On his blog Ian Bogost discusses an interesting point made in Mark Fisher's Capitalist Realism: today's (higher education) students do not want to read books. They think reading is boring because it doesn't have the immediate gratification of, say, a hamburger.
Fisher argues that reading Nietsche is all about experiencing the indigestibility of the text. Bogost compares this to unobvious videogames, that are often as indigestible as reading Nietsche.
At the same moment Newsweek presents results from a US study on the effects of playing games on IQ. It turned out that playing small, 'obvious' games for 8 weeks, leads to the same IQ increase among children as one year of regular education (12 to 13 IQ points).
This kind of studies bear the risk of defining new media as the correct model for educational renewal or development. The 'saccharine gratification' (quote from Bogost) of the gaming experience leads to student motivation, which can be misinterpreted by educators as 'they think the content is interesting'.
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