer hints to puzzles and gimmicks, some of which even present it as a riddle ensuring you read and understand the text rather than just found it. Sure, a lot of people will skip these things and save-scum or post on message boards to get the answer, but that's not much different than CliffNotes everyone used. If you want to use video games in school do the same thing we do for books: Select the games the offer quality reading and evaluate based on comprehension rather than completion. You can even require students submit save files to verify they took the reading path.

imtringued 5y ago

Video games gave me the motivation to learn English, about machining, CAD, PCB design, economics and programming. Anyone who is against leisure is falling into the existential trap of capitalism. What is the meaning of doing productive work inside a video game? Since productive work is now leisure you actually run into the existential problem all the time. The video game runs into deflation all the time. People are highly productive, reducing the need of other players to be productive. In fact, the very thing we beg for is an increase in the money supply. We are hoping for inflation. Meanwhile in the real world everyone is scared of that inflation thing. My latest project is literally pumping NPC vendors with basic resources to create money out of thin air to generate inflation. The paradox of creating money is that it makes people work and end up doing more "productive" work.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

miohtama 5y ago

I learnt English thru video games. I would not be here without them. But arguable, modern games with lootboxes and metrics are way worse than 90s offline games.

steelframe 5y ago
> I learnt English thru video games To be honest I don't find this argument particularly convincing.
- miohtama 5y ago
  Haha, gotcha
- rnjesus 5y ago
  what’s wrong with what he said? that he used atypical (but still perfectly correct) spellings of “learnt” and “thru”?

holoduke 5y ago

Exactly. I want to let my kid experience something similar. So I gave him (6 years old) my desktop pc. He is now playing around with windows settings. Of course looking for games on Steam. But he at least doesnt touch his Nintendo switch anymore.