Computer games for Socialism

Posted on the blog, after Christmas 2011

Could computer games generate a new ethos in competition that develops the notion of improvement, but against yourself?

I say this cos I need a hook for an article that allows me to celebrate the Christmas presents I got (or got myself) this year. And I’m not alone in this. Columnists start articles all the time with exaggerated ideas to hook the readers (or in my case, reader – hi Mum) and to pad out the contractual obligation to produce something once a week.

Yet for all that, the computer game that I can control by moving my body and the touch screen computer with no mechanically moving parts both bring a series of games that can be used for personal development and does not require you to buy stuff to pretend to shoot or slice people with.

I’ve not searched all the potential games and I don’t know how defined or refined the technology is, but I’m drawn again to the sense that we’ve worked hard at developing people, especially at school, in the academic disciplines that embrace fully the notion that mental exercise develops the brain and that progress can be tested and measured, but the equivalent may not exist for physical development, where the emphasis tends to be don’t eat too much and don’t eat too much of the wrong things and do exercise, from which the notion of attainment is missing. Witness another Radio 5 phone-in only this morning.

Meanwhile, we could be doing more to help people by banning trans-fats in food (see previous posts).

But yes, I’ve had a nice Christmas cos I’ve bought equipment for entertainment and fun. Perhaps I should celebrate it more on Facebook or something. Perhaps as balance to one of my teenage relatives who bemoaned his Christmas experience on Facebook. Too much beer and lethargy, apparently. I felt like Enid Blyton posting to tell him to jolly well buck his ideas up, but knew as I was writing it that there was no picture of potential attainment in the put-down. But I guess there is a phase in being a teenager whereby you don’t get it the way everybody else does (in part cos of the huge knowledge we build up through everyday experiences) and often wonder about whether employers get this when they talk about young people of today not being job ready.