Everything Bad Is Good for You

[mmadsen]

No, but it does seem to have helped you become aware of what is a parenthetical aside, and that you can overuse them. This puts you several grades above the average internet user.

I think it's jumping to conclusions to say that a well-spoken member of EN World is well-spoken because he's played RPGs for years. What's cause, and what's effect? And are EN Worlders at all typical of either RPGers or message-boarders? (I suspect no and no.)

Yes, I do think complex gaming makes you smarter. I also think that complex gaming is increasingly a powerful educational tool. Eventually, I expect that interactive games will overtake passive entertainment as the dominate form of mental recreation in society. Arguably, we've already reached that point.

Even the current batch of teenagers spend more time on TV than videogames though, right? What's amazing is that, for the first time, they're watching less TV than their predecessors. They're still getting far less physical activity though.

For myself, probably the one thing I'd point to is the influence D&D has had on my map reading and sense of direction.

I have to think all the Doom and Half-Life players have us beat, hands down, on that skill.

I think video games in particular don't necessarily encourage people to develop the mental endurance required for really hard problem solving. Somethings just require longer attention spans, resistance to boredom, and long study without continually getting rewards and positive feedback.

Good point. If you want someone to learn something as quickly as possible, give them a game/simulation on that topic. If you want them to "build character" though, you need to find a way to make them "buckle down" and wait for delayed gratification.

 

[der_kluge]

"You can't play Dungeons and Dragons for 20 years and not learn a little something about courage."

/X-files

 

[reveal]

So, the natural question is, Has D&D made you smarter?

Nope... Still dumb as a brick.

 

[Ruined]

We were joking this weekend about how playing Tetris has enhanced our skills at fitting items in moving vans.

As far as RPGs go, I'll say its increased my logic skills.

 

[The Grumpy Celt]

It's done wonders for my analytic skills and non-linear thinking to arrive at solutions.

However, it’s not helped my skill with the ladies all that much.

 

[Teflon Billy]

...says the guy with sharpee on his forehead.


j/k

Hey! A smart person isn't afraid to ask for help

 

[Nareau]

Playing D&D has certainly improved my problem-solving skills. In fact, I would go a step further: involvement with any kind of speculative-fiction (media, games, etc) makes a person smarter. S-F has at its heart an exploration of what could be. Once you start exploring theoretical situations, and extrapolating possible outcomes from unfamiliar circumstances--you're bound to become more intelligent.

Spider

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I think RPGs have expanded my knowledge but I also think my knowledge would be pretty broad with out ever having played a RPG (its just the kind of person I am) but it has definitly improved by speed at calculating statistics.
I don't think video games in general do much to increase someones intelect anymore so than more traditional games (chess for example or a complex word puzzle) but video games sure are fun.

 

[wingsandsword]

I credit D&D with helping me graduate from college. I always tested sky-high on standardized tests in regard my mathematical talent, but a combination of poor teachers and lack of motivation meant this talent never got used much. In college, my first semester I flunked my math requirement. Later that year I discovered D&D, and years later when that was the last class I needed to graduate, I went back and got a B. Years of learning to do math quickly in my head, probabilities, detailed character bookkeeping and figuring out the best or most efficient mathematical combination of variables from years of D&D quickly translated into the skills I needed to pass my math requirement.

Of course, there was the incidental knowledge of ancient religions and cultures, folklore, medieval civilization, archaic weaponry, and general trivia from D&D helped too. Nothing quite like taking a class in Japanese History before 1865, History of the Crusades or Medieval Cosmology and realizing you've seen all this material before just presented differently.

All those years playing D&D, and I should have been getting course credit for it

 

[Zappo]

From Malcolm Gladwell's review, Brain Candy:
Johnson develops the same argument about video games. Most of the people who denounce video games, he says, haven’t actually played them—at least, not recently. Twenty years ago, games like Tetris or Pac-Man were simple exercises in motor coördination and pattern recognition. Today’s games belong to another realm. Johnson points out that one of the “walk-throughs” for “Grand Theft Auto III”—that is, the informal guides that break down the games and help players navigate their complexities—is fifty-three thousand words long, about the length of his book. The contemporary video game involves a fully realized imaginary world, dense with detail and levels of complexity.

I have played and am playing lots of videogames (but then again, I'm not exactly "denouncing" them). Convincing me that Mortal Kombat or Quake make you smarter in any significant way is going to take something more. A full spoiler guide to the latest Mortal Kombat can be easily as long as a GTA3 walkthrough, but that doesn't mean anything. A lot of the complexity in modern games lies in endless variations of the same simple thing, which may be fun but is of limited educational use. For an example, try Final Fantasy X. Straight railroad with no significant choices to make, with the occasional puzzle much easier than anything you'd find in an enigmistics magazine, yet its walkthrough is several megabytes.

Gladwell hasn't picked GTA3 at random. That is one of the most freeform games in existance, along with just a few others like the Elder Scrolls series. It is hardly representative of videogames as a whole. It is ironic that one of the games that drew most fire from the media is also among the most mentally stimulating.