We-Think

So today i was looking at a couple of media theories, and i came across We-Think by Charles Leadbetter.

He builds his ideas on the lines that the nature of the internet has revolutionised us, but he goes beyond the obvious reasons for business and consumption and argues that it has also shifted the way we think and make sense of things.

The major change in knowledge consumption, comes from the way we share information over the internet, this in his opinion allows us to be more creativity and innovative, as we are free from controlling institutions.

Leadbetter's main example is World of Warcraft, with over 1 million players it only needs 1% of them to create their own content. He then explains this in terms of education, where if 1% of pupils helped create 'player-developers' for education, then that would be 70,000 new sources of learning. This would challenge the traditional 'teachers' role, as students would be learning peer to peer like on a computer game.

Leadbetter is therefore challenging the notion that, computer games are reducing young people's learning capacity.

Media and social life are becoming blurred. Is the weakening of the boundaries between, computer games and real life a negative or positive thing? Only time will tell.....