The Ed Techie

Girls hooked on DS

Tech Digest (via Ewan McIntosh) carries a report that 7 year old girls are 'addicted to' (ie prefer) Nintendo DSs over traditional toys such as Barbie. My (5 year old) daughter has one and this certainly rings true for her. Games such as Pet Hotel, Ponyz, Dogz and Absolutely Anything to do With Animalz (okay I made that last one up), are great fun, and as I've blogged before, they keep her entertained at restaurants.

But I've noticed something else recently, and that is since having a DS, she plays with her physical toys much more. She has never been that keen on playing with toys, but now spends hours engrossed in imaginative games. It's TV that has taken the hit in terms of attention. She doesn't bother with this much at all now (Spongebob Squarepants aside that is). Now this is a sample of one, and going on the basis of correlation, which every first year scientist knows doesn't imply causality (although sadly, no politician knows this), so is not likely to win me a research award. But here's a mini-theory - the interaction with the DS promotes the notion of interactivity as a whole. She then maps this onto her toys and finds that they offer a different, but equally engaging form of interaction. There is then a positive feedback loop between the Nintendo, where she gets to care for ponies and receive feedback, and her toys, where she plays with ponies in an imaginary world. The TV then looks a poor third amongst these. 

My own leisure snobbery

Over the weekend I was forced to confront my own snobbery about what is a good use of leisure time. As I mentioned, we have a Nintendo Wii, and given the adverse weather at the weekend (overseas readers - it snowed in the UK, causing national hysteria), we stayed in quite a bit. My daughter played with the Wii for a while, and then I asked her to stop and switch to board games (which she did happily enough). It made me think about why I have a mental equation which goes something like 'computer games = mildly bad, board games = good'. Why did I feel that the computer games needed to be rationed in some way? I accept the claim about sedentary lifestyles and obesity (although anyone who thinks a Wii is sedentary has never played one, I am currently suffering from 'wii shoulder' brought on by some over-energetic stretching during a tennis match), but given that my daughter does ballet, horse-riding, gymnastics, swimming as well as playing a lot with her peers, she is far from sedentary. And board games are hardly active, yet they don't come in for the criticism computer games receive. No, it's more about other pursuits being deemed more worthy.

As many have pointed out, including Steven Johnson (who has also blogged about the Wii) in 'Everything Bad is Good for you', there are a lot of intellectual and social benefits to computer games. I'm probably the last generation to have this snobbery (I wonder what my daughter will be snobbish about? She'll probably tell her children to stop confusing the android and go and play some virtual reality games). I remember being admonished by my parents for reading too much as a child, so maybe it's just the old parental adage that whatever you're doing you should be doing something else.

I afford a Wii

We bought a Nintendo Wii last weekend. I've not been in to games that much before - my gaming days ended around the time of Doom/Duke Nuke 'em (now those were some games). My main problem with games is that they just take so much time to get any return on. I really don't have 50 hours to give over to battling aliens, and if I did then I experience a form of leisure angst - there are those unread volumes of Proust on my bookshelf that I really should get around to, or there is a five mile run I need to do today, or some craft activity I should be sharing with my daughter.

I am very much in the target audience for the Wii then - a game console for people who don't usually buy game consoles. It's mildly depressing to realise how well targeted you are, because the Wii is exactly right for me! You can pick it up and play immediately, the games can be much shorter and it doesn't require a big commitment to get any return from.

It's a big hit with the family too - my daughter has repeatedly knocked me out in boxing. Now I would be remiss in my academic duty if I didn't mention affordances here. The Wii is a model of affordance for interaction - watching my daughter struggle with a PS2 controller compared with the ease with which she took to the Wii could be a case study in interface and object design. I should probably try and find some educational uses for it, but that isn't what it's for - its affordance is fun.