Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Should grown men be playing video games?
I have a “thing” about adult men playing video games. I’m not sure if it’s an unwarranted bias or a totally rational assessment but it’s definitely a “thing” that causes more than a bit of tension between my husband and myself.
I can tell myself that playing video games is just a modern way of recreating and that men have always found ways to burn off steam – at the pub or the golf course or cheering on their home team. Is this really any worse?
Video game fans remind me that playing isn’t even all that isolating anymore as many games are played best with a group of friends and you can even make new ones playing online fantasy games like World of Warcraft. I can even try and convince myself that there’s something to be gained in terms of hand eye coordin… (oh, I don’t even buy that one). But I get theoretically all the arguments in favor of grown men perched at the end of the couch, clutching their modern joysticks, totally engrossed in the escapist thrill of killing demons and crashing cars. I just cringe at the image.
I just can’t get passed my “thing” against it. Maybe it’s just my generation. When I grew up grown men (the ones who formed my archetype of what it is to be a man) simply did not play video games. They played sports or cards or who knows what, but they certainly did not stare at video screens. Their sons did. And the dads, along with their wives, worried that these games would atrophy their children’s bodies and minds and so tried to limit their use. (Atari and Nintendo were forbidden in our house entirely.)
But then their children grew up, and with no nagging parents to call them for dinner or remind them of homework, they were free to totally indulge their gaming habits made even better with shockingly lifelike graphics and sophisticated scenarios. I guess the video games have grown up along with the boys.
So, let’s take a closer look at what these new generation video games are offering. I did a quick search for the most popular games and they go by names like Street Fighter IV, Assassin’s Creed and Resident Evil V (I’m horrified that there were 4 Resident Evils preceding this). It doesn’t take a sociologist to figure out that these games are scratching some kind of an itch for male aggression.
But they are tapping into something even more than a lust for violence. Demon’s Souls “pits you against the forces of The Old One as you fight to save humanity from extinction” (sounds like I made that up, but no). In Braid you “Travel seven platforming worlds to save a princess” and in Dragon’s Age you travel through the “fictional land of Ferelden, meet memorable characters and fight for a cause you believe in.”
There are grand themes here of salvation and revenge all putting the player in the role of hero. Pretty seductive stuff if you’re looking to escape your humdrum life for a while. So, again, I think I can muster an understanding of the appeal.
Yet... still..... I think there is a strong case to be made against this practice that goes beyond my knee jerk aversion to how "unmanly" it is. And I know enthusiasts will balk at my saying so, but I'm a lone (and, by the way, buxom) sword yielding, seventh-level, forest gnome crusading to have my voice heard. (to borrow some imagery that might help my case.)
First of all, doesn't the modern male already generally spend the better part of his week interfacing with a computer? Shouldn't recreation at a minimum pull him away from this position at least for the sake of his eye site and rear end?
Also, is it really the best to indulge the male id in such shamelessly obvious ways? OK. It's "fun" and there's supposedly no harm done. But to me it's focused on engaging that part of the brain that was most alive in the teenage years and I'm not so sure that's a good thing.
Playing video games is also one of those activities that I would call a "time suck," in which hours might pass as minutes as your morning bowl of cereal watches the sun set. Unlike a game of golf, there's really no clear end point and there's a definite risk of these games stealing more hours of your life that even a gamer might have bargained for. And isn't there a premium on our increasingly shrinking free time already? Why do something that doesn't seem to respect that time is precious?
I'm aware this is all coming off as judgemental and nagging. My husband would vehemently argue that it is a safe and harmless outlet for decompressing after a hard day, and, in moderation, does not have to infringe on responsibilities or "healthier" forms of recreation.
Still. I have this "thing." There's just something a bit off-putting about watching the father of my child staring transfixed at screens full of fantastical characters in imaginary lands or (worse still) playing the hero in some post-apocalyptic battle scene. He claims this is unfair, but I can't help it. I'm just programmed this way.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Cracking back quack or my salvation?
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Hate to love my TV
But my less better self loves our television. All week long Colin and I look forward to spending our Thursday nights with Liz Lemon and Michael Scott. Sunday football makes our forced hibernation from the winter cold a bit more bearable and PBS documentaries have lead to some of our best conversations. But that’s TV at its inarguable best. I don’t feel too guilty about that stuff.
So far it’s going well. I can’t say I’ve written any poetry or even upped my chamomile intake, but my house is probably cleaner and so is my mind.
Saturday, December 5, 2009
Wednesday, December 2, 2009
Baby steps
Over the Thanksgiving holiday, among the flurry of family reunion face stuffing, Colin and I watched our baby learn to crawl. Again, the most mundane and predictable of developments seems at the same time miraculous and profoundly life changing.
We used to be able to put little Caleb on the kitchen floor, turn around and start cooking dinner, knowing we could look back and see him just where we left him giggling and waving his spoon at us. In this way Caleb also watched football with dad, sat with a look of rapt attention as we debated politics, and seemed to genuinely enjoy being a lone audience for mom’s impromptu living room dance performances. This made us feel like we could do all kinds of activities together as a family – even if Caleb was trapped in the activity by his immobility. He seemed happy at least.
But all this has changed with his newfound portability. He’s no longer an unwitting bystander to our lives. He’s exploring the world for himself and it’s fascinating to watch him express his interests. Apparently this whole time he’s wanted to flip the pages of stray notebooks, pull books off the shelves and fondle the door stop instead of watching mom pirouette. Who knew?
Instead of being drawn to the brightly colored toys designed with presumable years of child development research, Caleb (like a lot of babies I’m sure) is magnetized to all the non-toys in the periphery of our house. And the more dangerous the more alluring. I swear he’d go directly to the jagged staple in a pile of stuffed animals. So, we have to step up our vigilance. From nothing to something.
But extra vigilance notwithstanding, it’s a joy to watch him find corners of the house previously unknown to him. The other day something enticed him to crawl under the kitchen table. Under the kitchen table may as well be Narnia or the moon as far as Caleb is concerned. It’s been there in front of him this whole time, but he’s never been able to get there before. And now he can go whenever he wants. I can’t even comprehend the magnitude of this change for him. For us, it would be like suddenly learning to fly.
And babyhood is like this all the time: going from total incomprehension of human sounds to understanding, from inability let your desires be known to communicating through speech and sign, from immobility to freedom of movement. It really blows your mind when you think about. Maybe that’s why we can’t remember our lives as babies. Our minds have been blown.