Blog Post 5

In Jane McGonigal’s TED talk “Gaming can Make a Better World” she identifies and answers both questions of so what and who cares. Her target audience is mainly gamers who understand what she is talking about but she also tries to expand it to a broader audience. The TED talk is about how aspects of video games can be applied to the real world and being able to solve the problems of the future. She strongly covers the “who cares” aspect. After presenting information or an argument she follows it up with why its relevant and why it can pertain to the audience. One of her finishing points was very strong and effective. She agrees with economist Edward Castronova saying;“he says that this makes perfect sense, because gamers can achieve more in online worlds than they can in real life. They can have stronger social relationships in games than they can have in real life; they get better feedback and feel more rewarded in games than they do in real life. So he says, for now it makes perfect sense for gamers to spend more time in virtual worlds than the real world. Now, I also agree that that is rational, for now” This point brings her talk full circle and really sums up the entire “so what” of the talk. I think that in my own writing I will structure my arguments like McGonigal’s. The way she presents an idea and then include a “so what” proceeding is powerful because it adds to her ethos and also gives meaning to the information being presented.