by Christopher Kendalls

Created on: January 17, 2007   Last Updated: April 12, 2007

I'm convinced that my earlier experiences with computing, particularly video games, have made a profound impact on the way I process information, move about society, learn, and, to this day, the way I interact with computers. Some of us learn differently, one theory about those with ADD is that they process information semantically and symbiotically, rather than out of a full knowledge or thorough exploration of the concepts. In the classroom, an individual is more prone to memorize data, rather than fully understand concepts, and work out issues that way.

This leads to a warped exploration of humanity, consciousness, and intellectualism that leaves those with the debilitating disease digressed, invalidated, and unaccomplished. Frustrated, these prodigies often take the artistic route; leaning on their advanced emotional intelligence to make up short comings in their flawed analytical abilities.

Or maybe they've just played one too many video games ...

It starts early. PCs, in their current incarnation, weren't always available to me. We had 8-bit computers without advanced operating systems and instead of programming in C/C++ we had Basic and Cobol. Those were languages that you could build really complex structures by using tens of thousands of smaller, really dumb structures. Of course one minor error would crash the system, yet you could simply turn the machine off and back on. The problem, of course, is that at the end of the day you didn't really learn anything, accomplished little, and was left disillusioned, at what the greatness of this computer was.

Video games, however, were a bit easier to master, a bit more practical. All you had to do was learn patterns, memorize sequences; truth is, you didn't need to be very intelligent at all. This practice continues today, whereas games that have, in theory, three-dimensional environments aren't very three-dimensional at all. Characters lack the depth and coherence that exists in the real world. Poor analytical techniques, honed through hours of obsessive video gaming, and poor, unchallenging programming skills, dumbs down the brain, creates an environment in which one is left feeling inadequate to deal with the real world.

Think about every conflict you've had, the way in which you thought you could get out of it, attempts to change the world, face all of life's issues. Did you think them through, look at all of the angles, or did you work out of a preconceived, contrived, sequence of memorized decisions?

Not that gaming is bad, anything but. There are plenty of games which truly do challenge the mind, that you can't memorize, that aren't violent and succumb the user to a rich environment that is a lot closer to the multi-dimensional one we live in. There just isn't a market for such products, so you rarely hear about them.

People approach the internet the same way, build blogs, move through dating sites and apply for jobs, in similar fashion. Mindlessly, through sequences, through memorization.

Put the controller down ...

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