Howard Rheingold

What Can 135 Million Video Gamers Add to Our Collective IQ?

September 28, 2012 | 11:22 AM | By MindShift

Flickr:Blakespot

By Jennie Rose

An estimated 135 million people play video games, spending three billion hours a week glued to a screen. But that’s not necessarily bad news. In fact, playing video games may be part of an evolutionary leap forward, according to Howard Rheingold, educator and author of the book Net Smart: How to Thrive Online.

Rather than characterizing them as hapless drones wasting time, Rheingold’s book contends that this massive population of gamers is part of a growing group of “supercollaborators,” as described by Jane McGonigal, director of game research and development at the Institute for the Future, who’s interviewed in the book.

Rheingold connects the dots on collaboration literacy and what he calls “Social-Digital-Know-How.” Multi-player games in particular, and virtual communities in general, are technologies that require cooperation. And when you consider the cumulative amount of technical knowledge, these gamers could be the first wave of people who possess what scientists have started calling “collective IQ.” Already, gamers who play the online game Foldit have cracked the code of the structure of a protein-cutting enzyme from an AIDS-like virus, which has eluded scientists for years, and could lead to a new drug.

It’s hard to think of a realm of human behavior that has not been influenced, in some way, by a form of mass collaboration.

This idea of collective intelligence and digital culture came from French media scholar Pierre Lévy, who argues that a networked culture gives rise to new structures of power, stemming from the ability of diverse groups of people to pool knowledge, collaborate through research, debate interpretations. Together, these groups refine their understanding of the world.

Wikipedia is one of the best-known byproducts of this process of refinement and social production. Though the website is still dismissed as a research tool in some education circles because it does not represent a traditionally vetted information source, danah boyd, a senior Continue reading →

FILED UNDER: Learning Methods, Teaching With Tech, Games, Howard Rheingold, video games

What Will You Click On Next? Focusing Our Attention Online

August 31, 2012 | 10:54 AM | By Tina Barseghian

Lenny Gonzales

The onslaught of information from the wired world can be overwhelming to anyone — even the savviest online audiences. But rather than completely shut out the digital world, the smarter solution is to learn how to manage it, says author Howard Rheingold.

In his book Net Smart: How to Thrive Online, Rheingold outlines the potential merits of the vast digital landscape, and offers ideas on how to lasso the unwieldy aspects and use it for good.

In a recent conversation on the Forum talk program, Rheingold stresses the importance of intention when it comes to managing digital noise. Knowing that every click will likely to lead to a chunk of time spent on what follows will help people decide if that’s worthwhile. Every click counts.

“I think [there's] this matter of meta-cognition, of knowing where you’re putting your attention,” he told Michael Krasny on Forum. “You need to make decisions. ‘Am I going to click on that link? Am I going to maybe open a tab for it on my browser and look at it later? Am I going to bookmark it to look at it much later or am I going to ignore it?’ You need to make those decisions consciously and I think most of us make them unconsciously… We wouldn’t have so many cute cat videos if people didn’t click on impulse.”

“You need to make decisions. ‘Am I going to click on that link? You need to make those decisions consciously.”

Rheingold advises all of us to create a specific plan when we’re online, and to follow through.

“You have to make [decisions] in the context of what you intend to get done for the day. Write down, with good old right-brain pencil and paper, three things you want to get done [online] today, and just two or three words each, and put that in the periphery of your vision,” he said. “And when your gaze falls upon it, simply ask yourself ‘Is what I’m doing now going to get me to where I need to be by the end of the day?’ I’m not asking you to admonish yourself or to make any changes to your routine, I’m only asking you to add a little layer of awareness.”

This exercise in self-control can be honed over time with tools like meditation, Rheingold writes in a chapter called “Attention!”

“Mindfuless in all its forms and applications certainly is an end in itself, but practicing mindfulness in regard to online attention serves a specific strategic goal,” he writes. “Your goal and mine in this Continue reading →