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JOHNSON: We're getting smarter in certain ways--pattern recognition, problem solving, abstract problem solving, system thinking, system analyzing with complex sort of multiple variables, visual intelligence, obviously technological intelligence, ability to adapt to new interfaces and find the information you need. On all of those levels, kids are much brighter today than they were 20 or 30 years ago. And part of my argument is, if you're thinking about the office place of the future, what are the skills that are going to be the most important for those kids? Is it going to be mastering new interfaces and keeping complex virtual relationships alive and multitasking and managing to think about new technologies in interesting ways? Or is it going to be algebra skills? I think you'd have to make the case that it's probably the former, not the latter.

CUBAN: In the past, you had to memorize or retain knowledge because there was a cost to finding it. Did you have the encyclopedia? Could you spend time going to the library? Did you know somebody you could ask who knew the answer to this question? Were you going to be in a group that had a discussion about it? Now, what can't you find in 30 seconds or less? We live an open-book-test life that requires a completely different skill set.

TIME: Caitlin, you're a former teacher. What is all this going to mean?

FLANAGAN: You ask who's going to be left behind? Girls are going to be left behind. When we talk about people who play video games a lot, we're talking about boys. And 15 years from now, there's going to be lots of jobs in the new economy where we're going to be saying, Why are all these men getting these jobs? And, you're right, those are going to be the men who, as boys, played lots and lots of video games.

•IMMIGRATION

TIME: Let's move on to the subject of politics. Political professionals tell us that the next big issue to take the stage will be immigration. Do you think that's true, and if so, what kind of debate are we going to have?

MARTINEZ: I think the debate now is a bit disjointed. In Washington it's always about one piece of proposed legislation vs. another, and yet here, at the ground level in a city like Los Angeles, it's definitely the subject our readers feel most strongly about. If we editorialize on immigration, then the flow of letters is like 10 times that for any other subject. I think it taps into a lot of folks' anxieties about the changing world and globalization--a lot of things that really aren't about immigration. But I think it's a debate that's long overdue--we need to resolve this. There's no other issue I can think of that says more about our values as a society. We're relying on 8 million individuals in this country whom we have decided to keep, unlike past waves of immigration in this country, in an illegal status. And yet our economy needs these people, and we benefit from their labor. And then a lot of us want to pretend it's their fault and criminalize them. It's crazy.

TIME: So is the debate going to be ugly, inevitably?