The Social Life of Dungeons and Dragons
When I was a brand new school psych (pre-Internet), Dungeons and Dragons was a favorite target for public flogging by schools. Of course some of that was directed at wizards and what not – the same silly hysteria that has gone after Harry Potter. But a surprising amount of the criticism was that D&D led kids into isolation – playing the game all the time, how could they have a normal social life? The paradox? For many kids, D&D was their social life. Many of the kids (mostly boys) who played were bright proto-geeks. At school, they were often isolated, rejected, teased, bullied. D&D was a magnet for other kids like them, and they built a terrific social world around gaming.
I think the same thing still holds, not only with games, but with a lot of Net-based activities. Many kids (not only boys now) find a closer, more supportive, more exciting world online than in class. Can schools recognize that reality, and find ways to work with that rich new social world for the benefit of their students?
By the way: I thought the post before this, “Our Favorite Kids’ Books,” would be a crowd pleaser – that everyone would jump in with one of their favorite titles. But not a single person took the bait. C’mon….