Month: February 2018

Gaming our way to a better world?

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Those Moffatts know how to have fun. Photo cred: DLM

As a parent, I admit I have an ambivalent relationship with videogames. So when Gabe Zichermann’s 2011 TEDTalk “How games make kids smarter” hit my radar, I was intrigued. His fast-talking, humourous approach was drawing me in when he said two things that made my heart sink. First, “maybe our world is just too freaking slow for our kids”. And second, reading on a sunny afternoon? He doesn’t “think our kids will ever be doing that”. Now he had my full (cynical) attention. Continue reading “Gaming our way to a better world?” →

The “new normal”, media shock and…frogs

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Little Miss Sunshine? Photo cred: DLM

It’s amazing how many times in the past year I’ve used the phrase “new normal“. Whether it’s managing intense change resulting from an “acceleration of the acceleration”, as David Taras author of Digital Mosaic, Media, Power and Identity in Canada puts it, or feeling unsurprised by the latest headlines following a twitterfest, “normal” feels like it’s in a state of perpetual redefinition. Some things deserve to be normalized, and media’s influence (particularly in digital spaces) is helping that to happen. It’s also becoming clear, however, that there are a great many aspects of our society that are becoming normalized in concerning ways. Are we living out the myth of the frog and boiling water? Continue reading “The “new normal”, media shock and…frogs” →