Recently the British Ministry of Education released a draft revision to the elementary curriculum which would require students, among other things, to “master Twitter and Wikipedia”.
As you might expect, there are some who don’t like the idea.
Like England’s “foremost neuroscientist” profiled by the London Daily Telegraph.
“There’s nothing wrong with enjoying games. But don’t you think it’s strange that people are engaging in activities that have no purpose? Spending their precious time and money sitting in front of a screen in a make-believe world when they could be out there having love affairs and doing things in the real world?
“And that’s what worries me. That we are rearing a generation of kids that are in danger of becoming emotionally stunted, inarticulate, hedonists with the attention span of a gnat. Because they spend the majority of their time in front of a computer screen. A whole generation that can’t interact because their skills are limited to inhabiting a fantasy world on a screen.”
Wow!
Would someone else like to comment? I’ve been staring at the make-believe world of this blog for nearly an hour and can’t think of anything to follow that.
[Update: Sorry for leaving out the link to the Telegraph article, now corrected.]
“they could be out there having love affairs”… hehe, obviously he has not meet any of the people who spend all their time on the Internet :-)
I suppose I should stop reading books too, I don’t want to get caught up in those “make believe” worlds either… or movies… People magazine is real world tho, right (so, I can keep reading that).
I think his caution should be we should ensure that we (and our students) balance our lives and manage our real world time and “make believe” time accordingly. As I read it a couple of times he is not really that off the mark.
Personally, I think this is the most unbelievable nonsense, and can only be born of a total ignorance of the nature videogames, the behaviours that surround them, and how social networking relates to people’s lives.
She is not the foremost neuroscientist in the UK, and the Telegraph should be ashamed for indulging in such obviously ideologically driven comment.
Twittercurriculum & neuroscientist: dumb and dumber
Interesting…the business world is now trying to capitalize on this “make believe” world. My husband, a business person in the real world, was just invited to a Chamber of Commerce Event entitled “How to make Twitter, Facebook, and Wikis work for your business.” These are powerful tools which can help us connect and strengthen our business, professional, and personal relationships.
Strange juxtaposition there with her encouraging love “affairs” and then condemning hedonism in the next paragraph. It’s also hard to take someone who poses for soooo many absurd PR shots seriously.