New media have always met with suspicion: As The Economist editorialized a while back, a “neophobic” tendency dates from antiquity, with Plato’s argument in the “Phaedrus” that the relatively newfangled medium of writing corrupted the memory-building powers of oral culture. Of course sometimes the new is bad. Yet the critics of video games are not only conjuring up a threat where none exists; they’re ignoring the positive moral lessons and cognitive benefits that many of today’s sophisticated games offer. —Brian C. Anderson —The Brain Workout: In Praise of Video Games (Opinion Journal)