Open Ended vs Close Ended Problem Solving | Episode 011 Video Game Addiction

Summary

The video script explores how gaming shapes individuals, particularly in problem-solving skills. It distinguishes between 'closed-ended' and 'open-ended' problem solving, highlighting that gamers excel at the former due to the structured nature of games. However, this proficiency can hinder their ability to tackle real-world challenges, which often lack clear rules and objectives. The speaker suggests that open-ended problem-solving is a skill that can be learned, contrary to common misconceptions about gamers' motivation or intelligence. The script also hints at a comparison with doctors, who similarly struggle with open-ended problems, emphasizing that this skill is independent of one's professional acumen.

Takeaways

• 🧠 Experiences shape us: Our brain learns from our experiences and changes how we interact with the world.
• 🎮 Gaming shapes problem-solving skills: Gamers become adept at closed-ended problem solving, which is limited by the rules and objectives of the game.
• 🔍 Different problem-solving types: The script distinguishes between 'closed-ended' and 'open-ended' problem solving, with gamers often excelling in the former but struggling with the latter.
• 🤔 Gamers' challenge with open-ended problems: Gamers may find it difficult to solve problems without clear rules or objectives, such as achieving financial independence or finding a partner.
• 🏥 Real-world application: Gamers' problem-solving skills were demonstrated in a Harvard Business School case study, where they provided optimal solutions for optimizing a urology office's workflow.
• 🛠️ Optimizing solutions: Gamers are good at finding the most efficient way to achieve a set goal within a defined set of rules or tools.
• 🚫 Limitations of gaming: The script suggests that extensive gaming might hinder the development of skills needed for open-ended problem solving.
• 💡 Learning from gaming: The ability to solve closed-ended problems is a valuable skill that can be applied in various professional fields, such as consulting.
• 🔑 Operationalizing problems: The process of breaking down abstract problems into manageable steps or operations is key to solving open-ended problems.
• 👶 Developing problem-solving skills: Just as a child learns to clean their room by breaking the task into smaller steps, gamers can learn to tackle open-ended problems by operationalizing them.
• 🧐 Underdeveloped planning skills: The script implies that the frontal lobes responsible for planning and executing actions might be underdeveloped in gamers due to the structured nature of video games.

Q & A

How do our experiences shape us according to the speaker?

The speaker suggests that our experiences shape us by being planted in our brain, from which our brain learns and changes the way we interact with the world.

Why is it important for gamers to understand the impact of playing games on their problem-solving abilities?

It is important for gamers to understand this impact because playing games can make them proficient in closed-ended problem solving but potentially less adept at open-ended problem solving, which is crucial for various life challenges.

What is the difference between closed-ended and open-ended problem solving as described in the script?

Closed-ended problem solving occurs within a defined set of rules and tools to achieve a specific goal, as seen in games. Open-ended problem solving, on the other hand, involves dealing with abstract and broad goals without a clear set of tools or end goals, such as achieving financial independence.

Can you provide an example of how gamers' problem-solving skills were applied outside of gaming, as mentioned in the script?

An example given in the script is when the speaker's gamer friends provided optimal solutions for optimizing patient flow in a urology office, a scenario from a Harvard Business School case study.

What challenges do gamers face when dealing with open-ended problems according to the speaker?

Gamers face challenges with open-ended problems because they struggle with abstract concepts that do not have a clear set of tools or end goals, unlike the structured problems found in games.

What is the term used by the speaker to describe the process of breaking down an abstract problem into actionable steps?

The speaker uses the term 'operationalizing' to describe this process.

How can operationalizing help in addressing open-ended problems?

Operationalizing helps by transforming an abstract problem into a series of manageable steps or smaller problems, making it easier to move from point A to point Z.

Why might gamers feel unmotivated or lazy when it comes to addressing certain life challenges?

The speaker suggests that gamers might feel this way not due to a lack of motivation, but because their brains have not been trained to operationalize or break down certain life challenges into actionable steps.

What is the role of video games in operationalizing problems for gamers?

Video games operationalize problems by providing a clear set of rules, tools, and levels, so gamers do not need to figure out the steps themselves, leading to underdeveloped planning skills in some areas of life.

Can the skill of open-ended problem solving be taught or learned according to the speaker?

Yes, the speaker believes that open-ended problem-solving is a skill set that can be learned and taught, contrary to being an innate ability or related to intelligence or motivation.

What is an example of an open-ended problem that the speaker discusses in the script?

An example of an open-ended problem discussed in the script is achieving financial independence, which involves various abstract steps and decisions rather than a clear, set path.

Outlines

00:00

🎮 The Impact of Gaming on Problem-Solving Skills

This paragraph discusses the profound influence of gaming on an individual's cognitive development, particularly in problem-solving. It emphasizes that gaming can shape a person's approach to problem-solving by teaching them to excel in 'closed-ended' problems—those with defined goals and tools. The speaker uses the example of a Harvard Business School case study to illustrate how gamers can effectively apply their in-game problem-solving skills to real-world scenarios, such as optimizing operations in a medical office. However, the paragraph also highlights a potential downside: gamers may struggle with 'open-ended' problems that lack clear objectives or tools, suggesting an imbalance in their problem-solving abilities.

05:00

🧩 The Challenge of Open-Ended Problem Solving for Gamers

The second paragraph delves into the difficulties gamers face with 'open-ended' problems, which are not confined by the structured rules and objectives typical of video games. It contrasts the structured environment of gaming with the abstract challenges of real life, such as achieving financial independence or finding a romantic partner. The speaker suggests that gamers' proficiency in closed-ended problem solving comes at the expense of their ability to tackle open-ended problems, which require a different skill set. The paragraph also introduces the concept of 'operationalizing' problems, which involves breaking down abstract goals into manageable steps, a skill that gamers may not have developed due to the way video games inherently structure problem-solving for players.

10:00

🛠 Operationalizing Abstract Problems for Gamers

In the final paragraph, the speaker addresses the issue of how gamers can overcome their struggle with open-ended problems by learning to operationalize them. It suggests that by transforming abstract goals into a series of concrete steps, gamers can leverage their analytical skills more effectively. The paragraph draws a parallel between teaching a child to clean their room and teaching gamers to break down complex life goals into actionable parts. It also touches on the idea that the frontal lobes, responsible for planning and executing actions, may be underdeveloped in gamers due to the way video games pre-structure problem-solving, leading to a reliance on the game's framework rather than developing independent problem-solving strategies.

Keywords

💡Experience

Experience refers to the events or occurrences that an individual goes through in life. In the video, it is emphasized that experiences shape us by influencing how our brain learns and adapts to the world. The script mentions that experiences get 'planted in our brain,' which then alters our interactions with the world, illustrating the profound impact of experience on personal development.

💡Gamers

Gamers are individuals who engage in playing video games. The video discusses how gaming shapes the gamers' cognitive abilities, particularly in problem-solving. It highlights that gamers often become adept at 'closed-ended problem solving' due to the structured nature of games, which is a key theme in understanding the video's message about the impact of gaming on cognitive development.

💡Problem Solving

Problem solving is the process of finding solutions to difficulties or challenges. The video distinguishes between 'closed-ended' and 'open-ended' problem solving. It points out that gamers are particularly skilled at the former, which involves working within a set framework, as opposed to the latter, which lacks a defined structure. This concept is central to the video's exploration of how gaming can limit or enhance one's approach to real-world challenges.

💡Closed-Ended Problem Solving

Closed-ended problem solving is a type of problem solving where there is a specific goal and a set of tools or rules to achieve that goal. The video uses the analogy of playing games like 'Mario' or 'World of Warcraft' to illustrate this concept, where gamers are adept at finding optimal solutions within the confines of the game's rules and objectives.

💡Open-Ended Problem Solving

Open-ended problem solving involves tackling challenges that do not have a clear set of rules or a defined end goal. The video contrasts this with closed-ended problem solving and suggests that gamers often struggle with such problems, as they are not used to dealing with abstract or undefined goals, like achieving financial independence.

💡Optimization

Optimization is the process of making the best or most effective use of a set of resources to achieve the utmost efficiency. In the context of the video, gamers are shown to excel at optimizing solutions within the parameters of a game. The script provides an example of gamers providing effective solutions for optimizing patient flow in a urology office, demonstrating their ability to optimize in a closed-ended scenario.

💡Operationalizing

Operationalizing is the act of breaking down an abstract concept into concrete, actionable steps. The video explains that gamers often struggle with open-ended problems because they are not adept at operationalizing these problems. It uses the example of helping a four-year-old clean their room, where the abstract goal of a clean room is broken down into specific tasks, illustrating the process of operationalizing.

💡Abstraction

Abstraction in the video refers to concepts or goals that are not clearly defined or structured. It is highlighted as a challenge for gamers when they encounter problems like financial independence or finding a girlfriend, which lack the clear, structured objectives typical of video games. The script emphasizes the difficulty gamers have in dealing with abstractions due to their gaming habits.

💡Frontal Lobes

The frontal lobes are a part of the brain involved in planning and executing actions. The video suggests that gamers' frontal lobes may be underdeveloped in the context of planning and executing actions for abstract goals, as video games typically provide the planning structure for them. This concept is used to explain why gamers might struggle with open-ended problem solving.

💡Financial Independence

Financial independence is a state of having enough financial resources to cover one's living expenses without relying on others. The video uses this as an example of an open-ended problem that gamers might find challenging due to its abstract nature. It is contrasted with the structured, closed-ended problems that gamers are accustomed to solving within video games.

Highlights

Playing games shapes individuals by influencing their problem-solving skills.

Gamers excel at closed-ended problem solving, which involves a specific objective and set of tools.

Gamers often struggle with open-ended problem solving, which lacks a defined goal or toolset.

Games provide a sandbox within which gamers can optimize solutions, unlike real-world scenarios.

Gamers' ability to solve closed-ended problems was demonstrated in a Harvard Business School case study.

Gamers' problem-solving skills can translate to real-world applications, such as consulting.

The challenge for gamers is adapting their skills to open-ended problems, such as achieving financial independence.

Gamers may struggle with abstract goals that do not have clear steps or tools, unlike in games.

Operationalizing is the process of breaking down abstract problems into actionable steps.

Gamers' brains may be less adept at operationalizing problems due to the structured nature of games.

The frontal lobes, responsible for planning and executing actions, may be underdeveloped in gamers due to the game's guidance.

Gamers can learn to operationalize open-ended problems, transforming them into closed-ended problems.

Teaching operationalizing skills can help gamers tackle real-world challenges more effectively.

The distinction between closed-ended and open-ended problem solving is crucial for understanding gamers' capabilities.

Gamers' success in structured problem solving can be leveraged to improve their approach to unstructured problems.

The speaker suggests that gamers' challenges with open-ended problems are not due to laziness but a lack of training in operationalizing.

Comparing gamers to other professionals, such as doctors, shows that open-ended problem solving is a skill that can be learned.

Transcripts

one of the things that it's really

important to understand is that

everything that we do in life shapes us

in some way our experiences get planted

in our brain and then our brain learns

from them and changes the way that we

interact with the world so one of the

things that it's really important for

gamers to understand is how does playing

games shape the person that you are what

is playing games teach your brain and

then how does your brain use that

information or that knowledge from

playing games and approach the real

world so one of the things that I think

it's really important for gamers to

understand is that they're very good

closed-ended problem solvers and I think

this is a big problem for a lot of

gamers is that they're good at a certain

kind of problem solving but playing a

lot of games actually puts them in the

direction or makes them better at a

certain kind of problem solving and

actually makes them worse at a different

kind of problem solving which I call

open-ended problem solving so I guess

the first question is what do I mean by

closed-ended problem solving an

open-ended problem solving so let's

think a little bit about what happens

within a game in a game we have a

particular objective and we're given a

set of tools or assets like you have a

character a character has certain kinds

of abilities or if you're playing

something like an RPG you have a team of

characters if you're playing like a

sport a game like NHL or a football game

or something like that you've got a team

of different assets and you have to

figure out how to use that team of

people or that group of assets to

accomplish a certain objective if you

think about a game there's a particular

goal and you're sort of given a

particular set of rules and you have to

use that set of rules to achieve that

goal if you're playing Mario for example

you can't open a lemonade stand it's

just not something that you can do in

the game if you're playing World of

Warcraft you can't build a spaceship

there are certain limits that the game

provides us with and gamers are really

good at coming up with an optimal

solution

if they're given a particular sandbox to

work in so I'll give you guys a prime

example about a year ago I was taking

this class at Harvard Business School

called value-based healthcare this was a

class that was for a bunch of physicians

who were sort of trying to learn the

business side of medicine and in this

class we did these cases so with what

happens in the classes they give you

like this twenty or thirty page case in

this case was about optimizing flow

through our urology office so when a

patient goes to you see a urologist they

get checked in by the receptionist they

have to fill in some paperwork they get

taken to a room they see a nurse for a

little while and then the doctor comes

in the doctor does a procedure and then

the patient like kind of goes to a

different room where do they get

monitored for a little while and then

they get checked out by the receptionist

they pay their bill and they leave so

there's a certain flow through the

office in this case was all about how

can we optimize the flow through the

office to sort of create the most value

and how can we sort of make it so that

we're getting the most bang out of our

buck and so one of the things that I was

kind of surprised about is I was working

with a couple of gamers at the time and

I actually sort of told them about the

case and I said so here's the scenario

we've got this urologist office we have

three urologists we've got five nurses

we've got two receptionists how can you

optimize this the flow through the

office so that the most patients get

seen in the shortest amount of time and

in my gamer friends that I was kind of

talking about this with came up with a

couple of solutions and then I went into

class the next day and when people were

asking about you know how you go about

doing things I offered those solutions

and it turned out that those were some

of the best solutions in the class I was

a little bit surprised by this because

here's a group of people and this this

class was offered for only it was at

Harvard Business School and offered to

Harvard physician trainees so arguably

some of the brightest people in the

country and how is it that a group of

gamers who know nothing about neurology

and nothing about medicine were able to

come up with optimal solutions when they

really don't know anything about the

scenario and it's

cuz games teach gamers how to do this

kind of closed ended problem solving

this problem solving where you have a

particular goal and a particular set of

tools and gamers are really good at

optimizing from A to Z and that's

something that they're good at

in other situations too for example some

of the gamers that I talk to are really

good at things like consulting or

they're the people in their offices that

people that-that their bosses go to when

there's a problem because they're

recognized for their problem-solving

capability the problem though for a lot

of you guys is that a lot of the

problems a lot of those challenges that

gamers suffer from are not closed-ended

problems they're what I call open-ended

problems open-ended problems or problems

that don't really have a particular

sandbox so an example of an open-ended

problem is like gaining financial

independence what does that really mean

like how do you get financial

independence well it may involve certain

pieces like finding a job or moving out

of your parents place or things like

that but gamers really struggle with any

kind of problem that doesn't have a

particular set of tools or a particular

end goal they struggle with things that

are really abstract and that's if you

think about it a lot of the things that

you're able to do in life if someone can

give you a particular goal and give you

a set of tools you're actually probably

you're going to be able to get from

point A to point Z when gamers run into

difficulty it's because they don't

really know where point Z is they have

trouble with sort of this abstract idea

of financial independence because those

kind of abstractions don't exist within

games and when our brain spends a lot of

time playing a game it starts to

optimize working within that kind of

framework within a closed-ended

framework so a lot of the problems that

gamers have tend to be things like

gaining financial independence finding a

girlfriend getting in shape these are

all sort of broad abstract things that

gamers have a lot of trouble actually

executing

the funny thing about this is that you

may think that that's because gamers are

not motivated or they'll say things like

I'm lazy or I'm not motivated but the

more that I've worked with gamers the

more that I realized that open-ended

problem-solving is actually a skill set

that can be learned and that can be

taught and that because gamers spend so

much time playing video games they

actually lose out on the opportunities

to learn this kind of problem solving

I'll give you guys an example so if I

tell a four-year-old to clean their room

that's kind of like an abstract goal you

we can all it's simple for us because we

know what a clean room looks like but a

four-year-old has a lot of trouble

taking that abstract concept of a clean

room which even though they understand

what a clean room looks like they have

trouble actually figuring out how to get

from point A to point Z they can tell

the difference between a clean room in a

dirty room they just don't know how to

move from one to the other so what you

have to do with a four-year-old is you

have to tell them okay let's clean the

room together so let's take all of your

books and put them together and put them

on the bookshelf let's take two all your

stuffed animals and put them in the

stuffed animal box and let's take all

your crayons and your papers and put

them in your desk drawer you have to

actually walk them through the steps of

creating a clean room they can't do that

kind of they can't take the abstract

problem and break it down into pieces

and that breaking down into pieces is

what what I call operationalizing so

it's the the process of taking an

abstract problem and creating an

operation of moving from point A to Z so

for example if we wanted to

operationalize like let's say financial

independence we start to break that

process down so financial independence

involves having a bank account where you

can pay rent and having a place to live

and so what we can do is break that down

into two pieces and then those two can

be further operationalized so finding a

place to live involves looking it for

places to live first and then making

decisions like do I want a roommate do I

not want a room

do I want to live downtown or do I want

to live in the suburbs there are a lot

of different pieces to each of those

things and as we break down financial

independence into lots of different

pieces that's the process of

operationalizing when we're talking

about the four year old when we help

them what we actually do is

operationalize the problem for them and

the reason that gamers have trouble the

reason that you guys have problems is

because if you think about it video

games actually do all of the

operationalizing for you they've figured

out what all of the pieces are and so

gamers are really good at putting the

pieces together but they're they really

struggle with figuring out what the

pieces are so a lot of the problems that

gamers have are you know they think that

it lazy and that's the reason that they

don't get a job but the more that I've

worked with you guys the more that I

realized your brain actually has not

been able to operationalize that problem

for you and since you can't

operationalize it you kind of don't know

where to start so I could ask you like

how do you find a job and you could tell

me a couple of things but even though

you're able to rationally understand

that there's a part of your brain called

your frontal lobes which does your

planning which is the part of your brain

that lets you plan and execute actions

which actually gamers have frontal lobes

that are sort of underdeveloped and the

reason that they have frontal lobes that

are underdeveloped is because the game

does that work for you it does the

process of figuring out level 1 level 2

level 3 level 4 level 5 with level 6 you

don't have to figure out which order to

do the levels it's already sort of

chunked up for you and so this is why

gamers sort of struggle a lot with

abstract problem solving or open-ended

problems because those are the things

that usually people require to move

forward in life in a little bit we'll

dig into another example of how like

another group of people which has

actually doctors who also struggle with

open-ended problem-solving and I'll show

you guys that open-ended problem-solving

is actually has nothing to do with

intelligence has nothing to do with with

laziness but it's actually all a learned

skill so in the same way that we can

the four-year-old how to break down the

abstract problem into pieces we can

actually teach you guys how to break

down an abstract problem of financial

independence or finding a girlfriend

into pieces and if we can transform an

open-ended problem into a closed-ended

problem then your analytical mind will

take over and you guys will have no

problem whatsoever

any questions