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Relative value of entertainment???


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Not much I can add to the general discussion above, but I want to key in on one item from the OP that caught my attention: while the question asked, and most of the discussion in the thread, has been at a pretty general level, the reference to the Alex Scarrow article is interesting to me because it is about his son.  from that perspective, I think there is something to be said for children reading, that movies and gaming and so forth do not quite match (and I think Maxal was touching on this above).  I am not going to say that for an adult, or even college or high school aged adolescent, reading is inherently superior.  but for a child that is still learning, I think there is an argument to be made (though I am in no way an expert on this, so take it with a heaping bowl of salt).  specifically, it boils down to the old adage that "practice makes perfect."  The ability to read is crucial for a lot of adult life, and barring some exceptionally rare circumstances, that ability to read is going to be necessary to really advance in life.  it makes sense, then, that you would want children to learn how to read and to practice reading as much as possible.  from that standpoint, reading is probably going to provide a greater benefit to a child than any of the other types of entertainment discussed above.

 

Moving from there, I would note that Gaming actually seems to come in second place here.  a lot of games are going to provide a chance to practice other useful skills.  A lot of games require a certain amount of basic math skill, and you could spin most RPGs and RTS games as using some type of resource management/financial management type skills, which are useful in life.  even at their most basic, most games require a certain amount of pattern recognition and spatial reasoning.  so for grade school age children, constant practice of these sorts of skills could actually have a tangible benefit.

 

And one last thought, all of this I talk about for younger children, since they are the ones still in learning phases, but it presumably would have lesser benefits for adults as well.  my basic logic here, though, is that the one way these activities are going to be beneficial is through actively practicing skills that you will want/need later in life.  every book requires you to practice reading.  most games are going to involve practicing something, though across a wider range of skills, and possibly to a lesser extent.  for movies and tv shows, however, that active practice is not really happening, or at least I am having trouble coming up with any example in most of them.  so that's my 2 cents

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