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• Video Games Are Good For You
  Thanks to Steven Johnson, James Gee, Richard Haier, Daphne Bavelier, Shawn Green, James Rosser, Jaak Panksepp, Gregory Burns, Discover/Disney, MIT, Harvard Business School, University of Wisconsin, University of California at Irvine, University of Rochester, The Advanced Medical Center at Beth Israel Medical Center, The Falk Center of Medical Therapeutics at Northwestern University, Emory University School of Medicine ...
  
  http://www.discover.com/issues/jul-05/features/brain-on-video-games/
  
  'Nuf said.
  
  ; )
  
  --JMZ

  July 4, 2005

  0 replies

• Feature or a Bug?
  I have been following Dr. Hallowell's work for some years now and find it to exceptionally enlightening. I do have one point of contention that may perhaps seem subtle but nonetheless significant.
  
  After reading Driven in '96 as a full-fledged first-year academic, I have to admit that while the terminology is changing slightly, it still misses an important and perhaps crucial point, one that as a now full-fledged "tech-ademic" more of us may be aware of. That is, whether this "condition", this specific behavioral pattern, is really a feature or a bug?
  
  Is it an asset or liability/disability?
  
  Personally, I have posited that any of the following terms be considered to more accurately describe it and the people that possess it:
  
  - Parallel Attention [Style] (PA) [http://vs. Serial Attention (SA); Hunter vs. Farmer|http://vs. Serial Attention (SA); Hunter vs. Farmer]
  - Parallel Attention Ability (PAA)
  - Parallel Processing Style (PPS)
  - Wideband Attention Style (WAS)
  - Broadband Attention Style (BAS)
  - High Bandwidth Attention (HBA)
  - Multi-Tasking Mindset (MTMS)
  - Multi-Channeled Attention Style (MCAS)
  - Multi-Focus Attention Style (MFAS)
  - Attention Dilution Disorder (ADD) [where it is in fact a debilitating disorder]
  - Over-Active Attention (OAA)
  - etc.
  
  As our knowledge and understanding and body of experimentation and research grows on this, we may actually come to understand it a personality and HR feature, instead of necessarily as a dis-ability or bug or problem. It may in fact turn up as a *requirement* or *skill* for certain job candidates, for positions where people possessing this/these trait(s) excel. At the least, I believe our conception of it will be a little more akin to other neutral "traits" much like our conception of a car can be that of an enabler for travel, sustenance like getting groceries, protection from the elements, and culture like carrying books to libraries for children or in other hands a machine of destruction to property and life and atmosphere as a polluter. The car itself is neither here nor there, but the driver makes it so as do the varying methods one powers it with i.e. fossil fuels, hydrogen, electric, solar, hybrid, et cetera. The same with this attention style or "trait", some can learn to use it for great benefit while others are reckless with it or at its mercy.
  
  Sincerely,
  
  Jason M.W. Zawadzki

  April 1, 2005

  0 replies