from the we-always-knew-there-were-benefits dept.
Australian Broadcast Corp reports:
Research released from RMIT [Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology] University has found gaming helps boost results in maths, science and reading.
But researchers said scrolling through Facebook, Instagram or chat sites had the reverse effect, by hindering academic success in high school.
...
Associate Professor Posso used data from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) to analyse the online habits of 12,000 Australian 15 year olds, which he then compared to their academic results.He said the PISA data revealed that online gaming helped young people develop analytical and problem-solving skills.
...
Perhaps unsurprisingly, the study found spending hours on social media was mostly wasted time for teenagers, in terms of academic performance.Australian teenagers who used Facebook or chat sites every day scored 20 points worse in maths than students who never used social media, the research said.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by meustrus on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:19PM
Well sure. But there are other kinds of performance. I for one wish that my primary and secondary education had focused a lot more on the soft skills like communication, networking, and empathy. Skills which this study automatically labels "waste".
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:24PM
All you need to know about soft skills is people are dumb animals and words do not have any meaning. Tone of voice and body posture are all that matter. If you bark your words like a dog and sit with a slouch like a dog then people will react like you are a rabid dog. Expect failure in life unless you are obedient like a dog.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:56PM
A lot of this. Sure there are more complicated pieces to the social puzzle, but just don't be an asshole and do nice things for friends you care about.
I've seen so many people who have the "charming" personality down pat and they can say and do fucked up things for a while before most realize they are a shitty person. Besides, I don't think social media is a good educator for socializing beyond the superficial interactions you'll have with people at the supermarket or a party. In my opinion the social skills most sorely lacking are empathy and open mindedness, not usually promoted by social media. In my jaded view social media promotes narcissistic behaviors and sheep mentality.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:12PM
I learned all my social skills from Fred Rogers, Martin Luther King, and Star Trek, so you can imagine how I'm completely unwelcome in society. Nobody likes me just the way I am.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:59PM
Mr. Rogers never said everyone would, just that he does. He was also not your average Joe and probably disliked by a lot of people who felt called out by his general "goodness". Sadly the only way people like one another is if we fit into the small bubble of "normal" that the other person expects. Most people are in the same general bubble, but think or behave outside that bubble and at best you're interesting but still not socially accepted.
I've met so many people who parrot the line "I never trust a man who doesn't curse or doesn't drink." Sure, that has some element of truth to it, but its mostly garbage. Often those people have some serious defects themselves and don't even know it. Pairs well with "don't be a rat". Yes, because we should let fucked up things happen because people don't like being "told on". Buncha dangerous motherfucking babies!
(Score: 2) by mendax on Wednesday August 10 2016, @12:19AM
Yeah, the Ferengi Rules of Acquisition are a great guide of how to behave in society. And James Kirk provides many examples of how to seduce women, although I have often wondered how he boinked them in his quarters on that small bed. Perhaps they did it on the floor.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 11 2016, @06:10AM
They just omitted that all that kinky bondage gear he had in the 'Mirror Universe' was actually in his quarters in the 'Regular Universe' :)
Ahh to live through the 60s again :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:49PM
I thought the point of developing a charming personality was specifically for the purpose of doing shitty things to other people, disarming them so you can negotiate things that fuck them over while lining your pocketbook, you know shitty things that just happen to make you a bit richer every day....
If there's anything I've learned, honesty is the worst policy. It's completely unprofitable, it can blow up in your face, and it's too easy to forget that you're the only schmuck in the room being honest or who even gives a flying fuck about honesty. Learn how to seem sincere and you can get away with murder... or storing classified data on a private personal email server... you know, whatever it takes to get richer.
(Didn't start the comment expecting to go there, but wound up there anyway so I'll just leave it that way. But I mean, let's face it. Money is freedom. If you don't have money, you don't have freedom. Does it really matter how you managed to break above the paycheck to paycheck work for somebody else at a job you fucking hate with incompetent dipshits and what the fuck is this a jobs program or something how the fuck are these people even employable.... Does it really matter how you got free of that shit? I just personally wouldn't want to be a household name. Just some independently wealthy eccentric.)
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 10 2016, @01:01AM
It's too bad we won't get any scientific data on that hypothesis of yours. Time spent exercising soft skills is "wasted" according to anybody who'd care about research.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Wednesday August 10 2016, @05:40PM
There are plenty of researches who care about this, but such skills are hard to quantify and have a really large number of variables. Only the hardcore physicists and mathematicians don't care about soft skills, they take pride in their own arrogance and lack of people skills.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:17PM
Sounds disgusting. Maybe they could try that at a filthy normie school, but I want to learn more about academic subjects.
If you want to know what social media (like Facebook) does, it abuses its users and destroys privacy.
(Score: 1) by Type44Q on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:39PM
With all due respect, that was largely your parents' job...
(Score: 2) by meustrus on Wednesday August 10 2016, @12:58AM
Oh yeah, parents can absolutely teach you how to interact with peers. There's absolutely nothing they cannot provide when it comes to human interaction because parents are capable of the full range of human relationships and experiences. </sarcasm>
Schools exist for a reason, and that reason is to teach children what parents lack time/teaching skills/knowledge to teach. The only other subject I've seen dismissed like this as "parents should teach it" is sex education. That is its own problem but at least it's a subject the parent might not want the school teaching. Soft skills, not so much.
If there isn't at least one reference or primary source, it's not +1 Informative. Maybe the underused +1 Interesting?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:19PM
Does playing first-person-shooters turn you into a school shooter like Doom did for Columbine?
And what about GitHub? Is social coding as toxic as Facebook?
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:48PM
Judging by the inane bullshit idiots post in GitHub issue trackers, GitHub is worse than Facebook.
Idiot says, Dude, I like broke your swerver and I dunno whut I did.
Cue all of Idiot's followers swarming in and replying with thumbs up.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:20PM
All the time I spent on Slashdot and now on SoylentNews done me no good, not a diddly squat. But then, it's not like I had anything better to do, so...
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:27PM
You're doing it wrong, nigger. Read the news, not the trolls.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:30PM
Nigga pleeez..
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:04PM
It's give and take.
For a while, slashdot (and /new/) had some meaty conversations with some wise minds slaying ideas left, right and center. Ideas could be unraveled in hundreds of ways, and I learned a good deal just reading the back and forth from people with strong opinions and good arguments.
Alas, that isn't the case so much anymore, but occasionally someone here will make a novel argument, and there are at least one or two I would call a kindred spirit.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:33PM
The professor I had a long time ago for the computer graphics class thought video games and games in general were a waste of time. I could hardly believe they allowed the guy to teach that class. I learned later that the department head didn't know about the fellow's negative opinion towards games. Remarkable how the attitude has changed. The July 2016 cover of Scientific American is "Better Brains from Games."
Now all social media is a waste of time? That's a broad brush they're using. Facebook may be a waste of time, but a place like SoylentNews hosts a higher order of intelligent discourse!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @05:41PM
Everything is a waste of time unless it makes lots of money. Which explains why everyone loves shitty blockbuster big budget AAA games based on movie franchises.
(Score: 2) by Zz9zZ on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:01PM
Thanks for pointing out the broad brush, I hardly even think of SN as social media when it totally is. More research needed, some games probably have negligible effects the same as some social media. I would guess it boils down to whether you're challenging / using your brain enough.
~Tilting at windmills~
(Score: 2) by weeds on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:42PM
"Social Media" is way to vague and that's not how it is presented in the article.
FTFA:
...researchers said scrolling through Facebook, Instagram or chat sites had the reverse effect, by hindering academic success in high school.
Later it says "social media" and goes on to specify:
...teenagers who used Facebook or chat sites every day scored 20 points worse...
Get money out of politics! [mayday.us]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:01PM
From a teen perspective, social media is what mom and auntie and grannie use to look at kitten videos and like corporation pages due to advertising. Facebook is so like last decades news.
All I can do here is mod up ethanol-fueled's posts. I'd like the rickroll page if I could.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:18PM
but a place like SoylentNews hosts a higher order of intelligent discourse!
Not to mention higher-quality sentence structure and vocabulary! I like it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:20PM
Speaking of broad brushes, that sounds suspiciously like every college professor I've had the misfortune of encountering. It's a weird world we live in where the academics are the bottom of the barrel.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:00PM
like every college professor I've had the misfortune of encountering
You had a very short academic career, I take it? Forced to drop out so you could game more? Totally legit!
(Score: 2) by Dunbal on Tuesday August 09 2016, @10:54PM
Judge every university by your shitty one why don't you. Almost all my teachers were outstanding in their fields.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:26PM
It is not just the games themselves, it is the context and the attitude of the player that affect what they get out of it...
I learned a lot about leading small teams of people when I ran raids in MMOs, that turned out to be useful in Project Management. Lots of people run raids though; why did I get more out of than most?
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:41PM
I spent 23 years playing FPS, and I learned to work alone. I don't value life or money because of infinite respawns and infinite ammo pickups. People are worthless to me and I wish they'd all just die.
(Score: 2) by mhajicek on Tuesday August 09 2016, @08:45PM
I wonder if playing survival games like Fallout, 7 Days to Die and the like improve ones performance and survival chance in a natural disaster or shtf situation.
The spacelike surfaces of time foliations can have a cusp at the surface of discontinuity. - P. Hajicek
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @09:04PM
I wonder if playing survival games like Fallout, 7 Days to Die and the like improve ones performance and survival chance in a natural disaster or shtf situation.
Stop wondering and get yourself down to the recruiter's office and sign up for Special Forces! Your question will be answered!
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday August 09 2016, @11:49PM
c0lo 👍👍👍👍👍 this.
https://www.youtube.com/@ProfSteveKeen https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:23PM
I'm sure that there math scores would be even higher than this if they were to spend more time doing math. :)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:25PM
their
karma should allow grammar edits.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:28PM
But then you could insult people and later deny it. Dont be dissin.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by SubiculumHammer on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:27PM
wiki history
and/or
make edits cost karma
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday August 09 2016, @06:51PM
It's possible that the people who are best at math are stereotypically introverted nerds who thus have no social media presence. Remember, correlations don't necessary go in the direction the researchers think they do.
"Think of how stupid the average person is. Then realize half of 'em are stupider than that." - George Carlin
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:13PM
The percentage of students who could be called introverted nerds is rather small, so out of 12k 15 year olds I think its fair to assume the nerd angle factor is probably rather small. Video games are no longer the domain of the lonely nerds.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:24PM
It's also possible that schools have ridiculously low standards and these scores mean almost nothing, since the work and tests test for little other than rote memorization. But researchers still love using these metrics, even if real understanding gets ignored.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:08PM
Australian teenagers who used Facebook or chat sites every day scored 20 points worse in maths than students who never used social media, the research said.
I wonder if they tested differently on their writing skills [xkcd.com]. I suspect that absorbing expository and conversational text written at various levels of skill would show a real improvement in reading and writing tests, not to mention the ability to identify moods and subtext.
(Score: 1) by AthanasiusKircher on Wednesday August 10 2016, @05:37AM
I suspect that absorbing expository and conversational text written at various levels of skill would show a real improvement in reading and writing tests
I think the key phrase is "at various levels of skill," and I'm not sure how many Facebook/chat sites involve written conversation "at various levels of skill." Obviously it likely depends on your friends. People who communicate via texts and short bursts of written communication may have an advantage of those who do none of that. But I wonder whether that actually translates directly to more "advanced" reading and writing abilities.
The ability to comprehend a short conversation involving one-line replies is quite different from reading an extended essay, and the ability to write/speak a sentence of conversation is quite different from making an in-depth argument in writing. The nature of written communication today on social media effectively encourages short written bits of texts that substitute for casual oral communication. For a true analog to written communication and comprehension using modern tech, we might do better looking at kids who actually do more extensive writing -- whether blogging in complete paragraphs or even writing fanfic or something. I'd imagine those kids might actually have significantly better written and reading skills than average.
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Wednesday August 10 2016, @08:08AM
For a true analog to written communication and comprehension using modern tech, we might do better looking at kids who actually do more extensive writing
I assumed that *everyone* would have a few social media contacts who'd write longer-form content like this, and they would regularly read such content from that handful of contacts. But in retrospect, I can't really substantiate that assumption on anything.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 09 2016, @07:43PM
soylentbook.org