Does entertainment really teach kids anything? In other words, is there anyway parents can justify letting their kids watch hours of entertainment? Do I learn anything from watching X-Files every evening at nine? On behalf of both the kids and myself, I must answer an emphatic yes!
First of all, and this is undeniable, you learn a lot about entertainment itself. You are exposed to the best work of actors, screen writers, storytellers, musicians, photographers, dancers, singers, video game designers, key grips and all the other people it takes to make entertainment enjoyable. When I looked at the first two hours of what came out of the family camcorder, I realized just how difficult it is to make a good movie. I expect that most people in the entertainment industry were very keen students of their favorite form of entertainment.
Another undeniable consequence is that you learn about the actual shows you watch. Does the ability to identify all 130 Pokeman have any value outside of the playground and card trading circles? If I've learned all the minor characters in every one of the four Star Wars movies, will that help me someday to straighten out my life? I guess the bigger question is if there's any value in useless information. This makes me think back to my days in university to all these highly theoretical proofs and theorems I studied. We had a department of pure math and it was pretty much dedicated to the theory of the useless. George Boole, the inventor of Boolean logic, came up with his research back in the 19th century. His work lay unnoticed and unappreciated until the coming of computers, after which it became known to every freshman computer science major. In other words, how can we even tell what is useless?
One thing I've often heard, and it's applicable to the study of pure math, is that we go to school not only to learn facts but to learn a way of thinking. You can even call this a discipline. The scientific method is a good example of this. Oddly enough, this is where I think TV and computer/video games can teach the most. Lots of kids have wasted their time on learning all the Pokemons, their evolution path and battle powers. To do this they need to exercise their memory while they're learning to classify. The whole of the animal and plant kingdom are classified in to phylum and genera and families. Not unlike the Pokemon, just deeper. The computer games my kids play are filled with puzzles, logic and strategies which must be mastered in order to win. Because these puzzles and strategies are mixed in with adventure, eye candy, music and enthralling stories, kids will work at these tirelessly. Unlike their homework. They're learning a discipline. They're learning perseverance.
Of course they may also be learning some bad lessons. Lots of TV shows and movies are fraught with violence and adultery and other self-centered or destructive values. Likewise video and computer games and music; the list goes on. I suppose like most things, entertainment can be a force for good or evil. I'm just not sure it's a waste of time.
Will playing computer games all day lead to a lucrative career in computer software? Well probably no more than listening to wild rock music will make you a rock star. But I'm willing to bet that most rock stars still waste much of their time listening to other artists and guys like me still really enjoy whacking the Phoenicians in a rousing game of Age of Empires.