Video Games and Concerned Parents
Being someone who can’t sit still unless he’s fiddling with something, I decided to get myself one of those PicooZ helicopters being flown over people’s heads in the shopping mall near our house. Although I was a complete noob, I thought I knew enough without reading the manual. The store attendant can do it, why can’t I? Once I got it home, I unpacked the tiny helicopter, charged it for a few minutes and proceeded to mash the throttle.
3 things happened: the dog freaked out, my girlfriend freaked out, and I freaked out. It’s hard to think such a small palm-sized machine made out of foam and plastic can be so terrifying. To the dog, it must have been like the weirdest creature to spawn from hell, to my girlfriend it was the whirling blades of death, and to me it was my hard-earned money about to disintegrate on the wall.
You see, being a complete newbie, I had no idea how to fly it. The little thing came zipping around hitting the ceiling and everything else it thought it wanted to bounce to. I did not know what I was doing. I did not know what was happening. I did not know anything! It all happened in a flash. It took a while for my brain to register that I had to release the throttle. I released it and down it came with a soft thud.
Almost every living thing with a brain fears the unknown. That’s why kids are afraid of the dark. In the dark you can not see, if you can not see, you most likely won’t know for sure what’s around you. Their vivid imagination starts creating its own monsters in place of the void. The unknown brings uncertainty. Remember how nervous you got when you first tried to have a conversation with a person you really liked? The uncertainty of whether or not he/she would talk to you and maybe even what you want to talk about is what is making you nervous. Old sailors were afraid to sail too far because they feared what may be the edge of the world.
Where am I going with this? Well I recently read an article entitled “Xbox is Crack For Kids” at the Times Online and the first thing that popped into my head was this. The author seems very much afraid of what her children are playing or watching. According to her:
Once, such kids would be the playground outcasts, but no longer. Mine are. Because, unlike the TV-hating parents, I refuse to buy them portable gaming consoles, Xboxes, GameCubes, PS2s. These are Satan’s Sudoku, crack cocaine of the brain. Even the crappiest cartoon or lamest soap teaches a child about character, plot, drama, humour, life. Playing videogames, children are mentally imprisoned, wired into their evil creators’ brains. And they play them - beepety-beep - on journeys, over family meals, any minute in which they find themselves unamused.
Really, does she know what she is talking about? Does she know what her children can and can not play? Can she operate these systems? Does she know why kids are attracted to video games? Does she know that there are educational games out there that can prove to be really helpful in her child’s learning? From all the generalizations in that article, I think not.
I’m not saying video game addiction does not exist. It does. However, if parents simply watch what their children are playing, choose their games wisely, and implement a good system to ensure they don’t spend to much time on the consoles or PC’s then there shouldn’t be any harm. Play what they play. Play alongside them and bond with them. Learn, and benefit from it. Who knows, you might enjoy it.
After a few more days of practice, my little PicooZ is buzzing around gently in my living room, our dog happily chasing it. My girlfriend is still hesitant but I could get her to hold her hand out and land the little chopper on her hand. WE are having fun. Things change when you already know.