Sunday, September 7, 2014

Lacey Alejandro response to question one on Johnsons book.


What is Johnson's main point? What are some of the supporting details he uses to make that point?

            Johnson’s main point in why games are good for you is that games, mostly electronic video games are not harmful to people. One of his supporting details that really stuck out to me was when he said, games for many years have engaged the person playing the game in a complex social relationship with their peers, building and exploring worlds together, while books force the child to sequester him or herself in a quiet space, shut off interaction with other children, (Johnson, 483). This stuck out to me because he is basically encouraging children to play video games rather than read a book, which is completely opposite of what most people would say about these two topics. It just really surprised me to see, someone who actually believes differently, but from reading his article, I do have to agree on a lot of his points, like video games are socially, because they actually are. He makes very valid points with this argument, and I do believe he is right, and it has changed my mind, in that video games really aren’t so bad like everyone thinks. Another, supporting detail, he pursues is, when he says “now I have no doubt that playing todays video games does in fact improve your visual intelligence and your manual dexterity, but the virtues of gaming run far deeper than hand eye coordination,” (Johnson, 486). He is very right about this, it does in fact improve your visual intelligence, when it comes to visualizing things, also, your manual dexterity is definitely helped by video gaming because it gives you better hand, body, and eye movement and coordination. Yes, there is absolutely virtues of gaming that isn’t hand and eye coordination for sure, it goes beyond deeper than that. Video gaming truly has many great qualities towards them, which people seem to forget because it is just a video game to most people, but it is really so much more than that. Finally, one more supporting detail of Johnsons, I liked was when he said “It’s not what you are thinking about when you’re playing the game, it’s the way you are thinking that matters,” (Johnson, 493). Which what he means is, that it is not about what game you are playing or how you play the game, but the thinking and strategies that go along with playing the game, that is what matters. It’s that you are thinking about the game, and no just playing, you put your brain to work when playing things games. Therefore, Why Games are Good for you, by Steven Johnson, is a great persuasive piece, which shows video games can actually be good for you, better than a book in most cases.

1 comment:

  1. Lacey --

    I appreciate how thorough your response is here and your use of good quotes from the text. While I think you overstate his argument a bit -- he's not saying video games are BETTER than books, but that they hone different skills -- I do think you've touched on some of his supporting points.

    Thanks!

    Nick

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