Tapscott part 3

After reading part 3 of Tapscott’s book the beginning of chapter 11 really stood out to me. The idea that some people believe that the net generation is dumber than other generations really hit a nerve for me and I agree with Tapscott’s refuting statement completely. Let first take a look at video games which require an intense array of hand eye coordination, whereas television requires you to sit on your ass and look at one spot the entire time. When you play video games you are engaging many different cognitive functions in the brain from strategizing to quick responses against unseen factors. If video games were making us lazy then why has it become almost a standard practice to make many controls of heavy machinery heavily based on the video game controller? You don’t see controls in a bulldozer based on a television. Another argument I have is if using the internet makes my generation so dumb then why is it so hard for adults to learn how to use it. I can think of numerous adults including my own father that has not a clue in the world on how to use a computer or the internet. An example of how the internet is making us smarter is the start-up page of most web browsers. Many of these pages include stories about what is going on in the world that draw our attention. Now let’s say a middle school student logs on and sees a story, he is going to read that story and become educated on what is happening in the world whereas a person who flips on a tv might catch part of some fictional sitcom.