Keelhauling

An Open Letter to My Children About Video Games

There have been reams of research and numerous papers written about the dangers of excessive video gaming. There have also been a few, sporadic observations touting some of the benefits conferred by time spent playing video games. It seems almost blatantly obvious to me that both are correct to some extent, and both have valid points. While it is a useful and productive exercise to weigh the costs and benefits of most activities, I think the existing analyses overlook one primary consideration.

We’ll get to that in a moment.

First, let’s take a quick look at the state of the argument.

On the negative side, we see the enormous negative potential for desensitizing oneself to violence inherent in war games that require the successful player to mow down reams of opponents with never-ending supplies of ammunition^[1]. We see the deleterious effects of escapism, cultivating anti-social attitudes as kids lock themselves away for hours spent in solitude in front of the computer or TV-game-console screen. We see the diminution of a child’s traditional circle of friends, as time spent outdoors or at friends’ homes is reduced, and even neighborly visits to those friends’ houses are rendered meaningless as kids simply play video games together.

Alone, but together.

And the roster continues. We see the ascendancy of the geek, as computer hacking skills developing and deploying cheat codes are more highly prized than athletic ability, intelligence, personality or character. Personal hygiene goes by the wayside along with responsibility, and gamers even forget to eat when fully engaged in their virtual world.^[2] We see the hyper-aggressive behavior required to survive and succeed in the game context bleed into the real world, as gamers coming offline are surly, aggressive, short-tempered and mean^[3].

On the positive side, we have a shorter list of benefits that accrue from playing video games. First, we have all heard that eye-hand coordination, reaction times and fine motor skills are better among this generation than in previous years. A level of comfort with technology and familiarity with computers has replaced a – perhaps fear is too strong a word, perhaps not, but at least a trepidation – about new machines and new software.

And there have even been some studies that suggest that the refined ability to operate in a virtual world where the rules are different – and frequently even the laws of physics are different – has enhanced kids’ ability for abstract thought, breaking the bounds placed on our thinking by the confines of conventional reality. I have no doubt that kids are mentally more adaptable, more flexible and more capable of sophisticated abstract conceptualization than in previous generations as a result of exposure to video games.

By most evaluations the jury is still out, the verdict is mixed. Still, when I stack up the costs and the benefits, not only is the list of negatives longer, but the degree of negativity in those factors far outweighs the positive benefits that could be derived from excessive video gaming. The negatives are more negative than the positives are positive, and there are more of them.

These typical parental rants and occasional academic raves ignore, however, what I believe is the most important point of all. I would place its economic value conservatively at $500,000^[4], so it’s worth paying some attention to. Its actual value is considerably higher, since an understanding of it confers upon one a capability to extract from life itself a richness and flavor that are, in comparison with the bland and tasteless alternative, priceless.

I’m talking about TIME.

It flies like an arrow, it is money, and it heals all wounds. It’s on my side (yes it is), a stitch in it saves nine, and it is God's way of keeping everything from happening at once. It’s free, but it’s priceless. You cannot own it, but you can use it. You cannot keep it, but you can spend it. Once you have lost it you will never get it back.

As you get older, I promise you this: You will come to realize that time is the scarcest commodity and the most precious resource you have at your disposal. You will wish you had every wasted moment back, to spend that precious resource more frugally and allocate that resource more productively. You will not get a single moment of it back.

Video games have several characteristics that make them thieves of time.

First, they are insidiously addictive. Addictive is obvious.^[5] Everybody knows what that means. Once you do it, it is easy – and tempting – to do it again. Once you are doing it, it is not easy to stop. Once you’ve started to do it regularly, your usage increases.

But note that I said insidiously addicting. A computer is, after all, primarily a productivity tool. There is a sense that any time spent behind a computer terminal is time that is being used, not wasted. But over the last ten years the nature of the beast has changed. I don’t have facts and figures to back it up, but surely today the number of computers used as entertainment consoles – for games, music, movies and that gaping black hole of information, news, commentary, pictures and video known as the Internet – rivals the number of machines deployed strictly for business or educational purposes. You can, most assuredly, waste time at the PC or in front of a TV gaming console.

Video games are also insidious in that they chip away at your time and your life, rather than undertaking a full frontal assault. Like a solid baseball player who hits for contact they aren’t swinging for the fences, but just looking for that 1-2 hours per day of your time. By the end of the game, they have amassed enough hits that they lead the league in batting average, and the video game owns your life.

Second, the newer games are entire virtual worlds that you can explore. This conveys an illusion of freshness, of newness, that keeps the game interesting in repeated sessions. This is a trick. Generally, the actions and movements of your character in the game change very little. All that has changed is the background. Sure, your enemies look different and there’s a new weapon on Level 11, but most of the game is exactly the same. This is the ½ hour docudrama that is stretched out to become a two-hour movie. No matter how good those 30 minutes of action and dialogue may be, it’s still a looooong movie. I haven’t seen a game released in the last five years that isn’t entertaining and worth playing purely for the entertainment value. But I haven’t seen a game released in my whole lifetime that I would be willing to sacrifice even 0.01% of my allotted time on this planet for. And I never will.

Third, they are, usually entirely and even in the best of cases 90%+, content free. Note here the contrast to that seasoned former champion of escapism, the book. Back in his heyday, the book was king. In days of yore (say pre-1990), it was the idyllic dream of most working businesspeople and homemakers that they would have
more time to read.

Books take you places and teach you things at such a pace that you could never replicate that experience in the physical world, and if like me you are a science fiction fan, those physical worlds don’t even exist. Most of what I learned about science and math was at least based on the groundwork laid by Larry Niven, Poul Anderson, and other sci-fi luminaries in their magnificent books. We didn’t spend a lot of time in physics classes discussing the mechanics of supernovae, neutron stars, quasars and black holes, or the speed at which a matter-antimatter reaction would displace a physical mass. Those science fiction writers sure did, though.

I learned the basics of political systems in Isaac Asimov’s Foundation series. The classics taught me to love the language, both written and spoken through masters of the craft like Bill Shakespeare. Biographies take you into the lives of interesting and important people, where you learn from their mistakes and contemplate emulating their successes. Mysteries and adventure stories teach reasoning and deduction, and familiarize you with exotic locales and cultures. The point, hopefully rather obvious by now, is that you learn from books while you are being entertained. The same is not true of video games, unless you count knowing that the special killing move is L-L-R-U-U-D-R-D, or knowing the proper sequence of sounds necessary to access the mazerunner in the Selenitic age as “learning”.

Video games are self-contained universes. The knowledge that you gain there is useful only in the context of the game. So while there might be some redeeming value from an enhancement to your self-worth by raising your hero’s level to 10 in Warcraft III (I hope not), that’s not going to get you an “A” in science, a higher SAT score, or even improve your social standing (except among a very limited group whose opinion of your social standing should probably be the least of your concerns).

And today, these games are complex.^[6] It takes in excess of 100 hours of play to finish all the levels of a typical new game, and many, many more hours to “master” it. And that is a waste of time.

Fourth, the newer games are MMPORGs (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) that offer a facsimile of interaction that encourages a gamer to consider his activity as social and engaging, rather than solitary and antisocial. This is another trick.

Interaction through a computer terminal or TV game console is not human interaction. It is machine interaction. It is filtered, so that your interaction is character-to-character, or persona-to-persona, or avatar-to-avatar^[7]. If the player with whom you are interacting is a stranger to you, you have no idea what they look like, or who they really are.^[8] It is the equivalent of wrapping yourself up in a giant black trash bag and going out to “meet people”.

This is particularly sad, since as I have gotten older I’ve figured out that what really shapes you and sticks with you and determines the quality of your life are (1) what you believe and stand for, (2) the people that you know and love, and (3) the experiences that you have. The popularity of MMPORG dating games and massive online social structures perpetuate this myth that video games provide
social interaction, as indeed that has in some cases become the stated purpose of the game.^[9]

But, hard as it is when you’re in that “under 25” age category, ask yourself what memories you are making. What, in the years to come, will you remember from your gaming experiences? (Can you even imagine an old man, lying on his deathbed and muttering his final words, “I wish I had played more video games”?) Your time is limited, whether you can perceive that yet or not. Don’t spend it. Invest it.

Actually, to call video games thieves is an insult to thieves. Thievery assumes a purpose; a robber takes your possessions to consume them or sell them. Video games are more like joy riders of time. They just take it, and burn it.

This time-based argument came to me at a conference about 10 years ago. A speaker went up to the podium and he was preparing to give his presentation, which was on his laptop. It had to boot up. He muttered something about a “Microsoft moment” and we waited about a minute and half before his PC was ready to roll. I thought about how many people experience that “Microsoft moment” each and every day, often several times a day, and did a back-of-the-envelope calculation of the loss of productivity in the USA alone. I don’t remember the number I came up with, but I remember it was staggering. Like those stories of the thieves who used a computer program to round down all the fractional pennies on every currency transaction at a major bank, and accumulated millions in mere days. This was billions of dollars.

I realized then that Microsoft had stolen more from me than a few boot-up minutes each day. And the tools of their larcenous trade were Freecell, Spider Solitaire, Hearts and Minesweeper. I began paying attention to how much I played those games at home and at work (usually while on the phone). After a week I was appalled and I deleted the programs from my laptop at work. I left them off my laptop for over a year, and my productivity went way, way up. I’ve since gotten another laptop and it came with the games installed, but now I am extremely sensitized to the time wasting potential and I would guess that I average less than 10 minutes per day, and most days I don’t play them at all.

So this is not a condemnation of video gaming, but an indictment of excessive video gaming. How much is "excessive" will vary from person to person, but hopefully the TIME criterion will help weight the decision toward less time spent gaming. Everybody needs to waste some time, from time to time. (Personally, I think occasional afternoon naps are a gift from God.) But watch the accumulated total time with the video games, it's a creeping infestation on your life. Don't rely on us - your Mom and me - to watch the clock and call time when you're gaming. If you lose track of time when you're gaming, I'll buy you a timer to sit right next to the PC. You need to understand the magnitude and severity of the potential problem, and head it off at the pass.

My hope for each of you is that this letter will generate a similar kind of epiphany to my own, which will cause you to examine your own video game and computer game usage habits and scale it back. If, through our talks and this letter which I am posting so you can come back and review it from time to time, I am responsible for shaving an average of 10 minutes a day off that total time, then between four children that’s a total of about 14,600 hours I just bought back for you guys, or over 600 24-hour days. Six hundred days of living and learning, love and compansionship. That’s a good day’s work, in my book!

I can say it no better than Philip Dormer Stanhope, the 4th Earl of Chesterfield, who wrote it succinctly in his Letters to His Son^[10], “I recommend you to take care of the minutes, for hours will take care of themselves.” Those minutes count. They are the building blocks of the hours, and the hours comprise the days. And days, of course, are what our lives are made of.

You may have to work a little bit to overcome the video game habit, but it’s worth every ounce of effort. So be prepared for it. Look for constructive and interesting things to do with those blocks of time, skills you can master, topics you can learn about, people you can meet, places you can go. If you can’t figure one out, come see me. I’ve got a list a mile long. Read a book. Learn calligraphy. Practice piano or guitar. Take a walk. Knit yourself a sweater. Join a club. Paint a picture. Find some pithy topic that concerns you and write an open letter to your children, if and when you have some. Any of these are far, far superior in their life-enriching qualities, in the development of your own character and personality, than playing another video game.

Love,

Dad

Posted by John at October 6, 2006 10:54 PM | TrackBack