Get the feedIn Praise of Gaming
Wednesday, Oct 14th 2009
Recently, I was talking to some friends, when one dad said, "Well, we have not let my son get into video games. Thankfully."
It is a common parental refrain, against the evils of video gaming, as if it is established that these games are (at best) time-wasters and (at worst) childhood-robbing machines that bring out the worst in kids.
Which made me wonder. Why?
The medium, properly managed, is superior to television in most respects and good part of a balanced diet of fun. Everything can be abused (sports, games, tv, movies), but it strikes me that video games are seen by some as particularly pernicious. In my experience, the parents who have the most trouble with kids and games are the parents who have the most trouble saying "no." Parents who set boundaries tend to have less problems, with games (and many other things).
My kids like video games, but they don't LOVE them, and video gaming (specifically, the Lego series of games on Wii) has spurred my son's interest in Lego-model building, which is a huge amount of fun and now one of his primary hobbies. I also find that the interactive nature of modern gaming (which is far more advanced than the pac-man you remember) actually spurs creativity, rather than inhibits it. I think we often get into the mindset of "sports good, video games bad" which is entirely artificial. It's not either/or. And we've all seen incredible abuse of sports (from the virtually maniacal zeal of the stereotypical "sports dad" to the absolute culture-destroying milquetoast of "it doesn't matter if you win, or even if you played well, you got out there and held that bat by golly" that makes me want to commit acts of violence), yet a "no sports for you!" edict would seem strange to all of us unless there was a demonstrated record of bad behavior.
Now, if my son or daughter obsessed over the Wii, then we'd take action. But our current pattern is to establish a certain amount of
screen time," which could include TV, Wii, or their online games like Webkinz. Once the "screen time" is over, the screen goes off, and we move on to other things.
Anyway, I know of lots of people whom I respect who say "no TV for my kids" or "no video games" or "no movies" or "Mozart only!" but I've always been curious about these stands.
I do think some people have a bit of a geek stigma about gaming, but I know from my own (very long) history of gaming, from Stratego to Risk to Dungeons and Dragons to Civilization to Doom to Command and Conquer to Warcraft to World of Warcraft, that the very geekishness of it acted as a bit of a firewall against caring too much what other people thought of me. I was going to roll my 20 sided die in the lunchroom in high school regardless of what the cheerleaders thought, and I think there's something healthy about that.
I have more thoughts on this, but I wondered what you guys thought?
David French
David French is a Harvard educated lawyer, writer, and soldier. His next book, about his year spent in Iraq, comes out on July 4, 2011. Connect with him on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DavidAustinFrench and follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/davidafrench.
Comments
by Amy Six-Means #
As one parent who used to fall into the self-praising attitude of "we don't have any of these gaming systems for our son", and now is the proud owner of her own DS Lite – and hoping to own the DSi soon – I have to admit that it was getting involved in the play myself that was the cause of my attitude change. I initially started playing to see what my son so enjoyed, and then found myself hooked too. There is a lot of research on various benefits of video playing, from improved performance on mental rotation skills, visual and spatial memory, and tasks requiring divided attention to improvements in health which Mayo researchers investigated there have been increasingly more studies documenting some benefit of some video game. Anyone who thinks there are no cardiovascular benefits of video games has never jogged on the Wii Fit program or gone 3 rounds with the Wii Sports boxing challenger. One benefit that I have seen no research on, and would find interesting, is the social aspect of video gamimg. Still talking about the Wii here for instance, there are many interactive games that while can be played by one player, take on a level of fun and interaction when playing with another. Trust me, playing Frisbee Golf together is a great way to spend a few minutes of time together.
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by Leon Goodman #
I am glad to see you back from the War, safe and sound. I am also glad to see you getting some exposure on Fox news and hope that works out well. I am now going to bookmark Evangelicals for Mitt and catch up on Nancy's doings.
I would like to hear what you think of sending Muhammad and the others to NY to stand trial.
Are you allowed to have an opinion on that? Whatever it is, I would listen respectfully. Thanks, I think you and Nancy are very talented communicators.