A recent chat I had with my 13 year old nephew was anything but sane. He called it I.M.ing. I called it IMpossible so I turned off the computer, picked up the phone, and called his father – my brother. I didn’t know whether to complain or just point out that the future generation simply can’t speak English. My brother’s situation was even worse.
“I am technology oriented,” protested my 40+ year old engineer brother, “yet I can’t communicate with my own kids. They transmit and receive on a totally different wavelength. I hold advanced degrees in engineering and buy toys for them I can’t seem to assemble. They figure out in seconds what to do. I tried playing computer games with my kids in order to
spend quality time with them. They complained I just slow them down.”
Does this sound familiar? It’s no secret the next generation is quicker and much more technology adaptive. It’s even less a secret future forecasts point to a totally digital environment, with a few electronic circuits added here and there.
My nephew still can’t believe that 20 years ago there was no internet to wire us up to the entire world. “So how did you communicate?” he asked skeptically
“That’s exactly what I’m trying to teach you!” I replied.
One comment my brother made about computer games caught my attention: “These games are so violent. In one game, the objective is to shoot people on the street, and you get points for your performance. A head shot counts more than a body shot.” An educating game!
Is it surprising then, that kids are going on bloodshed rampages in real environments. These kids believe that they’ve just entered a different level of the game. When ‘game over’ extends into reality, it takes them by surprise.
These types of games prepare kids about ways to make clean head shots. They train on that because they get more points for this kind of target. They don’t think about suicide bombers and the viability of putting them down without detonating the explosive vests they wear. They don’t even know what ACLU is or why they shouldn’t aim to kill. They probably master the head shot more efficiently than the average police officer because they learn about it without the consequences such an act might entail.
That leads me to a much more alarming reality. Bad guys use computers to train for everything from terrorist propaganda to actual execution techniques. We already know the World Wide Web is a great source to gather information about almost anything (from targets to information about security technology, and even cookbooks for preparing explosive devices). We also know that programs such as Google Earth Pro are useful for remote surveillance. We even know that the internet is a money maker, sometimes for malicious purposes. Now we realize how the Internet can prepare people to become terrorists, from A-Z, including checking the impact of their acts on society-through virtual environments… To read the whole article, subscribe today or use our retail finder to purchase a copy from your closest store.
