1. Summary:
Chapter 10 of Mix It Up focused on the growing of communication and new abilities with the new advances in technology and how it has affected industries that have existed for many years. Author Grazian starts off by discussing the mass use of spam and cons that the ideas of such can be traced back to the 16th century. The main difference compared to past cons and a current example – like the Nigerian email scam is that the mass use of email (and the difficulty in tracing its roots) allows such cons to send out the scam to thousands of people for little to no cost. Grazian also discusses how new computer and video games like World of Warcraft encourage and build users’ techniques of making decisions in a few seconds and dealing with the consequences and learning from such decisions. Grazian also talks about the disappearance and new competitiveness that many newspaper companies have experienced in more recent time since news is available online for free – although it may not be from the most reliable sources. Almost any industry, company, or individual can be negatively affected by the mass use of internet (like some “bad” professors on Ratemyprofessor.com) if someone chooses to post negative comments about their business.
2. What I learned/found interesting:
I found his examples interesting of how video and computer games better players’ decision making skills – to the point that they may be better decision makers than some Fortune 500 company owners. It seems that there have been many reports that say that such gaming is bad for concentration and causes anti-social habits in people – which are very different than what Grazian argues. I am not claiming one is right or better than the other – I just find this interesting.
3. Discussion Point:
Do you think it is now or will ever be considered acceptable to discuss skill sets learned from online/video gaming in an interview for a job? How would the argument of skills learned from such online games be compared to the skills learned from playing organized sports? If such two subjects were mentioned in an interview today, would the interviewer (person from the company asking the questions) receive and respond to both skill sets the same? Why or why not?
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Skills gained in the digital arena don't yet carry as much weight. Online, you're less liable for what you do because you don't have to respond to people face to face or even see them on a regular basis. You can quit out of games, troll during games to infuriate people, and just act in a way you never would when in a room with people. It's also hard to measure success and cooperation online because only you and a select few people ever see it.
ReplyDelete-Roman
I do see where you are coming from, people do act much differently online than they do in the real world, but with some games being a leader is still a very large responsibility. It takes a lot of time and effort to organize a large number of people and to make them listen and cooperate to complete a common goal. I think that this type of leadership should be considered when applying for a real job because it is a large and difficult task. One problem with this though is that there is really no way to prove what you've accomplished as most employers don't play these games. Also the lack of face to face contact is also an important factor in considering how much these skills apply to real world settings.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Roman that it is currently not deemed as acceptable to discuss/highlight digital skills in an interview for a job. Perhaps some day it might but I think the type of digital skills desired will be different from what Grazian talks about. Video game skills might reflect certain factors important in the real world career-wise, but many of things mentioned by Roman and Jeremy suggest that it might not be the best way to gauge success.
ReplyDeleteI don't think that these gaming skills will be discussed as part of interviews or potential employment, because although these ideas were highlighted in our reading, I don't think people would ever draw these two aspects together. (That is, gaming and the skills gained from them.) Similarly, I don't think these skills may be that developed through gaming, I think they're just part of the positive outcomes of gaming. Also, as there are people who love to game and who do it regularly, there will always be people who reject it and decide not to do it. I don't think video games are for everyone and I wonder if they would be big enough in the future for people to reference them in an interviem.
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