Gaming: Ted Talk

After our discussion in class today regarding the potential for an increase in worldwide gaming to yield positive results, I left class not particularly agreeing with the hypothesis.  In the Ted Talk, Jane McGonigal states that she truly believes that an increase in the number of hours spent gaming worldwide could plausibly bring with it solutions to various world problems.  Although she admits that she is still currently in pursuit of figuring out how she can divert that focus from the games to more-so of a problem solving emphasis, she still believes that it can be done.

            The problems that I had with this hypothesis came down to two things.  The first aspect that I did not agree with was her concept of gaming.  Granted there are numerous games on the market that emphasize positive attributes such as teamwork, collaboration, critical thinking, etc., there are just as many that do not provide as stimulating mental results and are more for enjoyment.  For someone like myself in particular, I do not see an increase in the time spent playing Madden, NBA 2K13, or any given shooter game leading to my discovery of a solution to end the global water problem or fuel supply.  Obviously that is a bit dramatic use of an example but without refining her hypothesis and including all types of gaming, I simply don’t agree with the thought that worldly problems can be solved by more gaming.  My second shortcoming pertaining to this theory has to do with her idea that an increase to 100 billion gaming hours worldwide will lead to solutions for worldly problems.  The part I have a problem with is the fact that she states that the more gaming the better, but to me that is the case with anything in life.  So when I think to myself would 100 billion hours of gaming aid mankind more, or would 100 billion hours of research and development with the focus being the aforementioned world problems be better it is impossible to side with the gamers.  Clearly 100 billion hours of research and development sounds ridiculous, but in reality I feel as if any study in search of those solutions will yield a result much faster than an increase in gaming ever could.