It is the nature of all human beings to seek learning through games, a structured paradigm that allows one to grasp new concepts and expand their horizons in a safer environment than the real world. We play house, tag, and create fingerpainting art as children. As we grow, we play sports, more complex games, and create finer works of art. Indeed, from our earliest days we rely on playing as the most effective way to learn about our world and how to live in it. Pondering this topic inevitably led to the question: Why does the playful approach to life stop when we grow up and move into a professional field?
Hai Tech Eric
eclectic musings
Category Archives: Opinion
Google I/O Goodness
So, the keynote for Day 1 of Google I/O today, a conference dedicated to developers and programmers that work with the Google ecosystem. As a self-proclaimed nerd, I loved the big announcements from today. And yet, toward the end of the conference, there was something I did not quite expect. It was a pleasant surprise that did not seem to get a lot of coverage in the media…
Punish inaction, not failure
I enjoy volunteering in the local Scout Troop as a Crew Advisor to the young men. That being said, I am not so hardcore that I wear a uniform at every meeting, nor am I so lax that I like to push over rock formations in Goblin Valley just for kicks and giggles. I simply remember all the valuable life lessons I learned in Scouts and wanted to pay it forward by interacting with the local youth, encouraging them to develop responsibility and successful adult traits.
Yet one concerning theme I keep coming across in my interactions with these youth is something I call “Choice-averse” behavior. This goes well beyond the more commonly understood risk-averse nature some people tend to carry. These choice-averse natures don’t even play the game for fear of failure. It’s almost as if general expectations for youth have diminished to the point where society incentivizes inaction over pursuing any sort of serious challenge. But this issue isn’t present only among the younger generation…
Walking While Working: An Experiment
For those of you that know me personally or follow me on my social feeds, you may have noticed pictures and posts regarding a recent undertaking of mine: walking while working. In a software-savvy job, there is little need to get up and move about during the course of a workday. Combine that with my hobbies in computers and video gaming, and you end up with a very sedentary lifestyle. The only chances I would get to move around would come on the weekend or special vacations. I am about a month into this new initiative, and I feel I have enough data to share the motivation, tests, and results of my personal experiment thus far. In fact, this entire blog post has been written from a treadmill moving along at two miles per hour.
Stigmas, Stereotypes, and Super Nintendo
So over the past couple of weeks, a whole slew of events at work and in my community has furthered demonstrated to me the culturally-based stigma towards video gaming. Thanks to mass media, the stereotypical gamer is reduced to a pimply-faced, pale-skinned male who lives in his parent’s basement. He is anti-social, wears only black clothes, and will end up being a mindless or violent drain on society because of these “evil” video games. Having lived in Taiwan for two years, I am amazed by how much societal pressures and norms impact individual personalities and behavior. It is more clear to me because of my exposure to other cultures how extreme Americans tend to be on many seemingly odd issues. I imagine every society has their quirks, but that doesn’t make me appreciate America’s antagonism towards gaming any more. I think it’s time to tell the other side of this story…