Do kids these days have short attention spans, or does the world just move too slowly to accommodate their energy and creativity?

Gabe Zichermann suggests that today’s video games are making children smarter — and we should all embrace gamification.

Click here to check out a TED program during which he explains how games make kids smarter.

Here is a TEDx Talk that caught my eye and is a follow-up to another event TED had in August about video games. In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TED has created a program called TEDx. TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.

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Gabe Zicherman was the chair of the Gamification Summit 9/15-16/12 in NYC (GSummit) at which top thought leaders in this burgeoning industry gather to share knowledge and insight. Gabe Zichermann is an entrepreneur and author whose work centers on gamification–and the power of games to help engage people and build strong organizations and communities. In 2010, he chaired the Gamification summit, a conference dedicated to gamification and “engagement mechanics.” An avid blogger on the subject, he co-authored two books with Christopher Cunningham: Game-Based Marketing and Gamification by Design: Implementing Game Mechanics in Web and Mobile Apps in which he examines the innovative trend of using game mechanics to engage and build a customer base.

A resident of NYC, Gabe is a board member of StartOut.org, advisor to a number of startups and Facilitator for the Founder Institute in Manhattan. For more information about Gabe and gamification, visit the Gamification Blog.