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General discussion (archive)Becoming a better person(83 posts)(83 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 30, 2014
Reading through some articles I found <span class="bold">this</span>, made me recall another game ("CodeHero") that never was, but, the idea was great, I got to play some alphas and it was very good teaching code in a ludic way.
Posted July 30, 2014
Something that's really good about the internet is the anonymity of it. Yes, it has its VERY bad side-effects, with trolls, hackers, etc, but there IS a good side to it, and that is that your prejudices go out the window. Who is the person on the other side of the text? You see their personalities, not their color or weight or sex or physical abnormalities (etc.), and it's a wonderful thing to get to know someone without being blindsided by appearances.

It's made me a more understanding person (something I value highly) because I have become friends with people who are so terribly disabled that they can't leave the house, people whom at first glance don't "look" like nice people, but who are actually incredibly kind. Not only that, but I've learned about the darker side of human nature by observing the behavior of trolls. I still don't know what motivates them, but it's better to understand that there are bad people out there than to steadfastly (and foolishly!) deny that such people exist.

Interesting topic, by the way!
Posted July 30, 2014
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genkicolleen: Something that's really good about the internet is the anonymity of it. Yes, it has its VERY bad side-effects, with trolls, hackers, etc, but there IS a good side to it, and that is that your prejudices go out the window. Who is the person on the other side of the text? You see their personalities, not their color or weight or sex or physical abnormalities (etc.), and it's a wonderful thing to get to know someone without being blindsided by appearances.

It's made me a more understanding person (something I value highly) because I have become friends with people who are so terribly disabled that they can't leave the house, people whom at first glance don't "look" like nice people, but who are actually incredibly kind. Not only that, but I've learned about the darker side of human nature by observing the behavior of trolls. I still don't know what motivates them, but it's better to understand that there are bad people out there than to steadfastly (and foolishly!) deny that such people exist.

Interesting topic, by the way!
I never needed the internet to look past people's appearances but I'm glad the internet has helped you become a less superficial person.

Video games has helped me become a better person by preventing me from being an angry or sad person all the time.
Posted July 30, 2014
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monkeydelarge: I never needed the internet to look past people's appearances but I'm glad the internet has helped you become a less superficial person.
Ack~! I didn't mean to imply that I was a superficial person before the internet, I must have worded that post poorly -- probably because I was speaking both in broad terms of people in general and myself-specific at the same time ^_^;

EDIT: I should mention that I have difficulty getting close to people in real life because meeting new people is difficult for me unless I'm in a business-type setting (ie. my job.) My children aren't the only ones on the autism spectrum ;D
Post edited July 30, 2014 by genkicolleen
Posted July 30, 2014
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genkicolleen: Ack~! I didn't mean to imply that I was a superficial person before the internet, I must have worded that post poorly -- probably because I was speaking both in broad terms of people in general and myself-specific at the same time ^_^;
I think it opens up communication between different social circles.
Posted July 30, 2014
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Khadgar42: I'm starting an educational project concerning video games and education trying to help parents, teachers and kids using video games better but maybe I'm missing something, so I'm just asking you what kind of things have you learned by playing video games that made you the person you are...
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Wishbone: This isn't really what you're after (I think), but I still think you should read this article about a teacher getting his students to play Fallout 1&2. One thing games can do is to make students want to tackle problems they otherwise wouldn't want to spend any time on.
I read that article, and it was great.

As for myself, I wouldn't say that games necessarily taught me to be a better person, but rather, they opened my imagination and allowed me to better myself, through education, reading, typing, self expression in a healthy way, and allowed me to meet and interact with diverse people and cultures I would have never really gone out of my way to, in any other medium.

Games can create a sense of immersion that no other medium really can, but the problem is that they sometimes frequently don't, opting instead for a sort of corporatized BUYBUYBUY mentality that I don't feel is very conducive towards teaching children anything other than rampant consumerism, at least with big budget releases.

I DO miss the days of Super Solvers, Carmen Sandiego, Mavis Beacon and the rest, though. A lot of those games, like The Incredible Machine can teach critical and logical thinking that's sadly missing from culture, (along with common sense.)
Posted July 30, 2014
This also may not be what you're looking for, but I'm going to bring up an old friend of mine: RuneScape. It's been several years since I was active on that game. However I learned a lot from it, which may come as a surprise. Used to, before they introduced changes, the game's economy was market driven completely. It was great. I learned simple economics and free enterprise at a young age, (around 14). My friends I would come up with new ways to make money and run a business, albeit a virtual one. Not to mention that my time spent on PCs, and to a great extent Runescape, I can type 90+ words a minute. I also learned a good deal of history from Age of Empires and the many WWII FPS's I've played. So maybe this isn't making me a better person morality wise, but I definitely can say I learned from them.
Posted August 19, 2014
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Ragnarblackmane: This is a fascinating idea, I'll have to get back to you though as I must get some rest for now.


Some bullet points upon which I will further elaborate, just thinking about these before I logged off:

-I learned how my actions in the world affect others around me at a much younger age than is likely typical.

-I became excited about and interested in world history.

-I became enchanted with the concepts of mythology and storytelling, although I had fallen in love with books at a young age, seeing things on screen had a huge impact.

More tomorrow, plus elucidation.
Wow, forgot about this.

Just to elucidate a bit...

1. When it came to learning how my actions affect others, I mean that in character-driven games where you(and perhaps a group of close allies, a "party" if you will) are solely responsible for saving the world sometimes, being able to see how your actions affect things on a large scale was hugely influential.

2. This is fairly obvious, innit? A lot of games, whether empire-building sims or strategy titles encouraged me to examine history more closely.

3.Same as above, replace mythology with history.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussion (archive)Becoming a better person(83 posts)(83 posts)
(83 posts)