Steve Johnson on the benefits of video games
Steve Johnson, author of Everything Bad Is Good For You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter, has a great open letter to Sen. Clinton in the LA Times going over the benefits of video games. He makes a number of good points, including noting that video games are more intellectually stimulating than other games and entertainment and that violent crime by kids has actually gone down since the rise of video games. The best quote:
I’d like to draw your attention to another game whose nonstop violence and hostility has captured the attention of millions of kids — a game that instills aggressive thoughts in the minds of its players, some of whom have gone on to commit real-world acts of violence and sexual assault after playing.
I’m talking, of course, about high school football.