WoW: The guild effect for teachers

There are lots of good reasons why an assistant superintendent of schools would start a guild in World of Warcraft (WoW) – all laid out in a fascinating profile of the Cognitive Dissonance Guild and its educator members in The Journal this month. But the reason why Catherine Parsons, assistant superintendent for curriculum, instruction, and pupil personnel services for Pine Plains Central School District, N.Y., started the guild was "to uncover education's brass ring: student engagement." A lot of teachers' professional development happens in the guild as well (the name reflects the seeming disconnect between several pairs: public perceptions of videogames on the one hand and on the other hand: 1) what videogames can teach teachers about learning; 2) what massively multiplayer online games can teach teachers about education worldwide when they're all playing a game together; 3) the members' professional development and networking; and 4) traditional or formal learning.

But the members simply aren't feeling any such cognitive dissonance, and their ranks are growing. The guild now has 100 active members around the world – all in the field of education. Here are some things they've learned about learning in WoW: The game "draws on multiple skills across multiple disciplines," higher-order thinking, and problem-solving. Players have to be able to read, communicate, and use analytical and statistical skills (e.g., a statistical comparison of one weapon vs. another). They learn economic concepts such as supply and demand and budgeting. Parsons told The Journal that the four wars going on in WoW pattern conflicts in world history. So players learn concepts involved in social studies and history and "writing and lore." She says players even use a form of statistical analysis in building their characters - what sort of talents to use, what weapons to use. She said 13-, 14-, and 15-year-old students whom teachers can't get to do "those kinds of computations" in class have no problem doing them in World of Warcraft. Tech coordinator Lucas Gillispie, who runs the WoW in School site, "took inspiration from observing that a particular herb [in the game] that allowed his avatar to go invisible was always growing in a thick clump of weeds." He thought of a lesson plan for comparing WoW ecology to real-world ecology.

My own first piece about the guild effect – in terms of online/offline well-being and safety – is here. See also "The power of play" and "Play, Part 2."

From 'chalk 'n' talk' to learning by doing

You know how middle and secondary school (probably in most countries) divide students' days into subjects? Well, there's a new public school in New York City that divides the schoolday into four 90-minute blocks devoted to the study of “domains,” The Economist reports. They're called things like "Codeworlds (a combination of mathematics and English), Being, Space and Place (English and social studies), The Way Things Work (maths and science) and Sports for the Mind (game design and digital literacy)." The domains, which could be called "courses" and conclude "with a two-week examination called a 'Boss Level' – a common phrase in videogame parlance" – are also videogames. Like courses, they have units of "study," which in this case is clearly a mashup of learning and play. "In one of the units of Being, Space and Place, for example, pupils take on the role of an ancient Spartan who has to assess Athenian strengths and recommend a course of action. In doing so, they learn bits of history, geography and public policy."

The school is called Quest to Learn, and it draws its inspiration from three sources, New York's Bank Street School for Children, the MacArthur Foundation-funded Digital Youth Project I've written a lot about (see particularly "*Serious* informal learning"), and the work of the University of Wisconsin's James Gee, author of "What Video Games Have to Teach Us About Learning and Literacy."

The school might draw further inspiration from the new study from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, "Game Changer: Investing in Digital Play to Advance Children's Learning and Health," which shows how "increased national investment in research-based digital games might play a cost-effective and transformative role and provides comprehensive actions steps for media industry, government, philanthropy, and academia to harness the appeal of digital games to improve children’s health and learning.

Related links

"Supreme Decision," is the debut game of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's new site, OurCourts.org, with games for teaching middle school students about the US Constitution and courts. The game site's backed by the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law at Arizona State University and Georgetown University, according to eSchoolNews. "Though she didn’t get a computer until she was in her 40s, and she doesn’t have a Facebook or Twitter account, O’Connor believes using technology is the way to teach students about the Constitution and inspire a renewed commitment to civics education in US schools."

See also my summer posts, "The power of play" and "Play, Part 2."

Videogames' mental-health benefits researched

The Washington Post leads its article with the story about a longtime depression patient who plays videogames for relief when she can't sleep. She liked the game Bejeweled so much that she called its makers, PopCap Games. They were surprised about the benefits she cited and decided to fund some research, being done at the psychophysiology lab and biofeedback clinic at East Carolina University in Greenville, N.C., some of which has been published in the Annual Review of Cybertherapy and Telemedicine. Researchers are looking into "the idea that depression and other disorders - as well as everyday stress and worry - involve systematic patterns of thought and self-doubt, and that games can distract people and put them in a different mental zone. You don't have to play with a computer or an Xbox 360 to notice the effect: Anyone who has used a crossword puzzle or Sudoku game to decompress after a difficult day recognizes the idea." They're looking at benefits not only for depression sufferers but also people in high-stress (and sustained stress) occupations such as soldiers, correctional officers, and hospital staff - people always on the alert who find it difficult to "switch off." [See also "The power of play" and "Play, Part 2."]

'Beatles: Rock Band' game & participatory music

If you'd like some powerful insights into how music is changing, why audiences are turning into participants, and what role videogames have in all this, read "While My Guitar Gently Beeps" in the New York Times Magazine. It's the story of how Apple Corps warmed up to and fully embraced interactive, or participatory, music – the next phase of music history, one could say (without exaggerating). Author and writer Daniel Radosh runs you through the Beatles' version of this evolution, from helping to "kick the compact-disc era into overdrive in 1987," about 20 years after they broke up, right past the "current era of downloadable music" (when "financial disputes kept the Beatles conspicuously sidelined"), to what the $3 billion music part of the videogame industry (a category that's a close second to action games and ahead of sports) represents: simulated performance of real music, among other things. Beatles: Rock Band will be released Sept. 9.

From one perspective, the music videogames of Rock Band and Guitar Hero are a solution to the music industry's P2P file-sharing problem (it probably calls it the piracy problem): Videogames don't just market songs, they sell them now. "In its first week, Motley Crue's 2008 single 'Saints of Los Angeles' sold nearly five times as many copies on Rock Band as it did on iTunes, and at twice the price," Radosh reports. "Pearl Jam plans to release its new album simultaneously on CD and in Rock Band."

Citizen artists? And soon there will be the Rock Band Network, which "will license software tools and provide training for anyone to create and distribute interactive versions of their own songs." That doesn't only expand "the amount and variety of interactive music available," it expands both the musician and participant bases. Now, I think, Rock Band just needs to team up with MySpace or maybe Last.fm to complete the picture, strengthen the community part (see "MySpace's metamorphosis?"). Because fans are often musicians and vice versa, and tunes are talking points in an ongoing "conversation" between artists and fans (and among fans, of course), multidirectionally.

People often put down Rock Band and Guitar Hero as trivializing music, as "just a game" or more about partying than music. Pointing out that, 40 years ago, "an earlier generation was deeply troubled by the advent of recorded music," Radosh cites the view of Brown University ethnomusicology professor Kiri Miller that people seem either to believe these games should be teaching some "fabulous skill" or else they're having some sort of addictive or automatizing effect on you, when they actually represent "a new form of musical experience."

Like 'Grapefruit.' It looks like Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Yoko Ono, and Olivia Harrison have come to agree, to varying degrees. Though the Beatles one isn't quite as interactive as other Rock Band games (comparatively, it's "a 'walled garden' from which songs cannot be exported and added to a party mix alongside other Rock Band tunes, [violating] the central shuffle-and-personalize ethos of modern music consumption"), Yoko Ono sees it as art, Radosh writes, along the lines of her 1964 book Grapefruit. He cites Lennon's view in a later edition of Grapefruit: "A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality."

Apple Corps also apparently liked how a music videogame adds a physical dimension, "requires players to make a commitment of time, effort, and energy," "demands attention," makes the music multisensory. It wasn't about making the Beatles' music compelling for a new generation, Ono told Radosh. For her, McCartney, and Dhani and Olivia Harrison, it came to be about an art form evolving with its practitioners of all kinds - listeners, sharers, performers, composers, etc.

Ringo 'leads from his left hand.' For details on how, in these games of performance simulation, players learn more about both the music and how a particular artist (e.g., Ringo Starr) plays it, look for the paragraph beginning: "Like roughly 80% of the creative team, Eric Brosius, Harmonix's director of audio is an active musician..." (Harmonix is the maker of Beatles: Rock Band). And don't miss the last page or so, where Radosh shows what he's learned from this writing project about where music is headed, then closes with a scene from the E3 videogame convention in Los Angeles this summer, when Paul, Ringo, Yoko, and Olivia appeared on the Staple Center stage together for 75 seconds to unveil the Beatles' 21st-century incarnation.

This isn't just the Beatles' and Harmonix's story. It's everybody's. It's the story of the media sea change we are all experiencing right now, and I think we parents and educators would be wise to join Apple Corps in embracing it.

Related links

CD vs. digital: "While CDs made up 65% of all music sold in the first half of 2009, digital downloads are quickly catching up," the San Jose Mercury News reports, citing NPD Group research. Digital music sales are increasing 15-20% a year and CD sales are dropping "at an equal pace." NPD also found that iTunes iTunes store is becoming the leading music retailer. "Song downloads from iTunes represent 25% of all music units sold in the United States, up from 21% in 2008 and 14% in 2007."

"Joe's Non-Netbook": a student-produced 1:45 minute video on YouTube that'll make you smile and give you a feel for how strange non-interactive media are becoming to the digital generation.

"The power of play"

"Play, Part 2"

Documentary on multiplayer online games

If parents want to understand what's so appealing about MMORPGs ("massively multiplayer online role-playing games"), they might check out a new documentary on the subject, Second Skin. Of the 50 million people who play multiplayer online games, 50% feel they are addicted, the doc reports. It offers insights into who plays these videogames, such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft (the latter grosses $1.2 billion a year, Second Skin reports). Viewers meet all kinds of players, from those who say they're addicted and how they became so to players who've fallen in love with each other in a game (before meeting offline) to "disabled players whose lives have been given new purpose to gold farmers, entrepreneurs and widows," its creators say, adding that "Second Skin opens viewers' eyes to a phenomenon that may permanently change the way human beings interact." On the subject of dating, the doc (which is about 90 min. in length), says one in three women gamers date someone they met in a virtual world and that, for every one female gamer, there are 10 single male gamers. The Guardian gives it a thumbs-up. If you have the time and interest, it's free for the viewing today here.

The power of play: Cyberbullying solution?

Stuart Brown, founder and director of the National Institute for Play in Carmel, Calif., tells the story of what happened between a hungry, 1,200-pound polar bear and a husky tied up at a camp near Hudson Bay, late one October day. The bear approached the group of dogs with his eyes fixed in a predatory stare. Amazingly, one of the huskies greets him in a "play bow," wagging her tail. Dr. Brown, a psychiatrist and neurologist, describes how the two animals begin a "play ballet" – beautifully illustrated by German photographer Norbert Rosing here – that literally disarms the hungry bear in a situation that otherwise would've been a "short fight to the death." Brown says "you see them in an altered state, a state of play," where time drops away."And it's that state that allows these two creatures ... [to begin] to do something neither would've done without the play signals," he later tells public radio host Krista Tippett – "a marvelous example of how a differential in power can be overridden by a process of nature that's within all of us."

That stopped me in my tracks, hearing Brown say that a power differential, a basic component of bullying and cyberbullying, can be overridden by the playfulness or desire to play, which his research has found to be biologically inherent in each of us. Could play – in virtual worlds, in the backyard, and on the school playground (where Brown says kids learns as much as if not more than in classrooms) – itself be protective, be a solution to online harassment and cyberbullying?

Brown's earliest work was back in the late '60s, when he was asked to be the psychiatrist working on the case of Charles Whitman, the "Texas Tower murderer," who Brown found to have grown up with "severe play deprivation." "The progressive suppression of developmentally normal play," he says, made Whitman and other homicide convicts whose lives he studied "more vulnerable to the tragedies they perpetrated."

On the other hand, playfulness and play signals, like those of the husky in the story above, provide a sense of safety, invite communication, and "humanize" or lower inhibition in a good way by exposing more of who the other person is. [BTW, the bear came back to play with the husky every evening that week, Brown says, and nobody got hurt.] "Nothing lights up the brain like play," he said: "three-dimensional play fires up the cerebellum, puts a lot of impulses into the frontal lobe, the executive portion of the brain, and helps contextual memory to be developed," good health, and many other benefits Brown lists in a TEDTalk he gave last year. And there are so many kinds of play – solo play, social play, body play, object play, imaginative play, spectator play, exploratory play, ritual play, rough-and-tumble play (the Institute has organized them into seven patterns of play. In his talk, he shows a photo of a 15th-century painting of people in a courtyard engaged in more than 100 kinds of play. "We may have lost something in our [contemporary] culture," Brown said. "Play is hugely important to the learning and the crafting of the brain; it's not just something you do in your spare time," and he adds that, by definition, it's purposeless. "If the purpose of play is more important than the act of doing it, it's probably not play," he said. The opposite of play is not work, but depression, he added, and play is vital all through life, not just for children.

All forms of play have value, Brown seems to say, and he doesn't exclude videogame or virtual-world play in his interview with Tippett this past week, "Play, Spirit and Character." The more 3-D they are and the more body movement they involve the better, he indicates. Of course these elements are being added to tech-based games. And we're seeing that the richer and more unpredictable the virtual environment, the more imaginative, experimental, and exploratory play are involved. So I would love to get some great virtual worlds I've encountered – e.g., Dizzywood, WeeWorld, and Teen Second Life – talking and participating in research with the National Institute for Play. We need to know more about the role of virtual worlds in the beneficial effects of play for people of all ages - as well as about how play can mitigate antisocial behavior.

If you can catch the Brown interview, listen for what he says about parenting throughout too, especially the part, about halfway through, where he says that taking risks (though certainly not excessive risk) is an important part of play, "necessary to the well-being and future of the species. I think it's safer for the person who is a player to maybe take a few hard knocks ... in childhood than it is to insulate them from the possibility of that. I think [insulating them] constricts their psyches and their futures much more," Brown said. He also talks about the problem with helicopter parenting, sounding a bit like Lenore Skenazy, author of Free-Range Kids, and the New York Times's Lisa Belkin in "Let the Kid Be."

I've long felt that empathy training and other efforts to reduce the impact of online disinhibition (helping kids understand those are human beings with feelings behind those profiles, screennames, avatars, and text messages) are important keys to beating cyberbullying. But now I'm thinking there's probably a role for play!

Next week: Play, Part 2: Violence in videogames

Related links

"The Serious Need for Play" in Scientific American

Play deficit: In a just-released Harris Interactive survey for KaBOOM, "96% of parents said that playing outside was critical to keep kids physically fit, but only 17% thought children played enough outside." Parents say their children spend less than an hour a day engaged in unstructured play outdoors, on average, and "92% of parents say that children today spend less time playing outside than they did when they were growing up."

The opportunities lifelong play presents, according to the National Institute for Play: transforming Education, Personal Health, Relationships, and Corporate Innovation

"You Play World of Warcraft? You're Hired!" in Wired and "Home-schooling with World of Warcraft" earlier here in NFN

WeeWorld.com, Dizzywood.com, and Teen Second Life

Microsoft: Forget the controller

Is it a trend, or is Microsoft just trying to leapfrog Nintendo as it goes for more family videogame players? Maybe both. First, with the Wii, Nintendo turned the videogame controller into "a simple swing-and-swivel device. Now Microsoft wants to ditch the controller entirely and leave the swinging and swiveling to you," USATODAY reports. With the help of none other than Steven Spielberg, Microsoft made the point at the recent E3 gaming conference that controllers are intimidating to people and - despite the huge videogame market - 60% of households don’t own videogame consoles. So it unveiled the console-less "Project Natal" with demos of "a painting game that lets players fling paint onto the screen like Jackson Pollock" and a "dodgeball-type game [that] had a player moving forward and back, left and right, using arms, legs and the whole body to ricochet balls and knock down walls of 3-D tiles," USATODAY adds - but with no details on pricing or release date, the Christian Science Monitor adds. But Nintendo keeps innovating too, also with sensors. At E3, it showed off a "Vitality Sensor," which takes videogame players' pulses, Forbes reports. It's "another milestone in Nintendo's quest to break down traditional definitions of videogames," Forbes says, but adding that Nintendo didn't announce what role the sensor would have in future games.

But back to the controller. Microsoft probably hopes that the 60% of households who don't own consoles won't just play games on cellphones. The New York Times recently reported that the iPhone is becoming a significant gaming platform, with games representing three-quarters of "the most popular paid downloads" from the iPhone App Store (Apple also recently announced that 1 billion apps had been downloaded from the store in its first nine months). But beyond games, iPhone's just about all things to all people - it can be anything from a baby rattle (USATODAY reports) to a musical instrument (hear it on the YouTube video).

Key US study on youth videogame addiction

In what's being described as the US's first nationally representative study on videogame addiction, an Iowa State University researcher found that 88% of the US's 45 million 8-to-18-year-olds play videogames, and 8.5% of them show "multiple signs of behavioral addiction," the Washington Post reports. That means that 3 million young people are either addicted or "'at least have problems of the magnitude' that call for help," the researcher, Douglas Gentile, said. Symptoms include "spending increasing amounts of time and money on videogames to feel the same level of excitement; irritability or restlessness when play is scaled back; escaping problems through play; skipping chores or homework to spend more time at the controller; lying about the length of playing time; and stealing games or money to play more," the Post reports. It's important, I think, to note Gentile's remark that the study doesn't show that videogames are bad or even addictive, but that "some kids use them in a way that is out of balance and harms various other areas of their lives." The research is now in the journal Psychological Science.

Sign of the (videogame) times

Actually, it's a sign of the new-media times: A videogame magazine - Game Informer, circ. 3,517,598 - passed up Playboy, Time, Cosmopolitan, Sports Illustrated and came "strikingly close" to People in the readership rankings, BlastMagazine reports, citing BurrellesLuce research. One qualifier (better understood by gamers and GameStop customers): "It must be noted that GameStop is the proprietor of Game Informer and the mag is issued with every pressure- and fear-induced Edge Card sale. Nevertheless, GI is a quality 'zine with an educated staff of writers and hosts a plethora of valuable content."

For kids, gaming over music

A new study by market researcher NPD Group found that 85% of children aged 2-14 use game consoles, and 82% of 2-to-5-year-olds play games on one or more devices, while 60% use digital music players, Gamasutra reports. NPD's Kids & Digital Content III report, which surveyed more than 3,500 kids who use electronic devices, also found that a third of the 2-to-14-year-olds watch videos such as movies and online video clips on laptops or other electronic devices, and 22% download ringtones on their cellphones. Here's more on the NPD report from Gamespy. Meanwhile, in a keynote speech at CES, Mike Griffith, CEO of Guitar Hero maker Activision, "proclaimed that video games are 'poised to eclipse all other forms of entertainment in the decade ahead'," the BBC reports. "He quoted US market statistics which showed that between 2003 and 2007 sales of movie tickets fell by 6%; the number of hours of TV watched dropped by 6%, sales of recorded music slumped 12% and purchases of DVDs remained flat.

3rd Guitar Hero 1st to beat $1 billion

Not only has the Guitar Hero videogame series surpassed $1 billion. Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock itself has, GameDaily reports. It, too, reported on Activision CEO Mike Griffith's keynote at the giant CES show in Las Vegas last week, citing his statement that "the videogame industry has had a profound effect on other entertainment sectors, and that Guitar Hero in particular has been hugely important to the music industry." Evidence: Griffith cited Nielsen data showing that "artists whose music was playable in Guitar Hero had seen download sales increase 15-843%." The newest Guitar Hero game allows players to compose their own songs. Activision data claims that in the game's first 10 days, 141,000 songs were posted by players, and the Guitar Hero community site has more than 600,000 members. "To date, there have been 21 million user-song downloads."

Videogames not just child's play

Videogames certainly aren't just for kids. That's the key take-away from a new study by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, finding that more than half of US adults play videogames. [Another Pew survey I covered in September found that 97% of US 12-to-17-year-olds do.] People 65+ are no slouches where videogaming's concerned: Nearly a third of people 65 and up play games everyday, Pew found, while only 20% of all younger players do so everyday. Younger players prefer gaming consoles (e.g., PlayStation or Xbox), older ones prefer computers, which are the most popular gaming devices - 73% of adult gamers play with computers to play games, compared with 53% consoles, 35% cellphones, and 25% portable gaming devices. Here's coverage in a Washington Post blog, and the San Jose Mercury News has a shopper's guide to the latest videogames.

Don't just take away the Xbox: Psychiatrist's view

The details emerging from a tragic national story about a missing boy in Canada point to an important observation about videogaming: that taking away a videogame (or device it's played on) does not have the same effect as taking away a toy or conventional game. Fifteen-year-old Brandon Crisp of Barrie, Ontario, missing for more than two weeks, left the house angry after his father took away his Xbox console. His father told the Toronto Globe and Mail that "this has become his identity, and I didn't realize how in-depth this was until I took his Xbox away." His mother "would wake in the middle of the night to hear ... Brandon, speaking into his headset as he feverishly played [the Xbox game] 'Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare'," the Globe and Mail reports in another article, adding that his parents are "sure Brandon had become addicted to the game and link its appeal" to his disappearance.

Portland, Ore.-based psychiatrist Jerald Block emailed me a heads-up about this story last weekend. So I took the opportunity to ask him, one of the US's leading experts on videogame addiction, how this kind of addiction can be treated - what I can tell parents about that. He started and ended with that question, but in the middle of his answer are some very helpful insights for anyone who cares about or works with an addicted gamer - parents, friends, educators, policymakers - into the impact that sudden removal from a videogame's world can have....

Why game addiction's hard to treat

How to treat this addiction is "a good question," Dr. Block wrote me, "and one that I hate because it has no easy answer. I have treated many cases and I am still trying to figure out what works best and for whom. But here's what I've learned about gaming in general and gamers of all ages: Gaming is particularly hard to treat as it is 1) enjoyable, 2) an outlet for despair/anger/sex, 3) readily available, 4) time-consuming and thus fills in otherwise unpleasant 'spaces' in one's life, 5) a social forum with Virtual or simulated people, 6) a source of power, and 7) a portrayal of a fair, equal world.

"When people elect to voluntarily give all that up, they generally struggle with their mood and anger. If they are *forced* to give it up, all those emotions become amplified; any fanciful notions of power or control are trampled when they're disconnected against their will.

"Also, unplugging the computer can vividly demonstrate how intangible and fragile the Virtual is and can lead to existential crisis. This is a complex concept, but I consider it crucial. People are spending 30, 40, 50, or more hours a week powering up and getting success on their computers. They work hard at mastering the games and technology. They make significant sacrifices in terms of time and effort. The mastery becomes representative, in a psychological sense, of one's self-worth.

What is reality?

"Now disconnect the computer or console. You have summarily dismissed those accomplishments - the fantasy, the power, and that alternate life, heavily invested in (and mind you sometimes that alternate life may seem a whole lot better than the Real one). Now take it a step further: If someone could so easily destroy such an important thing that, although Virtual, seemed quite Real, isn't it also possible that our flesh-and-blood reality is yet another deception or illusion? To gamers - given the story lines they 'live' in - this is not as far-fetched as it may sound. Philosophers and religious leaders have discussed this for hundreds of years. It does sound pretty disturbing (or disturbed) - the concept that we might not actually exist but are, instead, merely some other being's dream or, as Oxford philosopher Nick Bostrom recently wondered, merely simulations running in a simulated society? Such concepts can sound bizarre, but when in history have people actually been able to live them in very real-seeming environments - on so massive a scale, and at such young ages? More than 10 million people worldwide regularly play World of Warcraft, and that's just one such environment/game. I doubt the concept that life might actually be yet another illusion is hardly foreign to WoW's players. It is actually commonplace enough, the subject of numerous films (e.g., The Matrix) and even parody (The Onion's 'World of World of Warcraft' video).

"What I am getting at, here, is that - whatever your philosophy happens to be about how we define 'reality' - I believe the more one starts to believe he or she exists only as a piece of code running in some meta-computer (as some of my patients have done), the less valuable life becomes - your own life, others' lives, and the ethics by which you live. If one's life isn't real and one is just a puppet in some meta-being's 'game,' then it can come to feel like what one does in Real Life doesn't matter much.

Understanding the gamer's needs

"These are some of the risks of abruptly stopping computer or videogame use. As for treatment, one option is to cut someone off in the context of an extended (2+ weeks) camp where he or she is left physically or mentally exhausted. In doing so, you are wisely substituting rewards in the Real for those being lost in the Virtual. For example, at a well-structured camp, there are not an extra 30 hours to fill each week after work or school, and people form relationships with others who are enduring the same hardships. If it sounds something like boot camp in the military ... well, depending on your age, that is a therapeutic option worth considering.

"The alternative to 'cutting the cord' is to talk with the person and try to understand his perspective. Maybe he thinks his gaming is more helpful than harmful, maybe not a problem at all. So, first come to understand what the patient feels. If you feel the computer use is counterproductive and she doesn't, discuss why the two of you seem unable to understand one another's perspectives. Nothing will happen until she becomes motivated to change herself. If, eventually, the patient comes to believe as you do - that the computer or game use is excessive and destructive - then you can try to agree on goals to cut back on it. Part of that discussion will entail trying to address what needs the computer was satisfying and what one can do instead.

"The process tends to be very gradual - progress is measured in weeks or months - and it is therapy-intensive. Obviously, it is not the 'quick fix' that we want and need. What do I suggest parents do? I don't honestly know. If it were my child, I would first start by setting limits. I would avoid cutting him off from his technology for more than a few consecutive days and would avoid using computer restrictions punitively. If limit-setting failed and the compulsive play got worse, I would punt and take him to see a therapist."

Related links

"Virtual games, real addiction" in the Toronto Globe and Mail

"$50,000 reward for helping to find missing Ontario teen" in the National Post

"Missing teen hooked on Xbox game" at CNET

"Missing Ontario teen may not be in Canada: Police" at CBC News

Dr. Block's site

"West slow to take on Net addiction"

"'SIGNS' of Net addiction"

US teens' gaming highly social: Study

Digital gaming is virtually universal and very social among US teens, the Pew Internet & American Life Project found in a study it released today. "Fully 97% of teens [99% of boys and 94% of girls] ages 12-17 play computer, web, portable, or console games," Pew reports. As for the social aspect of digital gaming, 65% of teens play with other people in the room; 27% with people online; and 82% play games alone, but 71% of those also play with other people. "The gaming experience is rich and varied, with a significant amount of social interaction and potential for civic engagement," Pew says in its press release.

In other key findings, 80% play five or more types of games and 40% eight or more (e.g., racing, action, shooter, rhythm, puzzles). The respondents' top 5 games were, respectively, Guitar Hero, Halo 3, Madden NFL, Solitaire, and Dance Dance Revolution. "The average rating for teens’ favorite games is just above a Teen rating," and nearly "a third of teens play games that are listed as appropriate only for people older than they are," but the average game rating for all the teens surveyed was an E10+ rating." Ninety percent of parents say they always or sometimes know what games their kids play. As for civic engagement, this was an interesting observation by the authors: "Teens who take part in social interaction related to the game, such as commenting on websites or contributing to discussion boards, are more engaged civically and politically." "Computer games drive social ties" was the BBC's headline and "Can games make your kid a better citizen?" was MSNBC's.

The Spore metaphor

A perfect illustration of the mix of positives and negatives - mostly positives - that is the user-driven Web: the debut of Spore. There's a whole lot to Spore - entertainment, education, strategy, creativity, savagery.... And everything's represented in its media story: a gamemaker's (Will Wright's) world-class creativity; old-style mass-media marketing; social Web viral marketing; and users' creative ways of playing with marketing features - creativity that producer Electronic Arts had in mind and creativity it definitely did not have in mind.

In Spore you start as a microbe but you also play God and create whole worlds. Part of its genius is creator Will Wright's collaboration with evolutionary biologists and other scientists in developing the game (don't miss this fascinating New York Times piece about that science/entertainment cross-pollination, including the video on that page). In Spore, Scientific American reports, "gamers must make crucial decisions that affect the entire world in which they operate, and must then deal with the consequences of their actions. Whereas the Sims series [designed by Wright too] focuses on what happens in societies created by gamers, Spore also gives control over the evolution of an entire universe."

In the "Give Them an Inch, They'll Take a Mile" Dept. of the user-driven Web, there were the unintended consequences of Spore's pre-debut marketing tool, Creature Creator. MSNBC games editor Kristin Kalning reported that in among all the creative little organisms spawned by users of this free activity were some that violated Spore's Terms of Service: "fantastical creations of a less imaginary, more [humanly] anatomical nature" created by "pervy 13-year-olds" (developmentally speaking), Kristin wrote, and falling into a new category dubbed "sporn" (EA says it takes these illicit creatures down upon notification but of course EA has to depend on the Terms of Use and customer-service departments of other sites such as YouTube for deletions in those sites). I suspect EA may wish at times that all creature creation were tied to the actual game, where its storyline has a role to play in creature development.

Meanwhile, "there were over 400,000 creatures on SPOREpedia," the creature showcase, Kristin reports, "coming in at a rate of 1,000 per minute."

MSNBC's Kristin had fun creating three creatures herself, "my favorite being Jinx, named after my cat. It’s blue and spotted, with wings (my creature, not my cat). It has 'palmwalker' feet, a fierce bark and horns to ward off enemies. I enjoyed making it do the hippety hop." A tech educator friend of mine is already using the Creature Creator in his classroom. He reported on Twitter this week that he just installed it "on my 26 lab PCs. Can't wait to see what the kids do with this thing!"

Related links

In MTV's Multiplayer blog, Will Wright's reaction to Spore reviews

"'Spore': The evolution of gaming" in USATODAY

Mobile Spore ... for iPod and phones

Spore's own FAQ

Parents' videogame concerns

"Parents are more concerned about their children’s exposure to video games than alcohol, violence and pornography," according to in-site polls at WhatTheyPlay.com. The site gathered responses from "nearly 3,000 respondents in two separate polls," its press release said. One of the polls asked parents "what they’d be most concerned about their 17-year-old child indulging in while at a sleepover." They said they'd be more concerned about "their child smoking marijuana (49%) and playing the video game Grand Theft Auto (19%) than [about] watching pornography (16%) and drinking beer (14%). In this case unfamiliarity breeds contempt: The site's press release offers some perspective on this from Cheryl Olsson, author of Grand Theft Childhood, as saying that "To some parents, video games are full of unknowable dangers. While researching for Grand Theft Childhood, parents we spoke with in focus groups often bemoaned the fact that they didn’t know how to use game controls - and felt unequipped to supervise or limit video game play. Of course, parents don’t want their children drinking alcohol, but that’s a more familiar risk." Here's coverage in the Los Angeles Times and a commentary on the study in Red Herring.

Videogame for visualizing healing

A just-published study in the journal Pediatrics involving 375 cancer patients aged 13-29 in the US, Canada, and Australia found that their playing a game called Re-Mission "led to better compliance with their medications and more confidence in fighting the disease," redOrbit.com reports. The study's lead author in the Netherlands, Dr. Pamela Kato, told Reuters that the results are important because adherence to treatment is a major problem in that age group. According to redOrbit, Re-Mission, developed by the nonprofit HopeLab in Redwood City, Calif., is about "a microscopic 'nanobot' named Roxxi [who] travels through the bodies of characters with cancer, blasting away cancer cells and bacteria with a firearm of chemotherapy and antibiotics."

Videogame program for libraries

You just may be seeing more videogame play at a public library near you. "The American Library Association has announced a new project funded with a $1 million grant from the Verizon Foundation" to study how videogame play improves literacy skills and create a "tool kit that libraries across the country can use to develop gaming programs," the Arizona Daily Star reports. One of the librarians charged with developing the program told the Star that she's seeing "growing evidence that games in general, from the traditional board versions to electronic and online ones, support literacy and 21st-century learning skills." Meanwhile, the Charlotte, N.C., public library is offering free workshops in videogame design, the Charlotte Observer reports, the Chicago Tribune asks, "Should libraries stock videogames?" and the Columbus Dispatch reports that "Libraries' videogames are teen magnet."

New York's new videogame law

Gov. David Paterson today signed a law that establishes an advisory panel to study the effects of videogame violence on kids and establishes $100 civil penalties for "violations of labeling and parental control provisions," Newsday reports. Most videogame consoles already have parental controls, however (see this about a guide for them), and game ratings are available to all at ESRB.org. Critics are calling it "moral preening" after similar laws have been struck down as unconstitutional in other states. "Language making a felony of selling video games that are sexually explicit or contain depraved violence was lost during furious lobbying that derailed [New York's] bill in May 2007. That provision would have made the law among the strictest in the nation," Newsday adds. Let's now see if this version of the law passes constitutional muster.

Griefers: Gamer worlds' bullies

Griefers aren't new to gaming communities, but they're apparently becoming a fixture in multiplayer online games too - games such as World of Warcraft, RuneScape and Everquest, Reuters reports. "Unlike traditional Internet bullies who work through instant messages and cell phones, griefers lurk on online multi-player videogames, harassing their victim by bullying, tormenting or thwarting other players in the game," according to Reuters. For help on how to deal with this, see "10 Tips for Dealing with Griefers" at Microsoft.com, "Dealing with Griefers in Second Life" at MindSigh.com, and in a World of Warcraft forum, "Nazsh's Guide to Dealing with Griefers." See also "Support for young videogamers."