The young man sat at a desk in my classroom with his head lowered, avoiding the eyes of five teachers and his own mother.\u00a0 As his English teacher, I was a part of this intervention-style parent\/teacher conference in an attempt to halt the downward trend of his GPA.\u00a0 Mom already knew what the problem was: his homework was not being turned in because he was obsessed with playing video games after school.\u00a0 \u201cAnd there\u2019s nothing I can say,\u201d she explained, \u201cbecause he bought the game console with his own money.\u201d\u00a0 (Several teachers quickly pointed out that he owned the game, yes, but she owned the TV and the electricity.)<\/p>\n\n\n
I understand there are numerous arguments in favor of video games: the development of hand-eye coordination and problem solving skills, for instance, and the premise that kids in front of an Xbox are at least \u201cstaying out of trouble\u201d.\u00a0 And advances in motion sensing technology mean kids can even now claim games like \u201cLet\u2019s Dance\u201d as legitimate forms of exercise.<\/p>\n\n\n
Still, I am not a fan of video games.\u00a0 And it really has nothing to do with the most common objection: the violent, gory and raunchy content of so many of the games which are rated (ironically) as \u201cmature\u201d.\u00a0 I do find those games reprehensible, but my concern isn\u2019t so much over what the games put into young people\u2019s minds, it is what the games steal from young people\u2019s lives.\u00a0 The Lego Harry Potter my own kids got for Christmas doesn\u2019t contain any foul language and the \u201cviolence\u201d is strictly cartoonish, but even relatively small doses of the game can be insidious, stealing away my kids\u2019 interest in school work, their creativity, and opportunities for meaningful social interaction.<\/p>\n\n\n
It\u2019s a growing problem nationwide; the popularity and proliferation of gaming shows no signs of stopping.\u00a0 Video game sales are one of the few bright spots in the largely gloomy U.S. economy.\u00a0 According to the Entertainment Software Association, 257.2 million games were sold in 2010.\u00a0 (That means they flew off the shelf at the rate of 8 per second.)\u00a0 That\u2019s a three and a half fold increase since the 1996 total of 74.1 million.\u00a0 And the industry is predicting annual sales growth rates of at least 5% into the foreseeable future.<\/p>\n\n\n
Those numbers might make investors and retailers happy, but what does it say about this generation\u2019s growing appetite for escapist entertainment?\u00a0 I wonder if anyone has attempted to calculate the number of man hours American teens and tweens spend waving a game controller at TVs each year.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure the number would be staggering.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
An experience this past summer really drove home the point to me.\u00a0 I hadn\u2019t truly noted video games\u2019 subtle drain on our family life until my wife and I removed them from our children\u2019s lives for two weeks.\u00a0 Two blessed weeks.<\/p>\n\n\n
That is how long we were in Haiti.\u00a0 For the sake of our four kids, the trip was intended as a preview of the fulltime missionary service we hope to begin there as a family in August of 2012.\u00a0 Our three oldest children (ages 10, 9 and 7) were allowed to bring their hand held Nintendos for the van ride to Miami, but the games were all left behind when we boarded the airplane.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
The results were nearly miraculous.\u00a0 The kids spent hours upon hours outdoors, even as mosquitoes swarmed and temps hit the 90s.\u00a0 They joined neighborhood kids in soccer games, although it meant struggling with the language barrier.\u00a0 They discovered board games and an enjoyment of each other\u2019s company.\u00a0 They kept journals and actually protested if my wife and I did not budget enough minutes for writing before bedtime.\u00a0 Furthermore, arguments and whining were noticeably reduced.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
One afternoon I stumbled upon a friendly sibling chat session to find my 10 year old son affectionately rubbing the back of his 9 year old sister as they talked.\u00a0 He was not punching her in the back \u2013 he was rubbing it.\u00a0 I thought I was in an alternate universe.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n
I know our circumstances were unusual and certainly other factors were at play, beyond the lack of video games, but there is no doubt in my mind that my kids\u2019 experiences those two weeks would have been greatly impoverished if the easy Nintendo escapism had been available to them.<\/p>\n\n\n
And I can\u2019t help but wonder how much life they have missed since we returned to \u201cnormal\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The young man sat at a desk in my classroom with his head lowered, avoiding the eyes of five teachers and his own mother.\u00a0 As his English teacher, I was a part of this intervention-style parent\/teacher conference in an attempt to halt the downward trend of his GPA.\u00a0 Mom already knew what the problem was: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5608","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5608"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5609,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5608\/revisions\/5609"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5608"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5608"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevegrossblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5608"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}