There
are few things more exciting to a 15 year old than the prospect of getting your
license. There are also few things less exciting than sitting in driver’s Ed
every Saturday and Sunday for six weeks. Drivers Ed consisted of cheesy driving
movies that were at least 20 years old, an impossibly boring driving
instructor, and 40 teenagers who just wanted their weekends back. It was a
struggle not to fall asleep during class, and so I turned to about the only
possible thing that was interesting to me back then: my iPhone and its’ games.
I quickly downloaded all the top games at the app store, buying everything from
Cooking Mama to Doodle Jump. I would spend hours during class playing these
games, not paying attention to our teacher, but constantly achieving a new high
score. Blocking out the boring old man talking about speed limits was easy when
I was engaged by the small screen in the palm of my hands. I guess the joke was
on me when six months later I didn’t pass my driver’s test. I’ll never know if
my obsession with my iPhone and all its games can be blamed for my failure, or
perhaps it was something else, but I know that because of drivers Ed I beat the
whole entire game of Cooking Mama in six weeks.
The
number of games available on the iPhone is constantly expanding, and the iPhone
is the perfect delivery system for games that were previously only available
through other gaming consoles. If you think about it, it makes perfect
sense. Most people are glued to their smartphones,
and if you have your phone with you 24/7 then in theory you would always be
able to play the games you’ve downloaded from the App store. Currently gamesare the most popular category in the App store, with approximately 130,804active applications available for downloading. If you can imagine a game, it
probably exists in the app store, ready for you to download it with the tap of
your finger. There is literally an app for anything and everything. In addition
to the game category in the app store, there is also an education category thatcontains 74,032 apps available for download, that’s almost half of the amount
of games in the apps store. When faced
with the choice of playing a game or an educational app, most people would pick
fun filled games any day. While good educational games may be out there, they
will never be utilized enough for them to become effective.
Fast
forward from 15 year old me playing on my iPhone in driving class, to 17 year
old me preparing to take the SAT. For any high school junior the SAT is what
consumes you, it is essentially the most important test one will ever have to
take. Yet again I saw my weekends booked, with SAT prep classes for hours on
Saturdays and Sundays. And, yet again, rather than listening to my teacher I
found myself distracted by my IPhone, playing Angry Birds and not listening to
SAT “testing strategies”. How could I possibly
pay attention to math problems and reading passages when my IPhone and all its
grandeur was literally an arm’s length away? I didn’t fail the SAT, but I’ll
always wonder what my score would’ve been had I actually paid attention during
prep class. These games, while some argument could be made for their educational
properties, were by far a detriment to my learning in class. And I’m not alone
in my in-class gaming addiction, with one-third of high school students owningan iPhone; the number of those who are distracted during school is larger than
ever.
Asking
a Kid who has an IPhone to not play games during class is like putting a drink
in front of a recovering alcoholic. These games are designed to be engaging and
addicting, and sitting in a boring class is the perfect time to try and beat
the next level or perfect your high score. There is no question that there are
some educational aspects of a few select educational games. However, I cannot
in my right mind agree with someone who says that there are educational
benefits from playing Fruit Ninja. Games for me will always be a distraction, a
way to escape from the prospect of learning. Whether it is during a lecture in
college or listening during algebra class in high school, if I didn’t force
myself to pay attention, I would always rather be playing on my iPhone.
I know exactly what you mean. Even in college, it is sometimes hard to focus on lecture when you have a phone or laptop in front of you. But I guess this is all a part of being a student in the digital world. Perhaps schools and prep agencies should become more technologically focused as to use what are now distractions and turn them into learning opportunities...
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