Intrinsicly motivated? Nah, sheer peer pressure...

While transcribing interviews with 15 year olds about their interactive media use, it struck me that they all reported to use social software, such as Hyves or Facebook, 'because all the others do so as well'. My first thought was "you're 15, you should be a non-conformist". My second thought was, referring to Brian: "You're all individuals"...

However, today a blogitem about the SXSW festival described the same issue. A girl (15 years old) reportedly told the audience during a presentation " All my friends do Photoshops, use Photoshop. So I use and learned Photoshop to impress them".

This indicates that, as far as the Net generation debate is concerned, peer-pressure is an important factor explaining the use of interactive media. A more constructive term is of course 'peer-driven participation', as defined by Ito (2008) in her report on the Digital Youth Project.

Indigestible reading

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'.

German Net generation study

Finally, an English (abridged) version of Schulmeister's extensive study on the existence of the Net generation (or rather non-existence) is available. Earlier I worked my way through the German extended version.

The most important point Schulmeister makes is that you have to study interactive media use in the context of everyday life. For many social scientists this is obvious, but much Net generation literature focuses solely on the use of interactive media.

Mark Bullen gives an overview of the main conclusions. In regard of my own research these two are most interesting:

The Use of Media: It turns out that the use of media alone is not sufficient for the existence of the net generation but rather that the motives for the use of media are essential in the context of such an analysis.

The Motivation for the Use of Media: The preferences of the young for specific internet activities provide information about the spectrum of their interests; the age distribution of their preferences suggests that the actual interests are influenced by socialization.

Designing games in a mock-up environment

As part of the Game Design & Technology programme at Fontys University of Applied Sciences, students have to paper-prototype their games.
Marcel de Leeuwe discusses some digital mock-up tools on his weblog. In a reply to this post Moocha refers to an instructive YouTube video. The best tool, in my opinion, remains pen and paper...

Free thoughts!

Recently some blogs mentioned of a conference where the audience was asked not to twitter or take pictures during presentations (Steve Wheeler, Wilfred Rubens).

The discussion on Steve Wheeler's blog resulted in a link to this YouTube video:



Thoughts are free, who can guess them?
They flee by like nocturnal shadows.
No man can know them, no hunter can shoot them,
with powder and lead: Thoughts are free!

I think what I want, and what delights me,
still always reticent, and as it is suitable.
My wish and desire, no one can deny me
and so it will always be: Thoughts are free!

I love wine, and my girl even more,
Only I like her best of all.
I'm not alone with my glass of wine,
my girl is with me: Thoughts are free!
..