It’s a matter of training. Video games train players to train, to learn quickly and perform well under pressure. All the qualities of creative, problem-solving intelligence are found in good video games, and beating those games means mastering those qualities. We’re raising a generation of highly-skilled problem solvers like the world has never before seen. Gabe Zichermann has a few words to say on the subject.
Thanks to multiplayer gaming, we’re training ourselves and our kids to quickly group up, work out group roles, wire up communication networks, and cooperate together to solve complex goals, all while under pressure from the game or from a similar group of players with different virtual shirts on.
This is how problems are solved in the real world. It’s also how revolutions are formed in the real world. We’ve been seeing an awful lot of youth-led revolutions of late, haven’t we?