Video games have 'role in school'
The article I read was from the BBC and it talked about how video games may be able to be used as a learning tool if they used appropriately. Current evidence reports that video games has an influence on aggression and may lead to laziness. In relation to Putnam, videogames lie in the medium of media and can contribute to low social interaction and unwillingness to go out. This made me think about if we should look more closely at the content of the media. Putnam says that even though some people may watch the news in comparison to something non-news people still are not active as they used to be. But than again you have to look at what is on the news. More often than not, news mainly wish to get the ratings with the most hyped stories. Perhaps if the news was less hyped and more informative people would be more likely to get out and do something. If you applied the same basic principle to video games, maybe children will be more likely to get and do something as well as learn. I think that one of the faults with Putnam and his argument of media is that is focuses most of his attention to the negative aspects of the media and doesn’t delve too much into it’s constructive purpose.
Link: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/5398230.stm