Okay, so I know that most of my long-form blogging for the past few months has touched on Jacques Ellul in some way, but I’m reading a lot of his work right now, and I wouldn’t keep referencing his work if I didn’t find it relevant in some way. I’m particularly pleased that Ellul’s writing is helping me revisit some ideas (and concerns) that I had over a decade ago, when I was applying to and then first beginning grad school. I thought that I would spend my PhD researching games and learning, and even though I’m happy with my decision to pivot to social media research, I kind of miss some of those ideas I was playing around with at the time, and I’m glad that reading Ellul is helping bring them back.

There are certainly overblown claims about games and learning, but I don’t know if I’ve seen my kid less failure-averse than when playing Mario Kart or more willing to read than when trying Stardew Valley.

I recently had students modify a “life simulation” as an exercise in examining the values embedded in games, and their collective rage that choosing to read a book increases the “loneliness” score is so satisfying.