Turn them off!

[Bogie]

Another thing to consider is that the video games are fun and exciting.
 
The crap their teachers (and parents... that's y'all...) give them to read is Good For Them. Which generally means that it isn't fun, or exciting.
 
They don't get stories anymore. They get lessons disguised as storybooks.
 
Nobody's writing Tom Swift or Hardy Boys kinda stuff anymore. The closest thing we've had in the past decade or so was Harry Potter, and except for the religious loonies, it got leaped on...
 

[Vodka7]

Bogie makes an excellent point about the Hardy Boys.  Like my mom always used to say, "I don't care what they're reading, just as long as they're reading."  Unfortunately, most class syllabi aren't constructed around that idea--like Bogie also said, you get what's "good for you."  Somewhere around being assigned the fiftieth book on Black issues, that idea gets pretty damn grating, especially when important classics like Invisible Man and well-written contemporaries like Kaffir Boy get lumped in with "semester fillers" like Passing and The Color of Water.  If you ask me, more high school English courses need to be centered around short-story anthologies.  Throw everything out there and see what sticks, instead of assigning five books a semester and hoping the kids actually read them instead of downloading the studynotes.

Cheating is rampant, especially at the honors level, where most kids are taking the course just to look better on their college aps, regardless of personal interest or ability.  One of my favorite memories was in my eighth grade honors course where our teacher gave us a one question quiz on the Odyssey chapter he had assigned for that day.  The question he picked was incredibly easy if you actually read the chapter, but it wasn't covered in the Cliff's Notes at all.  Over half the class got a zero.

Really, English courses in American high schools are deeply flawed--books assigned fall into four categories: Black Issues, The Odyssey, Shakespeare, and Other.  I got through every honors and AP english course offered, half a dozen electives (by senior year I had at least two or three English classes every day) and I still managed to get to college with an incredibly flawed background in non-Shakespearian British Literature (only thing assigned: Tale of Two Cities), American Literature (one each of Hemmingway, Steinbeck, and Faulkner), Russian Literature (I can't even remember any being assigned, but there had to be one in there somewhere, I hope), and French Literature (Camus.)  I was assigned and read plenty of contemporary novels and "hot topic" novels, but I came out of high school never having read even *Mark Twain.*  There's something seriously wrong with that.

Reading's another form of entertainment, but when we look at the books we make kids read, it's no surprise they're not reading voluntarily outside of school.  If the only movie you were allowed to watch for your most formative years was an endless replay of Crash, you would probably not be watching movies in your spare time, either.

[Strings]

I actually got a classmate in high school reading. Up to the point I met him, he was functionally illiterate: I started working with him at lunchtime, and the very first thing I introduced him to was the action series novel (the Mack Bolan series, to be precise). He didn't become a voracious reader by any stretch, but his reading DID improve dramatically...

[Perd Hapley]

We don't need Hardy Boys or Harry Potter.  There's plenty of Mark Twain and other kids' lit out there.  Isn't there? 

[Strings]

fistful, I would happily nominate J.K. Rawling for sainthood, for how many kids she's gotten to like reading because of Harry Potter. It's actually one of THE best children's series I've ever seen, since it can grow with the child (instead of being a metric ass-load of stories all at the same level). And I devoured the Hardy Boys, Encyclopedia Brown, and similar books when I was a kid...

 BTW: regarding Harry Potter "growing" with a child. There are things in the later books (really starting with Goblet of Fire) that you don't want younger kids reading. If I had a child under say, 10, I wouldn't let them read the series through right away, regardless of how mature they were. Goblet... has Harry at 14, and even that might be a touch too young. For those who don't know, Rawling kills off a character, and there is absolutely zero sugar coating. He's there, bang, he's not. Might be just a little much for some of the younger readers...

[Sindawe]

There's plenty of Mark Twain and other kids' lit out there.  Isn't there?

Tons of the stuff (as we used to say).  I cut my literary teeth on Heinlein, Bradbury & Lovecraft.  OK, Lovecraft ain't exactly children's lit, but *I* liked it even if it did give me nightmares.  But those were fun too. One has not experienced terror until one has seen an Elder Thing coming out of the heating ducts.

Part of the problem lays in the fact that reading is often not seen as "cool", and even though such had never motivated me overly much I was aware of its influence on my peers.  Only a lesser number of my friends through school would read for pleasure, the rest shunning it as something only nerds did by choice.

[cosine]

No, that's cosine over in the wise beyond their years department.

[Gomer Pyle=bashfully]Gosh![/Gomer Pyle] 

[280plus]

You mean, "SHAZZAM!!" 

[Perd Hapley]

Cosine, I think I'll start a thread to ask, "What's up with you?"  On the other hand that could give you a big head, little tyke.   Some of us might be embarassed if we find any significant amount of video-gaming in your past.   

[cosine]

Cosine, I think I'll start a thread to ask, "What's up with you?"  On the other hand that could give you a big head, little tyke.   Some of us might be embarassed if we find any significant amount of video-gaming in your past.   

I'm waiting. 

[K Frame]

"I just went through the exact same thing with my daughter just 10 minutes ago.  Did we take away her favorite video game?  Nope.  We didn't let her sleep in her new shoes."

You're a bad dad!

I've got to concur with what Mtnbkr said... It's not the video games.

I grew up in the heart of the video game revolution -- Space Invaders, Pac Man, Donkey Kong, Nintendo, Colecovision, Tetris, and everything else. I still have exceptionally fond memories of those console games, especially Zaxxon and Xevious.

But, through it all, I managed to graduate with honors from high school, graduated from an excellent college, and parlay that into jobs in journalism, including one for American Rifleman magazine. All the while, I was playing video games.

Something is rotting my brain, that's for certain, but it's not video games, and this chicken little *expletive deleted*it is getting really old.

[gunsmith]

I can happily say I've never ever tried to play nitendo.

I do like area 51 on those few times I'm near an arcade

[grislyatoms]

IMO, it's just another witch hunt.

There are a lot of wonderfully crafted games out there that demand logical thinking and the grey matter must be engaged to play them. Sadly, I do believe these types of games are becoming more scarce.

I have been playing computer and console games since the late 70's. I cut my teeth on a Tandy/Radio Shack Model I and then later a TRaSh80 Model III. I had a printed book of BASIC games; you had to type in each line of BASIC (and then debug the program) to play the game. Learned BASIC programming that way which turned out to be the gateway to a successful career.

My interest in computer games also led to an interest in electronics. I have a FCC Commercial Operator license with GMDSS (Global Maritime Distress and Safety System) and a Radar endorsement.

I have worked on projects including the Seawolf submarine and the U2 aircraft. I also worked for AMD making semiconductors.

Not too shabby for a confessed computer game nut.

  

[HankB]

. . . the surveys increasingly show that children (especially boys) regard reading as a chore, something that needs to be accomplished for the sake of passing tests, not as a joy in itself.

This is easy to understand . . . most teachers are women, and they assign books that THEY remember reading and enjoying when they were young girls. Thus, boring "chick books" like Vanity Fair are assigned, rather than something that might hold a boy's interest and prove educational such as Roosevelt's African Game Trails.

Fortunately the only "black studies" book I was assigned to read back around 7th or 8th grade was Uncle Tom's Cabin . . . and I'm sure many of the comments made in class (including those of the teacher!) would have been frowned on by today's politically correct educators. 

I was in elementary school when I was introduced by my folks to sci-fi and adventure . . . initially Tom Swift, but later Doc Savage (paperback reprints, not the original pulps . . . I'm not THAT old!) and the science fiction of Edmund Hamilton, E.E. Smith, etc.

So I learned there WAS interesting reading outside of boring school-assigned pap and comic books.

[Spec ops Grunt]

By all means, restrict the amount of TV and videogame time that your kids have, it does them good to revise and go out in the sun.

Just don't push for any kind of legislation restricting videogame sales, or the like. After all, it is not fair for the responsible ones to be punished for the sins of others, just like you guys don't want to be punished for that which criminals do with firearms.

Agreed!

[S_O_Laban]

By all means, restrict the amount of TV and videogame time that your kids have, it does them good to revise and go out in the sun.

Just don't push for any kind of legislation restricting videogame sales, or the like. After all, it is not fair for the responsible ones to be punished for the sins of others, just like you guys don't want to be punished for that which criminals do with firearms.

Agreed!

I would agree with this sentiment.

 I have a 13Y/O son who has logged more game time than is probably healthy for the the average kid.... but the average kid he is not.  Most thirteen year olds don't read the whole Bible(  OT and all ) cover to cover.  (Actualy, very few adults have every read just the OT from start to finish.) I didn't even know he was doing this until I caught him one night. He is a great kid and holds a GPA in the 3.8 range at a private school.

 His older brother (diagnosised with ADD) hasn't logged a fraction of the game time that the younger one has. Has a 2.6 GPA and is in some type of trouble on a regular basis.  Although he plays some games occasionally, he shows little to no interest in them. It is all about the individual, blanket statements are almost never accurate.