Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Argyle King" data-source="post: 7716739" data-attributes="member: 58416">If I may indulge in a gross over-generalization.  I think part of the problem is that today's society partially fosters the idea that success and failure are beyond the control of the individual.  Society teaches that you check the requisite boxes in high school, and you then check the requisite jobs in college, and presto! you get the perfect job.  Success is attributed to engaging the system rather than engaging the individual.  On the other side of the coin, failure is often attributed to outside factors and the system.  Whether good things or bad things are happening, there's a perception that they are happening somewhat independently from the individual's actions and efforts.  In this way, individuals are conditioned to (on some level) believe that success and failure are beyond their control.  When someone checks all the boxes and still ends up flipping burgers, they are conditioned to blame the broken system for why things didn't work and submit to their fate.  Likewise, when encountered with success, they are conditioned to believe that success is based upon checking all of the boxes or that somebody else's success is the result of that other person lucking out or having some unfair advantage.  (Yes, I am aware that some people really do just happen to luck out and/or have a privileged head start, but that's a different conversation.)  So, the end result involves two things: 1) the creation of a mentality of powerlessness; 2) the motivation of an individual to push through hardship is killed because there is a perception of pointlessness.So, I can see a scenario in which gaming is an escape from that situation.  In a game, a person is a not powerless.  Their character is someone who has power as an individual; power to change the game world.  Pushing through hardship is no longer seen as pointless because the active actions of the player have meaning within the context of having power of their character's fate and abilities.  As an individual in the fantasy world, they have power, power which they've been conditioned to believe they do not have in real life.For whatever it is worth, I have been following studies which measure why college graduates are not getting hired.  In nearly 7 years (arguably closer to 10 or 15) the answers have remained largely the same.  Most of the surveyed employers have responded by saying that, while graduates do great at technical skills and score well on aptitude tests, graduates have a lack of "soft skills," and graduates are found to be lacking skills that are needed outside of the classroom setting.  In particular, one of the most cited "soft skills" found to be lacking is the ability to take initiative in the workplace.  (One of the other commonly cited things is a lack of ability to effectively engage in face-to-face communication in a work environment.)I live in America, so most of my opinion is based upon how I see things here.  It's been quite a few years since I've traveled abroad, so I cannot speak on behalf of how things may look elsewhere.</blockquote>

Verification