Does Gaming Reduce Productivity? 349
Scott Taulbee writes "Bob Mandel of AVault has given us his interesting views on why playing games does not reduce productivity, but rather is a stimulating alternative to 'snoozing, daydreaming, overconsuming food and beverages, or sitting like a mindless slug waiting for time to pass.' He suggest that '..compared to other forms of recreational activity that could be enjoyed during work breaks, computer gaming has the greatest chance to hone skills useful for productivity in the workplace.' Should we all take this article to our bosses with requests for installing a GameCube on every desk?"
Concentration (Score:1, Interesting)
Now that you bring it up... (Score:5, Interesting)
Interesting that you should mention that. I'm a free-lance artist working in 3D. I recently discovered that when I play graphically interesing games on my GameCube (Star Fox Adventures, for example...) I get inspired with a new energy to work in Lightwave. I think I'm in an unusual scenario, though...
Gaming during work hours is a double-edged sword. It can be used effectively, it can be abused. At my full-time job, I'd occasionally fire up a game of Starcraft and spend about 45 mins or so (part of it during lunch break) playing it. But then when it came time to go home, I was comfortable leaving later. Instead of leaving because it was time to leave, I was leaving because I'd finished what I was working on. I'm not sure if that makes sense or not, but when you have to put off getting off, you look for whatever rational reason you can think of to leave work.
So yeah, I'd say there's some truth to it. If I could take say an hour during my day to pursue an interest of mine, I'd be less restless.
Is there any wonder? (Score:2, Interesting)
slashdot reduces productivity (Score:2, Interesting)
anyway, back to tuxracer
We had our share of worktime gaming going on... (Score:2, Interesting)
Unfortunately, management didn't see it that way and put a big kabosh on the whole thing. So now I just troll slashdot instead!
We're a gaming company (gambling) too, you'd think they'd be more forgiving...oh well.
Abuse potential too high (Score:5, Interesting)
That's not even touching the problem of support. Now I've got to open holes in the firewall so the good strong employee can play Star Wars Galaxies. Oops, looks like Doom 3 just hosed up the graphic drivers on everyone's laptop again. If having Solitaire and Minesweeper on every computer weren't bad enough...
Gaming can be good, yes. (Score:4, Interesting)
However, my PHB saw it as "just" playing games (despite my winning streak of nearly 20 games), and I was told to stop it. My productivity dropped, though it was still better than the rest of the group.
Nothing I could say would change his mind. His decree was final.
The company was bought out by a smaller competitor, in large part because it was not able to turn out a bug-free product on time and under budget. However, they *were* able to ensure that their best debugger was not "wasting" ten minutes a day playing games.
What companies should do (Score:5, Interesting)
Depends on the person (Score:4, Interesting)
There's huge variation in individual productivity both within and across jobs. Some people can put in very little tangible effort, yet end up producing a tremendous amount of quality output, while others work their tails off all day and produce very little. For this second group, computer gaming poses the greatest threat to continued productivity.
My take on this is that since not every person who plays games can be as productive as the company expects, bosses choose to ban game playing for everyone. Little do they know that most people need to take breaks during the day so they don't get burned out. I don't think gameplaying automatically indicates you're not productive. On the contrary, if I have time to play games it's because my works all done.
Some companies know. (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:What companies should do (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Now that you bring it up... (Score:5, Interesting)
This is insightful? Have you noticed that a lot of modern games use art these days? Have you noticed that in school, artists study other works of art?
Creativity is not a scientific process. It's not something that works better just by throwing more hours into it. It's something that comes along when your brain is stimulated. I can't imagine you listening to music and not understanding that concept.
Interesting note:
- In the movie Final Fantasy, the scene where the soldiers drop down from a ship and land in a goo like substance to cushion their fall was inspired by a scuba diving trip.
- In Star Wars, The Phantom Menace, the pod race scene was inspired by a woman walking her two dogs that were nearly dragging her along by the leash.
- The game Tempest was inspired by a nightmare Jeff Minter had about monsters that'd crawl out of a hole in the ground.
So yeah, tell me all about how 'time wasting activities' aren't inspirational.
Stress Relief (Score:1, Interesting)
Games are good for fatigue, too (Score:3, Interesting)
I suspect it's because it gets other areas of your brain working and eliminates eyestrain, as your eyes are moving around constantly.
My $0.02..
Whatever works... (Score:3, Interesting)
And it was good. Then it changed, and there was much grumbling.
But having stuff like that, gaming fridays for a few hours, would probably really increase worker morale... Unless they're totally getting fragged all the time. Plus, if you designate a certain time for gaming, they will probably waste less time gaming when they're supposed to be working.
Find a better work environment (Score:5, Interesting)
8-12 at desk
1-5 at desk
Why doesn't management understand different people work in different ways? My best friend will come in late but he gets shitloads done after lunch. Before lunch he does next to nothing (tries to wake up). Me I'm a morning person I get more done before 9am than most people do all day. However at my last job, leaving early meant you weren't a team player (nevermind I got there 2 hours before everyone else, where were the fucking team players then?).
This is why my current job is my last. They are pretty flexible (my boss respects me, and I can come and go as I please).
Once my company hits the revenue I feel comfortable with I'm going out on my own. I'd rather make 24K/year and be my own boss than make 100k/year and have to put up with bullshit everyday. There is something to be said for Quality of Life.
My future co-workers will be able to set their own schedules (with the exception of support). I'm not going to be the boss, I'm going to be a co-worker (that can fire people). As long as my teams are achieving their goals persuant to the companies goals I don't care if they work 20 hours a week. Just get the shit done and go live your life. I am also going to require 16 hours of community service a month (2 paid days off to do something the co-workers care about). There was nothing worse at my first job than them riding your ass about not doing shit in the community but turning around and making you work 80+ hours a week and work on weekends. I have no problem with hard work. I just hate hypocrites (which I strive not to be one).
Fortunately I will be job free in about 6 months if everything works out. And I'll be job free in 6 months if everything doesn't work out. I guess I'm crazy quiting a job that makes over 60k/year in oklahoma, but oh well....
From my experience, yes (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, it can . . . (Score:4, Interesting)
For the rest of us who "do the eight & hit the gate", our work is either not on such a tight timetable or is on a stable production environment where EVERYTHING is done carefully and deliberately to avoid downtime, gaming doesn't make sense.
Don't get me wrong, I read slashdot and do NOT agree with the boss who says "The company is losing MILLIONS OF $$$$ while the slacker trenchers screw around with the internet."
Work is for work, home is for home and lunch & after hours are for LAN parties (if IT & boss permits.)
Re:What companies should do (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:or.. (Score:2, Interesting)
There's a problem there though.. I used to come up with little projects to work on when my job was kind of slow. One of those was a handy little system to track patches to the various software systems we support and also keep track of modifications we make to it. Once I rewrote a process to be more efficeint when getting data out of our database. It went from running in about 2hrs to 5 minutes. But both of those, along with almost every other thing I worked on in my spare time was ignored by management so I decided to pass the time with a nice game of freecell. I was so happy when I upgraded to XP because I got to play Spider Solitaire too.
What are you comparing it to? (Score:3, Interesting)
So, we'll all agree that you can't work 8 hours at a stretch, with zero interruptions. I can get close if deadlines are coming up, but the caffinated beverages get to me eventually, and I start freaking out (The Mouse is talking to me! The Mouse is talking to me!), not including the bathroom breaks.
So, in a stress environment, I can see putting some sort of game system around to blow off steam every couple hours or so. Of course if you have a bunch of addicts around, you're going to go out of business...
The thing is, people compare it to PRODUCTIVE time. So, no, compared to actualy PRODUCTIVE time, playing games is a time waster.
On the other hand, compared to sitting mindlessly and passively in front of the TV, games achieve a level almost approaching productivity! So it depends on what you're doing.
Re:Lucky... (Score:1, Interesting)
As a result of playing foosball, some good friendships have developed in our workplace. Not to mention it helps develop good hand-to-eye coordination.
My company bought us.. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Gamecube? (Score:5, Interesting)
But it was fun and enjoyable. It didn't pay as much as I wanted, but the people were cool and you could do pretty much what you wanted as long as you took care of business.
Among my coworkers, some regularly surfed porn, some played games, and one left p2p software running all shift, which is cool when you have 10Mbit bandwidtch to the internet. (For the NOC; the whole center had much more of course. We were setting up gigabit internet set up for one customer.) My coworkers and I would gather at an exceptional example of porn, but I never surfed it myself. To me, porn and work don't mix. Why do I want to be horny at work? Especially on the weekends by myself for 12 hours. That would be a bad habit to start!
We did more than just monitor, though; we were remote hands for the customers, we racked equipment and cabled for new customers, we gave data center tours for potential customers, etc.. And we were encouraged to develop new ideas for services to offer customers and services to improve our network.
I spent my idle time soaking up all the new info...I hadn't worked that closely with that much network equipment before and I was a kid in a candy store. I miss it except for the insecurity and low pay.
No reading printed material at your workstation? WTF? All of our alerts had loud sounds, emails and pages in addition to the screen flashing. Our more serious alerts (e.g. main switch problem) had the Star Trek red alert sound. Syslog entries from the routers made a "thunk" sound, and we had comprehensive monitoring system that spoke the location and nature of the problem. (Well, the sounds were configurable and we used AT&T's online voice synthesizer to create alerts.) Anything in the data center moving or behaving in a noteworthy fashion made an audible and visual alert, and anything that definitely needed immediate attention would page and email, too. And of course we'd periodically audit and test the alert system.
The drinking and eating rules are actually kinda smart, but we ate and drank at our stations, anyway, although there were at least 5 other usable stations if I fried mine.
We mixed our music into the alert speakers for loud entertainment. Plus we had DSS satellite on one of our many monitors.
I don't recall a dress code, but I usually wore khakis and a patterned button-up cotton blend shirt.
We couldn't leave the building empty, but we could leave if there were coworkers working. (I worked weekend 12-hour shifts and was by myself the whole time so I couldn't leave.)
I only brought my personal computer in the weekend before my last day. But that was because our data center hosted WWII Online [wwiionline.com] and it had just released and I wanted to try it, and mucking with a NOC workstation was not something I wanted to do. Plus, how often do you get a chance to play a MMOG with ping times under 20ms?
Sleeping: We weren't supposed to do that, and I didn't, but I think the midnight guy did. He was the only one who repeadedly had problems like "the phone never rang...I was making a walkthrough check of the building and the phone must've lost connection" when the same phone always rang for everyone else all the time no matter where they were in the building.
Propping feet up: not a problem.
But if customers were around we were supposed to have the NOC looking net, of course. We had a fishbowl-type NOC with a glass wall between us and the entry way (cool because the receptionist was gorgeous) and large windows into the data center floor.
For those tempted to say that our 'slacker' practices are why the company got in trouble, I don't think
Re:Playing with fire (Score:2, Interesting)
The only main point I see in that article is that taking breaks helps productivity. I agree with that completely. I think that taking a break and talking a walk would probably be much more beneficial than taking a video game break. Has everyone already forgotten this article?
http://cooltech.iafrica.com/science/993832.htm [iafrica.com]
Sure, you just influence how it gets done (Score:3, Interesting)
No chance this sort of thing happens on a big scale in the white collar sweat shop that is US IT right now. During the dot com boom, employers were into the whole Ping-Pong-for-morale idea, but now they've got us by the short hairs.
But it makes total sense to officially sanction something in a "public" break area or whatever that you think might be a problem for people sitting in their individual veal stall/cube. If it's going to happen, get your spin on how it happens. Use it to make people like their jobs and their coworkers. Can that be bad? Can it be worse than an office of people with their fingers poised on Ctrl-tab to hide minesweeper?
The alternative is in place here. We've got hidden processes taking "inventory" of our systems, sniffing out potentially illicit activity all the time. They don't find the real abusers, but they succeed in crushing the morale of people who take it casually. Those are the ones who get caught. And of course, the people responsible for monitoring it are the LAN team sorts who know where to hide their own. Pretty much a gulag of a network, complete with the guards knowing how to get contraband through the gates. Let's hear it for authoritarian approaches to social problems...