by mark on February 18, 2011
CNN asks the question:
Have our brains become so desensitized by a 24/7, all-you-can-eat diet of lurid flickering images that we’ve lost all perspective on appropriateness and compassion when another human being apparently suffers a medical emergency? Have we become a society of detached voyeurs?
According to the most recent findings from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8- to 18-year-olds on average spend 11½ hours a day using their technology.
Their brains have become “wired” to use their tech gadgets effectively in order to multi-task — staying connected with friends, texting and searching online endlessly, often exposing their brains to shocking and sensational images and videos. Many people are desensitizing their neural circuits to the horrors they see, while not getting much, if any, off-line training in empathic skills. And the effects may even reach young people.
I know quite a few people who enjoy watching those videos of people doing stunts and failing big-time. They seem to take particular pleasure with the ones where people get their grundles slammed on a railing, or get teeth knocked out with failed bike stunts. What do you think?
by mark on October 31, 2010
When I opened up my feed reader, and scanned the headlines, I was presented with two headlines posted only minutes apart.
Social Networks Are Not Killing Our Social Lives
next to…
“FarmVille” Interruption Cited in Baby’s Murder
Ouch! Just… Ouch…
Social networks can’t be blamed for the murder of that poor baby. The woman is clearly a stupid individual and an unfit mother. If it wasn’t FarmVille, then it could have been a phone conversation or an episode of Jerry Springer that the kid was interrupting that caused her to go off.
Social networks probably aren’t replacing our social lives in the vast majority of cases, although I have seen where social networks have created some real problems in people’s social lives, their work lives, their family lives, their school lives, etc. Social networks may even be contributing to some people’s health problems, the cleanliness of their house, the length of the grass in their yard.
Rather than subscribe to some oversimplified assessment of whether social networks are good or bad, it’s best to take it on case-by-case basis. Especially if you’re a parent and you’re worried about the impact on your kids.
Social networks are being used in positive ways, bring people together and accomplishing some good in some people’s lives too.
What experiences have you had, good or bad? Care to share a story in the comments below?
by mark on May 13, 2010
Imam worries about effect of PC games on children.
An imam here expressed concern over the impact of computer games on children, saying the portrayal of gods as well as heaven and hell in these games could potentially confuse them about the concept of the hereafter.
Chief Imam of the Usamah bin Zahid Mosque in Wangsa Maju, Ustaz Murshidi Abdul Hamid, said although these were merely games, if left unchecked, it could negatively impact the minds of the young people.
…
“Parents should prohibit their children from playing certain games if they contain elements which are against or derogatory to Islam,” he told Bernama.
While the rest of us are concerned about excessive gaming and it’s affects on our children, Imam Hamid is apparently mainly concerned about offense to Islam.
Meanwhile, a lecturer at Universiti Putra Malaysia’s Communications and Media Studies Faculty, Ishak Abdul Hamid [A different "Abdul Hamid" than the Imam mentioned above], said exposure to negative elements in computer games could also affect the children’s psychological development.
“They become obsessed with playing computer games to the point of neglecting their studies,” he said.
Good thing they are taking these steps, because we wouldn’t want Muslim kids being exposed to anything that would affect their psychological development in a negative way!
by mark on February 27, 2009
by mark on August 19, 2008
The Wii has been great from my own perspective. All of the games I’ve played with my kids (or at least watched them play) have all been in the realm of fantasy, action, sports… or just clean fun.
Innocence will be lost soon, as Sega is planning to release an “ultra-violent” game for the Wii.
From Sega’s website, you get a sense that a total immersion in violence is the primary goal.
In this age of 1080p resolution, the best [way to] stress the idea of “blood” was to immerse users in a game wrapped in black and white.
MadWorld revolves around the themes of brutality and exhilaration. To give MadWorld the graphical edge to match its brutal theme, we tried removing all color from the world except for blood. As a result, we decided the best way to convey blood, and thus brutality, was against this black and white backdrop. Knowing that there are no other action games with this sort of avant-garde graphical style, our course was set.
Often times, brutality is expressed in a spiteful nature. There are already plenty of games out there that hit this mark; however, we decided that MADWORLD’s brutality should be aimed at providing the user with a sense of exhilaration during play.
To give you an example from gameplay, we have a scene where you can pull a street sign from the ground and shove it into a enemy’s head.
I really don’t know if and/or how this is affecting people, especially the younger generations. Still waiting for that definitive study on how violent games affect brains, but in the meantime, I plan to continue to keep things “safe” and stick with the non-violent games.
which has gotten great reviews.