Everything bad is good for you

In this excerpt from the book, the author goes into detail comparing and contrasting reading books versus playing video games. Clear beneficial virtues of books consist of the information conveyed by the book and the mental work you have to do to process and store that information. The cognitive benefits derived from reading include effort, concentration, attention, the ability to make sense of words, to follow narrative threads and to sculpt imagined worlds out of mere sentences on a page. Steven Johnson does something interesting, he turns our thoughts to a parallel universe where video games were invented long before books. The argument goes on to say that a book contains a fixed linear path, creates problems of dyslexia, socially interactive children become tragically isolated and only a small part of the brain is used to process written language. The author then goes on to disagree with this argument but brings it up for a clear reason because video games do show benefit like activating the full range of sensory and motor cortices. The way I see it is they both can be beneficial in their own ways but the better you are at reading, the better off you are in general because todays educational system and job market put a high premium on reading skills. Over the past few years appearing on mainstream news stations were headlines of "Playing video games may not actually be a complete waste of time". The virtues of gaming run far deeper than hand eye coordination, gaming can actually improve your spelling, problem solving and challenge the mind to keep going after failing. You never hear on mainstream coverage that games are fiendishly/maddeningly hard to complete, adding an educational sense of determination to those who hardcore game, start to end. When the article shifts to 'Do games and pop culture make us smarter', the author states that society's maturity comes from the process of mental atrophy. The thought of a toddler sitting infront of a tv, starring with mouth and eyes wide open, a parent may say may child is becoming brain dead, sames goes for a elementary age student playing video games. Yet the real answer is that your child is focusing, this is in fact the first time I've ever heard this statement and I believe it is 100% spot on. Exploring and understanding new things is what learning is all about and is precisely what children in these situations are doing, its just nothing is going on in their material environment to learn from so they focus on the television. This article had the ups and downs of both reading and video games but when it comes down to it basically the conclusion is that if you stress/make your brain work, your learning and bettering your mind.