Brain Activity


I was amused that someone actually plotted this student’s electrodermal activity (see pic above) during various parts of the day, and to no surprise, the electrodermal activity nearly flatlined during classes! Contrast that with how the graph looks at homework time. Quite a lot of activity, right? Maybe that’s why schools used to (and continue to) give so much homework: looks like that’s the only time students actually exercised their brains!

I’d have loved them to add a chart of the activity when kids play computer games. What if the chart showed a fair amount of activity while gaming? Would have created a strong case on why gaming is good!

On a related note, I wondered whether the best job in the world would be for a kid to test a computer game and get paid for it? Well, maybe not. Once it is their job, those kids would be expected to retest the same sequence time and again. Or to bang the keyboard or joystick or gaming console for no reason than to test its resilience or responsiveness. I guess work is like the dementor from Azkaban: it can suck the happiness out of anything. Or if you didn’t get the Harry Potter reference, maybe you’ll like the Calvin and Hobbes version below.


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