Though I rarely game anymore, I have to say that video games have been a positive influence on my life. My creativity was certainly enhanced by the settings and storylines of games like Wolfenstein 3D, Doom, Mortal Kombat, and Outrun 2019. When you combine space settlement, teleportation, demons, powerful weaponry, and exploding barrels, the possibilities seem limitless to a young nerd. I also recall learning various facts of mathematics, history, geography, and other subjects through video games.

Those who blame technology for obesity should instead consider the values kids are raised with. What actually makes sitting at a screen more desirable than health? For kids and young teens, physical activity and adventure are often supposed to take place only in a supervised, authoritarian, and therefore less interesting setting. Video games provide escape and adventure – room to grow outside the confines of society.

Let’s not forget that evolutionwise, it is a relatively recent development for a large population to have more food than what is beneficial. It certainly doesn’t help that the American’s diet is often unbalanced and out of sync with physical activity.

Do video games encourage violence? Possibly, but violent entertainment has been around at least since Beowulf. Currently popular religious texts contain violent passages, and even instruct followers to kill for a variety of reasons, many of which are completely irrational. Does the recent decline in violent crime in America come at a time when video games are dull or out of favor? Not by my observation.

Even if video games did encourage violence, this would not be a bad thing unless they specifically increased real-life aggression. People who are not prepared to do violence can more easily become prey for those who are.

The accusation is sometimes made that video games promote militarism. Some games do, just like some books and movies do. Government sticks its paws into everything and a society full of militarist desires will produce militarist products. The Army even has a commercial clothing line! The medium is not to blame for the message it can convey.

Video games, an interactive expression of creativity, are a source of good and should be treated as such. Like anything, too much gaming can be harmful, but harm is best determined by those directly involved.

This entry was posted on Monday, October 6th, 2008 at 10:30 pm and is filed under entertainment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.