Sunday, February 03, 2008

The photo at left showing Time writer and blogger Lev Grossman's daughter gaming on her laptop shows how easy it can be to come to the right conclusion while giving the wrong impression. Lev is one of those young men who grew up on gaming and then couldn't wait to infect his own daughter with his addiction. Something made him wonder, however and he decided to consult an expert Susan Gregory Thomas whom he now calls Susie Joykiller, because she explained to him that his ideas of the wonderful advantages like hand/eye coordination he was offering his daughter were just his own destructive fantasies offered as rationalization.Then the magazine article pulls the plug on Lev Grossman's discovery by offering websites for tiny gamers. A better thing would nave been to tell where to buy scissors.

What this article illustrates is that we are now entering a second generation in which children have been turned over to machines to entertain and instruct while the age old tools of human creativity remain untouched. As people generally read only the first few lines of articles, most readers will be influenced by the picture of Lev Grossman's daughter gaming (Oh! So cute!) and never understand the stupidity of the idea nor the complexity of the issues involved.

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