Clay Shirky: "How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World"

In Clay Shirky's, "How Cognitive Surplus Will Change the World," he discuss how people should volunteer and contribute to large global world projects. Clay has some good points. He states that, surplus is made up of free time and talent. I think that if millions of people get together with different ideas something would come into form. If we have a lot of free time on our hands, why not use it for constructism? I found it interesting that  the world has over three trillion hours a year of free time. I'm inquiring, how did Mr. Shirky come up with that? Personally, I think that it depends on a person's schedule and lifestyle to determine how much free time one would have. Another interesting statement Clay Shirky made is, "There is a spectrum between mediocre and good." What I interpreted from that is, one have to start from the bottom to eventually improve. It takes practice. No matter what it is, doing something is better than doing nothing. If ideas are not put into action, one will never know what he/she can discover. For an example, the LOLcats. Clay did not declare the pictures of cats with quotes pointless. He stated that, "it is creative." I am witness of seeing pics as such surfacing the internet and I think, "What bored person in their free time create something like that?" However, Clay convinced me to be more open minded about creativity.  His statement, "technology is not only used to consume, but to share" supports this. Even though some things appear to be worthless, it is creative--intinsic motivation. The daycare scenario was also intriguing. One would think that parents would stop being late, because of the late fees applied. However, more parents start being late picking up their children. Overall Clay Shirky is pretty optimistic.

Steven Johnson: "Everything Bad is Good for You"

  In Steven Johnson's  "Everything Bad is Good for You," he present his beliefs on how pop culture is positive. I agree that it requires a lot of intelligence to invent ideas and software for entertainment. However, there is some truth to George Will's quote. I do not necessarily think that adults playing games or watching movies on their computer is a problem or define one's intelligence. But from my interpretation, adults are becoming more absorbed in technology versus interacting personally. In my opinion, certain technology is a nice little "dress-up" to make things easier and is used to occupy time. Often people really do not play games to expand cognitive thinking. Nine times out of ten people probably would not take the positive things they learn from games and apply it to life.
 On the other hand, his sarcasm about the phone, comparing it to his nephew figuring out the Simms game was quite intriguing. I think Johnson's point was that some things are common sense. The game involved more complex thinking than learning how to use a dial tone phone. After that Steven discuss how complicated games are today and it requires patience, decision making, probing and telescopic thinking. Then he takes that and compares it to reading. I agree with some of his points on that and others not so much. Overall I think that Steven did good at explaining why games can be good. The questions are-- are they good enough to apply in reality? How many people actually use cognitive techniques learned from games to reality?

Jane McGonigal "Gaming Can Make a Better World"

    In Jane McGonigal, "Gaming Can Make a Better World," She stated many points about how gaming can be positive and increase human problem solving. Although her statements hold some truth, it is still difficult to believe that the complexity of gaming can influence problem solving skills in reality. I agree with the fact when gamers play video games they are more attentive and hopeful than in reality. I think this have something to do with morale and perception. A gamer can collab with other gamers to figure out complicated levels in games.This gives them confidence or hope to achieve goals. However, in real life if one does not have any guidance, one must rely on self. This can be frustrating. People tend to be impatient with real life problems. There is something annoying about encountering the same problem in reality versus the same problem in gaming. In real life, one may fear that there is not another chance, which results in stress and hopelessness. On the other hand, in gaming, it is evident that there are chances after chances no matter how many times you have failed.
    In contrast, I have to disagree with Jane on the statement , "turning virtual heroes into reality heroes." Here is my explanation. To  my knowledge, there are not many games that people are interested in today that is reality related. Those that are, people may not be familiar with. Most games that this generation participates in are in conjunction with sports and wars. In order for a gamer to save the world, there need to be more real life problem solving games. These games need to be invented for game systems also. I think Jane should have been more broad explaining her statement. Furthermore, I do not find the statement that "gamers like to work hard" to be quite true. If gaming is all a gamer knows, gaming is going to be a consistent routine-- it is the mystery of gaming. That does not mean one is working it hard, it means they are enjoying the entertainment. Lastly, I think Jane should have been more specific about what particular aspect of gaming can enhance real life problem solving. In conclusion, if there were more real world situation games, maybe gaming, in some form, would be helpful and applicable to real world problems.

Video Games and Technology

I chose this class, because it is a requirement. I am not big on games, but from time to time, I play them . However, I am into technology.Technology is actually the world's most popular invention right now. For an instance, Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter are all technology based. It helps people to communicate and network with others. Unfortunately, of all these I only have Facebook in which I had to recently reactivate for this class. In my opinion technology is going to replace the traditional aspects of doing things. For an example, people rather send an e-mail or text before communicating in person. In addition, board games have become less entertaining and video games are played on a daily basis. Even in public places, in some cases, patients have to sign in on a computer. So the constant changes kind of force people to have some type of technology literacy. With that being said, I try to become knowledgeable about new technology. Although I am not a gaming fanatic, I put forth the effort to engage in it when curiosity arise.