However, the lecture also brought up the topic of video games and why they can be beneficial, even necessary. I never thought that being morally and individually opposed to video games would be considered a weakness.
I think if I explained my background a little bit, then my perception on video games would make sense. Both of my parents grew up before video games were invented, and when they first came out they were both too busy trying to take care of themselves--they were both single for a long time--to be bothered by them. And my dad, especially, grew up in the mountains of north-central Arizona, where even access to television was very limited, so he has always tried to restrict my siblings' media use growing up, but to little avail. That being said, I understand my dad's initial aversion to video games.
I played a handful of computer games and almost no video games growing up. When my younger siblings started taking music lessons, Dad had to give them incentive to practice their instruments, so he offered to let them play Y amount of minutes of any given computer game for X amount of practice time. For the first few years it worked rather well. But with every game interest would wane as they played through, then they would stop practicing, and then Mom and Dad would have to buy a new computer game to give them more incentive. I would watch them playing for a few minutes but always told myself I had "more important" things to do. I would also notice when Dad and my youngest brother got into a fight every time my brother lied about going over his computer time, and that only made me more averse to gaming.
And the media wasn't very helpful at all, because I always heard stories about how people who played violent video games turned into criminals and how leading virtual second lives took away from enjoying reality and taking care of oneself. I have spent my entire life looking down on people who play video games--including, I am ashamed to say, my closest friends.
Friday's lecture with Johnny Evers completely shook that image. I had no idea that video games could teach you social skills and management skills and offer you a safe way to practice life. Now I wish I'd known about games like "Civilization" that help you not only to build virtual worlds but teach you to manage them with money and decision-making. Heck, if I want to be a fantasy writer, isn't that the sort of thing I'm supposed to be practicing? Wouldn't that have been more useful than minoring in Anthropology?
And far from creating socially backward people, video games, Evers argued, improve social skills. To think that if I had played social video games growing up that would have been a much better approach to navigating high school than curling up in the corner and reading when people started picking on me! And a year and a half ago I was struggling with depression--if only I had known about that game "Super Better" when I was trying to get through that! If there was any validity to Evers' claims, then I am really missing out.
I realize that a lot of these things are true only to a certain extent. I am not blinding myself to the bad things about video games, they're still out there, but for the first time in my life I was opened up to the good.
So in that spirit, I decided to swallow my pride and try out the Moby Dick video game. It was fun, but challenging. Does that game provide instruction in important life skills? How about multi-tasking?
I wanted to go the that lecture, but was unable to make it so I am glad that you went and decided to blog about it. I grew up in a similar environment as you so I too have a very biased view on video games so it would have been interesting for me to hear the other sides of the argument of how video games can contribute positively to peoples lives, though I do still think that keeping video games as a positive factor in ones life instead of it turning into a negative one can be a hard line to straddle..
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