FutureWorldz

Pioneers of Society’s New Frontiers

This generation of high school and college students — The Gamer Generation — stands to have the greatest impact on our society. At more than 90 million people, the “gamer generation” is already bigger than the baby boom.

They are already aware of the extraordinary problems of 21st century: feeding a growing population with a limited amount of arable land; the green revolution and alternative energy, managing the impacts of global warming and greater energy demands; and the spread of health threats that respect no national borders.

Today’s students have not just changed incrementally from those of the past, nor simply changed their slang, clothes, body adornments, or styles, as has happened between generations previously. A really big discontinuity has taken place. It is the arrival and rapid dissemination of digital technology in the last decades of the 20th century. 

They have spent their entire lives surrounded by and using computers, video games, digital music players, video cams, cell phones, and all the other toys and tools of the digital age. Today’s average college grads have spent less than 5,000 hours of their lives reading, Playing video games (not to mention 20,000 hours watching TV). Computer games, email, the Internet, cell phones and instant messaging are integral parts of their lives.

The gamer generation will dominate the workforce and they are already changing the rules of business. All the hours immersed in game culture have created masses of employees with unique attributes: bold but measured risk taking, amazing ability to multitask, and unexpected leadership skills: 21st century skills that employers want. 

The Gamer Generation innately understands the nature of online life.

The philosopher Gilles Deleuze is a spring chicken in the history of philosophy, living and working from 1925 to 1995. Yet his influence has surged in the last 20 years, vying today with the most prominent philosophers of the 20th and 21st centuries. He established a different definition of “virtual” that speaks to games and online experience in particular.

The virtual is opposed not to the real but to the actual. The virtual is fully real in so far as it is virtual.

Exactly what Proust said of states of resonance must be said of the virtual: “Real without being actual, ideal without being abstract”; and symbolic without being fictional. Indeed, the virtual must be defined as strictly a part of the object – as though the object had one part of itself in the virtual into which it plunged as though into an objective dimension.” – Gilles Deleuze, Difference and Repetition

Deleuze opposed essentialism, that is, the notion that existences, such as human beings, could be distilled into a single common identity. Instead, he saw existence in terms of multiplicity in all its forms – that, for instance, we as human beings are not single selves but multiple selves spread out in time, that life itself exists in a continuum and state of alchemical flow and information exchange.

What we think of as “virtual” is in fact very real and important, accessed on a parallel dimension rife with meaning.

He lifts the virtual up above the “actual,” or the material manifestation of what we observe in metaspace. Deleuze’s virtual is neither intrinsically inferior nor superior to the material, but it is on an incomparably different plane of existence. This is a concept that would resonate with many World of Warcraft players. When we explore worlds online and connect with other players across vast physical distances, we do not become less real. Arguably, for those who have experienced this life, we feel more real – our physical masks pulled down, revealing the structure of ideas, passions and contemplations beneath.

Next time you start to castigate your son or daughter for spending so much time friending on Facebook, playing games, and socializing in Second Life, think about their play as pioneering work.

Excerpted, in part, from Erin Hoffman’s feature article, “Ditching The V-Word,” in Escapist.

How to Turn on Your SUPERBRAIN

No matter the career, you want to operate at your peak performance. Understanding how you learn is just as important as understanding what to learn.

The following summarizes many known concepts about the brain. They were originally written by Mark Conyers of Brainsmart in Winter Park, Florida. He studies and educates on the brain and how learning occurs.

Seeing is believing and learning. Ninety percent of learning is visual. Our eyes register 36,000 visual impressions per hour. Eighty-five percent of the brain is wired for visual processing. The retina accounts for 40% of all nerves connected to the brain. Color and movement boost learning.

Unconscious learning is 99% of the process. At any one time, we focus on seven to nine bits of information consciously. Only 1% of brain cells do conscious processing. Nonverbal cues and positive suggestion are critical to success. Eighty-two percent of classroom communication is nonverbal.

Preferred learning styles include visual, auditory, and kinesthetic modes. There are at least eight intelligences: verbal linguistic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, mathematical–logical, musical–rhythmic, spatial, bodily kinesthetic, and naturalist. The new question is not how smart I am, but how am I smart?

Emotional states bind learning. Peak learning happens in peak states when the brain is in high challenge and low stress. During stress/threat, blood can move away from frontal lobes, thereby reducing the ability to think clearly or recall information.

Rhythm. Music allows us to encode information effortlessly. The brain naturally works in 90-minute cycles. Brain Gym can balance the brain. Listening to Mozart may boost memory and thinking. Music at 60 beats per minute may maximize retention.

Brain sex. The male brain is great at hunting (video games, throwing things at other things), and tight focus. The female brain is great for seeing, listening, memorizing, reading, nonverbal cues, and articulating emotion. Build on strengths. Viva la difference!

Recall. The brain is able to retain the equivalent of 500 Encyclopedia Britannica. Recall is best achieved when it is accessed in the state that it was stored; when knowledge is organized as a pattern, and when it is embedded in context. Also, information must be meaningful, and meaning is in the mind of the learner. The first, last, and most outstanding items are remembered most often.

Novelty, curiosity, and relevance to immediate survival boost attention. Notice how talk shows and news headlines exploit these techniques. Use movement and stand in different locations to boost attention in the classroom. Add relevant spin to your material to hook and keep attention. Leave plenty of time for reflection and integration of new material.

Imagination is more important than intelligence, as Albert Einstein suggested. Visualizing success, as well as writing down goals, are critical steps. The 3% of Yale students who had clear written goals had, 20 years later, 97% of the wealth. Optimism is primarily a left-brain activity. Depression is primarily a right-brain activity.

Nutrition is crucial to effective learning. The brain’s super fuel is oxygen. Its next most important need is water; dehydration lowers learner performance. Protein helps boost memory and attention. Carbohydrates tend to promote release of the relaxant serotonin (hence drowsiness after lunch). Fruit is an excellent source of energy that requires minimal digestion. The brain needs high-quality omega 3 and omega 6 essential fatty acids.