Audball267

Is it silly that I’m coming to you guys for help on a homework assignment? (This is due Friday) Bah, so what if it is? I know this is the one place I can come and get an honest opinion. I’m rusty when it comes to satire, and that’s not good… especially considering that I could never properly pull it off anyhow. (Sigh… I guess it’s something you’re born with!) Any pointers from the pros would be deeply appreciated.

So here’s what I’ve got so far; it’s not much... just the beginning/thesis. I figure if someone were to catch all my mistakes and help me on spiffing it up early on in the game, it wouldn’t hurt as bad. Have at it, guys!

Quote:

Recently it’s been recognized that convenience prevails over creativity and effort. For instance, food is only a drive through window away, and instead of outdated letter writing or social gatherings, communicating with one another is quick, code-like, and occurs in an impersonal cyberspace setting. When it comes down to it, brainpower has become obsolete. However, contrary to the belief of many, this is not a message enforced by pop culture alone. Studies prove that children are developing hand-eye coordination superior to that of their elders, as well as finger joint agility and vastly improved attention spans. Where talents are concerned, never before has a generation been so adequately accommodated for. Thanks to handheld videogame consoles at home, and technologically efficient calculators at school, children will never have to suffer through that overrated thought process again, and can instead continue to improve the fine art of button pushing. Recent lines of graphing calculators, which are accessible to students by the seventh grade and a recommended purchase by ninth, are a goldmine for useful information. Capable of storing, displaying, solving, and simplifying data, all that is required to translate that algebra book is an instruction manual. It’s unnecessary to ask anything more than the location of a specific button. There’s no longer a need to know exactly why two plus two equals four, but rather, that your omniscient calculator said so; therefore it must be true.

__________________
--Audrey

Wasson

Eah...you make it seem that convience is a bad thing...is it really?

And actually studies show that video games make you think much more than if you were doing other things. Their basically a type of mental exercise... What game do you play where all you do is simply "push a button?"

Also! you have written "handheld videogame consoles at home", perhapse your going for "handheld videogames and consoles at home" ?

for that part i'd type something like "Thanks to sometimes multiple Consoles at home, overpowered Calculators in school and Handheld videogames anywhere inbetween (or among)..."

But then again- that is if your going to stay with that idea, but as i already said, I really cannot support anyone claiming that videogames are "bad" or espescially supressive of the "thought-process".

Sure there will always be those drull minded kids who's concept of reality will be very limited and grasp of the imaginative and truly interesting intellecual side of life will be supressed by constant "gaming", but much of that stems from there parants failing to intruduce other things into their life - There you could work with something - I mean the conviences of life speeding along the work based life styles of parents making their children loose out on proper up bringing?

oh well, that's what I believe anyway. As a "gamer", I do believe that incessent gaming is definitly not a good thing, but then again incessent anything is not good, no?

Stewart

Er, Hold The Button.

__________________
book reviews | world lit forum

Wasson

ugh...I KNEW somone would link that...lol

Audball267

Ok. Problem number one with my essay thus far then: my topic. I definitely need to make it clearer what it is I’m attacking.

Though indirectly it was bashing “gamers” out there, (I’m sorry about that, and again, I need to focus more on my actual topic) that wasn’t my intent. The point of the beginning was to show that by making studying and problem solving easier within the classroom by eliminating pen-to-paper techniques for the easier, more “efficient” computer and calculator, we’re only further hindering creativity already lost to videogames, etc.

And actually studies show that video games make you think much more than if you were doing other things.

You can’t tell me that a child expresses more creativity and effort swiggling a joystick and pressing corresponding buttons, than if they were to, say, be drawing or be practicing a sport/musical instrument…? Sure, it’s a step up from mindless hours in front of the TV, but come on.

Play through a storyline thought up by someone else and put on the store shelf, or create a storyline of your own with action figures and play swords? Where’s imagination gone?

I totally agree with what you’re saying about parents as well. Funny thing is, out of a family of four kids (with both a Play Station and Nintendo in the house and parents who had to work over our vacations from school) we saved the gaming for the rainy days, and got out there and ran around. I do see where an only child could have some problems there, but still.

Anyhoot, like I said before, that wasn’t the point of the essay at all, and so that’s my fault entirely. Thanks for the review and comment; I’m definitely taking your suggestions into consideration, and sorry for the misunderstanding.

=) Aud.

__________________
--Audrey