Powering Up (PDF)

When it comes to computer games, the numbers are astounding: the
world's top professional gamer has won over half a million dollars
shooting virtual monsters on-screen; online games claim literally
millions of subscribers; while worldwide spending on computer
gaming will top £24 billion by 2011. From techno-toddlers to
silver surfers, everyone's playing games on their PCs, Wiis, Xboxes
and phones. How are we responding to this onslaught of
brain-training, entertaining, potentially addicting,
time-consuming, myth-spawning games?

In Powering Up, Rebecca Mileham looks at the facts behind the
headlines to see what effect this epidemic of game-playing is
really having on us and the society we live in. Is it making us
obese, anti-social, violent and addicted... or just giving us
different ways of getting cleverer, fitter and more skilled? She
examines the evidence, from experts and gamers alike, and asks some
controversial and thought-provoking questions:

* Are car-driving games turning us into boy racers?

* Could becoming a virtual bully help children solve classroom
disputes?

* Should you feel remorse for killing pixel people?

* Does it matter if you cheat in a single-player game?

* Can games get ex-prisoners back to work?

If you're part of the gaming revolution yourself, or are just
curious to know what's fact and what's fiction in the media
coverage of this topic, then this is the book for you.

About the author

Rebecca Mileham has written for the Sunday Times, She magazine,
and for museums all over the UK. In ten years at the Science
Museum, London, she developed exhibitions on topics as diverse as
Charles Babbage's Difference Engines, robotic submarines, face
transplants and the male pill.

href="http://www.rebecca.mileham.net/">http://www.rebecca.mileham.net/