Newsweek broods on a reported decline in American creativity, and casts the blame here:
One likely culprit is the number of hours kids now spend in front of the TV and playing videogames rather than engaging in creative activities
Note the persistent linking of tv with games, the compression of two very different media into a simple, single mode. As one blog commentator writes, considering the two ”as if they were the same thing is not a solid or scientific logical construct."
Note, too, that the article goes on to celebrate some pro-creativity activities which games support. As Raph Koster points out,
the rest of the article (and the rest of the research in the field) seems to suggest that handing students problems and obliging them to think about possible solutions, is a much better way to go than rote memorization. And that is what the best games do.
To his credit, Koster goes on to identify ways by which games do not enable creativity. That's material for another time; for now, we can observe the way a mainstream new media outlet can condemn some digital media while simultaneously praising what it does.
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