Yes: Video games corrode education system’s foundation
December 26, 2011 at 6:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Video games of all sorts are ruining the foundations of our educational system. Nowhere is that more prevalent than at the post-secondary level. From early childhood through pre-teen years and into early adulthood, people who play video games are exposed to something corrosive to education, especially when play is in excess.
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It’s all about discipline. Some have it by the time they enter college, some do not. Video games are just the distraction of choice for those who already lack the motivation to concentrate on school.
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I’m with Dan on this one. Video games themselves do no more to corrode our education system’s foundation than do movies, or social activities, or friends, or any distraction from schoolwork (even commenting on this article!)……difference is, some unmotivated, or entitled, or who-knows-what students allow video games to take precedent in their lives. Blaming one thing alone is done just to give us something to blame. Students are unmotivated, entitled, and think life is easy. They are in for a pretty rude awakening when the time comes to get a job that doesn’t involve a controller and a headset.
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Ah, no. Unmotivated and badly prepared students corrode the foundation of college education.
If you find yourself in college with a lot of 21 and 22 year old friends who spend a lot of time playing video games, get some new friends.
If you are in college and find yourself spending most of your time playing video games, it’s probably time to quit and get a job (or move back in with mom and dad).
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Of course Duluthian wouldn’t miss an opportunity to attack college students, too. Of course, athletic programs don’t have anything to do with it… all these jocks dragging down the standard in many CLA classes, because they care more about their athletic scholarship than their coursework. Nor does college tuition have anything to do with it… ensuring that most working class students must work at least 25 hours a week on top of classes. Nope.
Just like a typical Republican, it must be lazy people’s fault.
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Huh? Did you even read these opinion pieces? They are about the effect of video games on student performance. I’m saying that students who play a lot of video games aren’t going to be very good students.
You are talking about … athletes? CLA??? tuition? work? It’s about video games Merv. Put down your Xbox and read the articles.
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In your first comment, you said that “No” video games are not to blame. You said something else was to blame (lazy and unprepared students). I am saying that, before jumping to conclusions, perhaps there are other things aside from video games and lazy students that are doing greater damage to our education system. Is that really so far fetched?
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Oh my. Let me connect the dots for you. An unmotivated student is far more likely to spend a lot of time playing video games than one who is motivated, particularly if they are playing video games at the expense of doing school work. So it’s not the video games that are to blame, it is the unmotivated student who prefers video games to school.
Blaming video games seems to fundamentally miss the point. It’s the student who decides they’d rather play 4 hours of video games each night rather than studying that is the problem. And if we banned video games I’m sure these unmotivated students would find other ways to avoid school work, so again, it’s not really the video games that are the problem.
If you want to try and claim that students are working so many hours they can’t study, that’s fine. I’m sure that happens. But the fact is there are plenty of students who have ample time to study but choose not to, and do very poorly in school as a result. I think that’s really what this discussion is about, and those students really are a problem for higher education. Video games are a symptom, but not the cause.
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Yeah, I got your point the first time. But you said in your first post that unprepared students are responsible for corroding our education system. And I think that’s just silly. It would be like blaming the janitor at Kmart for the store shutting down. Sure, unmotivated students compromise their own education, but they are in no way corroding the entire system.
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Unprepared and unmotivated employees could surely result in a store being closed. I guess you really did study the liberal arts – a few business classes might have done you some good.
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Only piss poor management would let an entire store close because of lazy employees. It seems like you are from the school of thought where management is always right, so you look at people below you as a scapegoat for your problems.
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If the manager spent all day playing video games, I’m sure the store would eventually suffer. If the employees spent all day playing video games I’m sure the store would close pretty fast. I’m actually of the school of thought that says managers matter somewhat less than they think, and they can probably spend more time playing video games and nobody would really notice.
I’m also of the school of thought that we should try to stay somewhat on target, and the issue here was indeed video games.
Want better grades? Play less video games, study more. Want to be successful in your job? Less time on video games, more time on your actual job. It’s not all that complicated.
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I knew it, I knew it, I knew it. I KNEW “Yes” would be a PoliSci major. Typical of most of UMD’s CLA membership, blame others, nothing’s their fault, no personal responsibility.
Hard to believe someone who doesn’t have the guts to take responsibility for their actions is aspiring to be a lawyer.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Ummmm, Spock, the writer was ASSIGNED to argue for this side of the argument. He is on the debate team, and in debate competitions people are assigned a position to argue for. It is an intellectual exercise, and not a sign that a Political Science major is inherently against personal responsibility.
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Unless the online version somehow changes south of Pine City I’m seeing nothing that this was “assigned”. I’ve scrolled through this piece of junk piece 6 times plus used search, and have found nothing stating it was anything other than a normal opinion piece.
And if it was assigned & the author was simply writing for a project, than this has no business being in the opinions since it’s not truly his.
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If the author was assigned to write this piece, I hope he got a fairly bad grade. The solution presented that parents should somehow forbid college students from playing video games is very weak indeed, and is more appropriate to elementary or middle school kids than it is college students.
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Typical of trolls like Duluth Spock to discriminate against an entire college. Get out of Limbaugh-land! You would probably learn a thing or two from a liberal arts college.
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Not typical. Having attended UMD and been enrolled in the Poli Sci program there for a spell I saw that behavior every single day, both in the PoliSci department & the entire CLA. Many of those people are the same types we saw at the beautiful Occupy protests.
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LOL Merv. Learn something from the liberal arts department??? Good joke, Merv!!!
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For starters, you could take a social research class and learn how to develop your conclusions SCIENTIFICALLY, using experiments and evidence, rather than basing them on whatever fits into your narrow-minded world view.
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YEAH! I’ve always admired your scientific conclusions Merv. I’m sure you have a study to back up your name calling in this little discussion.
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LOL MERV! I’ve seen plenty of examples of your “scientific approach” on these boards…my advice is get your money back! The “college” you went to obviously puts out underachievers.
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Wouldn’t it be more appropriate for this article to appear in the college newspaper? Was this a class assignment for the writer?
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I work in IT, and nearly everyone I know plays video games. My boss plays . His boss plays. Not just Angry Birds or Farmville either. Instead of talking about golf or fantasy football in the morning, they talk about World of Warcraft or Call of Duty.
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Gathering around the water cooler to talk about video games? Sounds about as promising as the Romans blathering on about their circuses the next day.
No wonder China is on the move.
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Trolling the News Tribune forums to talk about how people should only talk about the things you consider relevant/topical? Sounds about as promising as I’ve come to expect from the inhabitants of this dungeon.
Now, if you’ll excuse me. . . AFK banging hot chicks.
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No, I have this really old fashioned idea that when people are at work they should actually be working. Like the idea that when you are at college you should actually be studying. I know it’s shocking stuff.
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This might come as a shock, but they have video games in China, too. They play significantly more than Americans.
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Well, since Dulthian is still trying to figure out his Atari, are you at all surprised?
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Oh dear, oh dear, I see I’ve upset some of our wee gamers out there. There there lads, it’s ok. Let me offer some consoling words that you can use to rationalize sitting on your ever expanding rear ends all day instead of studying or working.
Yes yes, it improves your hand-eye coordination and there’s absolutely no connection between playing video games every night and getting bad grades in school. None at all!!
And there’s no connection between playing video games at work and low productivity. None at all!!!!! Isn’t that great!!
Now go empty your drool cups and spend another day staring at a screen with your fingers twitching!
2012 awaits you, go get to level 46!!!
Our future is in really good hands I would say.
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You posted before 10 AM on New Years Day. I don’t think there’s anything I can write that makes my point better than that fact right there.
Perhaps you should spend a little less time judging others, and put a little more thought into how you spend your own time.
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