Idea Channel | PBS | Talk DND and social interactions.

Ed_Laprade said:

However, I'm rather suspicious of the numbers of people who can't seem to cope with 'normal' info disemination. Just plain mental laziness seems more likely than that they've all got ADD. But that's just my opinion.

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Indeed. I suspect that if asked about you, they would note that your thinking seems slow, that you can't easily take in bits and pieces of many streams of information, quickly coalescing them into a whole impression, including very complex models of social interaction.

To be clear, I don't mean that in any negative way. I simply think that the "normal" way that minds work is changing in the information age, and that it's not "lazy" to not be good at taking in deep information slowly, but rather simply a different way of thinking, neither better nor worse.

That was soooo fast!

Ed_Laprade said:

3. is what bothered me about the speed. Too many people these days simply can't be bothered to pay attention to anything that isn't presented in slam-bang fashion. Which suggests that they miss a lot of information that they ought to know because they won't read/listen/watch it.

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I half agree. It does seem that the presentation of this is "LISTENTOTHISTHENLOOKATTHISFUNNYTHING" which makes me feel dumb for being entertained by it. And laughing at all the references. But I think it speaks to my and the next generations because we grew up with such a huge backlog of easily referable canon of ideas and situations. How many times have you tried to explain a situation in your life with "...oh it was like that time in the Simpsons where Bart did this"? And it keeps our attention because of the familiarity and instantly gratifying knowledge that we know where it came from and the pleasure the original source gave us.

Erm, anyway, I think that trying to put such a positive spin on this hobby is nice for Wizards' PR. And it's nice for people trying to get others into the hobby. But I don't believe that the skills you get from playing games can be taken into the real world just by playing the game themselves. It's the player and their own character that chooses to do either something or nothing with these experiences.

Does reading a book automatically make you a smart person? No, it's the reflection on the material and connecting the content with real life matters.

BUT, now that I think of it, this video speaks to the growing acceptance of the hobby. Which is, in some light, good! It says that though now it is misunderstood, it has it's merits and it isn't just for losers and weirdos. In a few years, maybe we'll see a total acceptance of it, and it will be just as acceptable and accessible as athletics in school.