Wired 13.05: Dome Improvement

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I just finished reading the oddly titled article Dome Improvement over at Wired and I must say I’m mildly confused and extremely interested in this topic. The article looks at the steady climb of IQ in the civilized world. It attributes the rise partially to genetics and not as much to environment (among other things) and it makes some interesting observations. Like this one, regarding twins:

Identical twins raised in different environments have IQs almost as similar to each other as the same person tested twice, while adopted children living together - shared environment, but no shared genes - show no correlation.

Very interesting.

But what does this have to do with video games? Well, the author of these studies wonders where this increase in IQ is coming from. It can’t be schooling, given the current state of our public school system (which I don’t buy completely). It also can’t be correlated with nutrition, since diets haven’t changed for the better since the 50’s. So what is making kids smarter? The explosion of media, including — you guessed it — those evil video games!

The best example of brain-boosting media may be videogames. Mastering visual puzzles is the whole point of the exercise - whether it’s the spatial geometry of Tetris, the engineering riddles of Myst, or the urban mapping of Grand Theft Auto.

That might be a stretch for some, but I’ve seen it first hand. I’ve seen my four year old nephew play computer games like it’s second nature to him. My two year old daughter can recognize different characters in video games and she know I’m supposed to shake trees to get the fruit out of trees in Animal Crossing. These might not be developing life skills but they are helping these little minds develop. In my book that’s a good thing.

And I think the author of the Wired article is a pretty good authority on this topic. He’s the author of Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, which sounds like an interesting read. I’ll have to check it out.

Update 5/11/05 - 11:59pm: Seems like this article (and book) are getting quite a bit of air-time. Kottke has a big list of both media and blog links. Render and Damned Machines also chime in.

May 6, 2005 | Filed Under Good News, Misc., Video Games | 3 Comments 

Video games aren’t all bad!

For a while there, video games only received bad press. GTA-inspired shootings and murders involving an Xbox were the headlines. Now stories of what good can come of video games are starting to come out. There have been stories of surgeons who play video games have more success. Now, Wired News has this story about a “Games for Health” conference where game makers and health educators are getting together to talk about games. There are games that can be used for training -

Rosser, who heads the Advanced Medical Technology Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York City, knows how he’d like to see games used. Since 2001, he’s worked with games like Super Monkey Ball, for Nintendo’s GameCube console, to train doctors in laparoscopic surgery. What Rosser found was that students who had played video games for more than three hours in one week — even once — had 37 percent fewer errors during the procedure, and got the operation done 27 percent more quickly.

And for treatment -

… which has used video games and digital worlds to treat more than 400 people with anxiety disorders. Patients there use the games to face their phobias. People afraid to drive play Midtown Madness, a racing game; those with fear of heights use a custom-crafted level from the Unreal Tournament shooter game, which features pixelated skyscrapers 50 stories tall.

September 16, 2004 | Filed Under Good News, Violence and Video Games | 1 Comment 

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