[ExI] toys rewiring kids' brains

[Stephen Van Sickle]

When I first read this, my brain saw "joys of rewiring kids brains".

I flashed on an image of Spike gleefully standing over an open skull, blood
up to his elbows, with wire cutters in one hand and soldering iron in the
other.  Clearly, I continue to need professional help.

And in case anyone is interested, I have more or less finished my move to
Sunnyvale from Scottsdale.

--steve van sickle
On Dec 25, 2012 8:37 AM, "spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote:

> ** **
>
> We have seen the comments on how video games are rewiring our brains, with
> the modern generation of kids having an entirely different skillset from
> the ones you and I developed in our own misspent childhoods fooling with
> Rockem Sockem Robots and board games and such as that.  One thing really
> caught my attention on this Christmas morning.  The kids all got legos
> (they love those things, as I and their parents did) but there is a
> critical difference.  Now all the legos come in kits that make some
> specific thing.  The kids follow an instruction book to make the set.
> Tragically many years ago, we kids would get legos in the form of a bucket
> of plastic bricks full stop.  I don’t remember seeing any instructions or
> sketches of things we were supposed to build.  We invented stuff.  We could
> stay busy for hours just building random things of lego blocks.  Now, they
> follow as specific instruction set, and end up with a closed-ended finished
> product, with a lot of very specific pieces, rather than about a dozen or
> so generic blocks.****
>
> ** **
>
> Many of us here will spend part of this day with kids, relatives perhaps,
> or kids of friends, so we will get to see what I am writing about.  Now the
> task is to extrapolate what happens when kids who grew up with these kinds
> of highly specific toys do in the real world, where everything is
> accomplished by following a specified and well-documented path to success
> with little room for deviation.****
>
> ** **
>
> spike****
>
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