Computer Games
The writing is on the wall – computer games rot the brain
It’s the snarl that gives the game away. It’s the sobbing and the shrieking and the horrible pleading — that’s how you know your children are undergoing a sudden narcotic withdrawal. As the strobing colours die away and the screen goes black, you listen to the wail of protest from the offspring and you know that you have just turned off their drug, and you know that, to a greater or lesser extent, they are addicts.
Some children have it bad. Some are miraculously unaffected. But millions of seven- to 15-year-olds are hooked, especially boys, and it is time someone had the guts to stand up, cross the room and just say no to Nintendo. It is time to garrotte the Game Boy and paralyse the PlayStation, and it is about time, as a society, that we admitted the catastrophic effect these blasted gizmos are having on the literacy and the prospects of young males.
It was among the first acts of the Labour Government to institute a universal “literacy” hour in primary schools; and yet, in the six years following 1997, the numbers of young children who said that they didn’t like reading rose from 23 per cent to 35 per cent. In spite of all our cash and effort, the surveys increasingly show that children (especially boys) regard reading as a chore, something that needs to be accomplished for the sake of passing tests, not as a joy in itself. It is a disaster, and I refuse to believe that these hypnotic little machines are innocent.
We demand that teachers provide our children with reading skills; we expect the schools to fill them with a love of books; and yet at home we let them slump in front of the consoles. We get on with our hedonistic 21st-century lives while in some other room the nippers are bleeping and zapping in speechless rapture, their passive faces washed in explosions and gore. They sit for so long that their souls seem to have been sucked down the cathode ray tube.
They become like blinking lizards, motionless, absorbed, only the twitching of their hands showing they are still conscious. These machines teach them nothing. They stimulate no ratiocination, discovery or feat of memory — though some of them may cunningly pretend to be educational. I have just watched an 11-year-old play a game that looked fairly historical, on the packet. Your average guilt-ridden parent might assume that it taught the child something about the Vikings and medieval siege warfare.
Phooey! The red soldiers robotically slaughtered the white soldiers, and then they did it again, that was it. Everything was programmed, spoon-fed, immediate — and endlessly showering the player with undeserved praise, richly congratulating him for his bogus massacres. The more addictive these games are to the male mind, the more difficult it is to persuade boys to read books; and that is why it is no comfort that Britain has more computer games per household than any other EU country, and, even though they are wince-makingly expensive, an amazing 89 per cent of British households with children now boast a games console, with distribution right across the socio-economic groups.
Every child must have one, and what we fail to grasp is that these possessions are not so much an index of wealth as a cause of ignorance and underachievement and, yes, poverty. It hardly matters how much cash we pour into reading in schools if there is no culture of reading at home; and the consequences of this failure to read can be seen throughout the education system.
Huge numbers are still leaving primary school in a state of functional illiteracy, with 44 per cent unable either to read, write or do basic sums. By the age of 14, there are still 40 per cent whose literacy or numeracy is not up to the expected standard, and a large proportion of the effort at Further Education colleges (about 20 per cent) is devoted to remedial reading and writing. Even at university, there are now terrifying numbers of students who cannot express themselves in the kind of clear, logical English required for an essay, and in many important respects if you can’t write, you can’t think. The Royal Literary Fund has, in the past few years, done a wonderful job of establishing Writing Fellows at our universities, offering therapy for those who can’t put their thoughts on paper; and yet the fund admits that the scale of the problem is quite beyond its abilities.
It is a shock, arriving at university, and being asked to compose an essay of a couple of thousand words, and then discovering that you can’t do it; and this demoralisation is a major cause of dropping-out. It’s not that the students lack the brains; the raw circuitry is better than ever. It’s the software that’s the problem. They have not been properly programmed, because they have not read enough. The only way to learn to write is to be forced time and again to articulate your own thoughts in your own words, and you haven’t a hope of doing this if you haven’t read enough to absorb the basic elements of vocabulary, grammar, rhythm, style and structure; and young males in particular won’t read enough if we continually capitulate and let them fritter their lives away in front of these drivelling machines.
Gordon Brown proposed in his Pre-Budget Report to spend £2,000 per head on improving the reading of six-year-old boys. That is all well and good, especially when you consider that the cost of remedial English in secondary school soars to £50,000 per head. But it would be cheaper and possibly more effective if we all — politicians, parents, whoever — had the nerve to crack down on this electronic opiate.
So I say now: stop just lying there in your post-Christmas state of crapulous indifference. Get up off the sofa. Can the DVD of Desperate Housewives, and go to where your children are sitting in auto-lobotomy in front of the console.
Summon up all your strength, all your courage. Steel yourself for the screams and yank out that plug.
And if they still kick up a fuss, then get out the sledgehammer and strike a blow for literacy.
197 Comments
Boris,
Sorry, but I think you’re aiming at the wrong target. Those who ‘sit for so long that their souls seem to have been sucked down the cathode ray tube’ are those sitting in front of the TV night after night, passively watching the entertainment(?) provided. Those playing computer games are at least using their brains & often trying to solve problems (in the better games) & interacting socially and learning teamwork in the multi-player games.
I spent a lot of my youth playing computer games, which dwindled significantly when I went up to Cambridge, though I do still play occasionally now in my late thirties. When I got bored of the games I learnt how to reverse engineer them, learnt assembly language & hacked them to make them do different things. I found this a great foundation for my future career in IT & in fact would complain that many entering my profession now do not have a good enough understanding down to the hardware level of exactly how a computer works, which I picked up as a kid inspired by playing games.
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What I find funny is that this whole rant is just and over exaggerated way in saying “Books are becoming disenfranchised by video games and I’m a technophobe”. I’m 22 years old and since the age of 6 played video games, and now I have a very large library of games. First off, why do you believe that Kids think that reading is a “chore”? Let’s remind ourselves that in this age there’s a set of generations that are total radical between those generations, and the differences is how fiction can be delivered. Kids today aren’t reading book because they are games, it’s because kids of this generation (when I mean “this” generation, I mean kids born in the 90′s and 2000′s) have got access of different media of fiction such as film, TV, animation and videogames. If we were to go back to the 50′s and 60′s, all that kids could access back then were books, theatre, radio, and limited amounts of Film and TV; and of course video games didn’t exist back then, video games started in the late 70′s when Atari released their Pong machine. This is a very similar scenario that they have in Japan where they ask kids, Teenagers and young adults why they’re not eating as much “Traditional” Japanese food as they’re parents and grandparents would, and it’s because of the bigger Varity of food made available to them now as American, European and Middle Eastern Cultures have appeared in the far east.
Pretty much video games are the new “art”, you might not think it is, but you got to consider that the content of games is the same as a book, a Beginning, a middle and an end. Of course this doesn’t apply with all games considering that as long as you’re really good at Tetris, you could end up playing it until the batteries in the GameBoy dies. But what I’m trying to mention is that games that use a plot will often develop into a story. Those who have played Final Fantasy VII will know what I mean to this, in fact if you wanted to, the plot is so big that you could turn it into a book; and I would be surprised if it hasn’t be done yet.
As for “Shoot’em’ups”, there’s actually quite a few different varieties of shoot’em’ups. There’s First Person Shooters that seem to be very popular these day. I own a few of these games but not a lot; I’ll agree that some of these games don’t have as much story to them as FinalFantasy VII, but there are games that at least try to include a descent story such as Prey and Half Life 2. Then there’s the Side Scrolling shoot’em’ups, these games aren’t as popular as FPS games, but I’m a fan of them. These games don’t offer a lot of plot, and the majority of these games consist of “You’re a pilot and you got to save the world” scenarios. The only game of this kind to offer a deep plot are the Star Fox series and a gamed called Ikaruga, although Ikaruga may not tell it’s story in the game, there’s a library of books made available in Japan to describe the story during the game.
Honestly though, I can banter on about what games have more “Story” in them and those that don’t, but I don’t think that’s the problem why Kids are becoming illiterate, I believe it’s because parents barely talk to their children and have a descent conversation with them, but this isn’t always the case, sometimes it’s because children and teenagers can feel insecure and can refuse to talk to their parents. Instead of spending loads of money on schools to bloat with books where the child would be swimming in them, come up with a campaign to get Parents to talk and do activities with their children, instead of just pulling out the plug and forcing a total ban of videogames find out a why to get parents to play videogames with their children. Ok that might sound like a farfetched plan, and as there’s always more technophobia up the generations, parents should make at least an hour to do something with their children, such as playing a board game, going out on a walk, or painting a picture each day. By doing this, the vocabulary of the parents will get to the children.
However; (Yes I do go on a bit) this isn’t a fool proof answer to your problem. Considering that disabilities such as Dyslexia and Autism are easier to diagnose compared to the 50′s and 60′s. With this in mind it proves that all kids cannot prove to be the “Perfect, expressive people to earn a 1 on their future degrees”, I myself have learning disabilities: This by the way is not caused by video games because I was diagnosed with it before I started to play them. Why is it such a problem to say that “Hell we’re not all perfect”, there’s always bound to be kids with troubles and problems that prevent them from learning, and it’s not caused by videogames.
In fact there are less children and teenagers aged between seven to fifteen who play videogames now compared with the early ot middle 90′s, and that it’s more of the eighteen to twenty five year old people who play video games the most; and believe I think why this is, back then in the mid 90′s had an amazing selection of games that have a certain calibre that games today do not have, even though we enter a new generation of video game consoles with improved graphics and specification, the early 90′s was the golden age of gaming, and those who played video games then, continue to play games now.
In conclusion, videogames are not the total problem to Kids not reading, it’s to do with the larger variety of media with have today and the lack of communication parents give to their children.
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Boris, I find your post ill-informed and ignorant.
On the one hand, children playing computer games are not out on the streets drinking and multiplying under-age, or being vandals.
On the other, a lot of games promote literacy – many puzzles and plots require a fair amount of reading before the player can progress.
Are you even aware of the quantity of text in modern and classic epic role-playing games? They’re comparable to trilogies of interactive books.
The new Nintendo Wii technology even promotes fitness in youth.
I think you need to be more specific to the type of games you’re targeting, as it’s clear you don’t know enough about the subject to make a post like this. Not every game available is based on sports or ‘GTA’. Visit a game shop to see the diversity.
This bad publicity is probably not going to help the games industry, and I’m personally hoping this negativity towards it will result in you appearing as an interactive character to be fought in a game soon, for entertainment’s sake…
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still awaiting your response Boris….
[Ed: we saw your posts but not sure what exactly and succinctly is your question]
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What an amusing caricature. Keep up the good work, we had a hell of a laugh.
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dear oh dear boris, most of the points i would have raised have been covered above, other than the average age of people who play videogames is 26. do try to comment on subjects of which you have some knowledge, thanks.
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Don’t blame the games! This whole mess is solely due to rock’n roll!
If politicians hadn’t been practicing this satanic dance when they were younger, their brains wouldn’t be so badly damage and they would fight against the real issue (education) instead of so obviously blaming a scapegoat…
Sincerely, an avid gamer AND reader
And please, forgive my bad English ; it’s not my native language…
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No, Mr. Johnson, it is about time you should learn values of human righths, freedom of choice and tolerance, as this article is no more than an uneducated and uninsightful attack on those. The main purpose of video games is for people to entertain themselves, and people always had a need for entertainment to relax themselves (ever heard of Roman phrase “Panem et circenses”? – while Romans enjoyed gladiator fights, today we have more civilized forms on amusement, like sports, arts, even computer and console games). However, entertainment has always been a thorn in eyes of authocrats, as it doesn’t help them spread fear in people they rely so much upon. So whenever a new form of entertainment is introduced, such authocrats will do their best to invalidate, or even outlaw it – football, television, rock music – they all in their early days had a very hard time getting their place under The Sun.
However, this isn’t only about entertainment but about intolerance, because politicans, pragmatic as they are, don’t want to promote differences in people as they don’t need votes from everyone, only from majority. That’s why I call Mr. Johnson’s text as intolerance – it’s no better than spreading racial or religous hatred, the only difference being it is targeted at different minority. Unfortunately, knowing a difference between good and evil is something people gain empirically, not something they’re born with and that’s why many people will support his words without being aware they’re spreading intolerance. If I wasn’t playing games, would that guarantee I would think differently than Mr. Johnson? No, but I have enough experience with them to know his perception is wrong.
Also, why majority of game-haters always perceive them as something only children are interested in (other than to prove how they have absolutely no insight on the matter)? With computer technology being so evolved today, average gamer’s age is getting up and up, and I wouldn’t be surprised if games become more popular to old people who are in their retirements, as they usually have boring lives. I am aged over 30, I have a university degree, a regular job, but I’m also spending most of my free time by playing games. I don’t have any children, but if I had them, I certainly wouldn’t forbid them to play games, as long as they are aware some things, like school, are more important (although this could be relativized, as I’ve seen people gaining more success in life than me with less education, and some people earn for living by making, or even playing games – although the latter is much rarer) and as long they play games suitable for their age (games, just like movies, can have age rating, and even when their age restrictions does not imply it, they might be over-complicated for small children to understand).
Also, not all games can be treated equal, just like a pornographic book cannot be treated same as the one written by Shakespeare – a game could be mindlessly simple, or it could require planning and thinking (for example, Mr. Johnson should’ve tried the game called “Planescape: Torment” for the greatest amount of text and dialogue in a computer game ever before blaming games for promoting illiteracy) – playing a game of chess or quiz on your computer still qualifies as a game and as such, falls under Mr. Johnson trivial accusations, even though the former promotes thinking and the latter promotes knowledge. But mindless or not, they always fill out one purpose: to entertain. Is watching 22 people on a large grass field running to catch a ball (a.k.a. football) less mindless than sending red soldiers against white soldiers on a computer? No, but it still fills than one purpose, so people enjoy it. There’s no reason to treat games any different.
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Dr. Mr. Johnson
The very idea that anyone, let alone an elected representative of the people of great britain, would make such idiotic and baseless statements is just sickening to me.
That you would blame the failings of the british education system on what is after all, just another form of entertainment, is crass, opportunistic, and irresponsible.
What is worse, while doing so, you have referenced no actual research or data of any kind, and have instead simply drawn a completely random correlation between two things. Where is your evidence that the rise in illiteracy has any connection to video games, or is it supposed to be pefectly obvious to all educated peoples, as it is to you? What is obvious is your complete ignorance of the subject.
I think I will go ahead and say the there is a clear link between the rise of new technology, and the growing incompentence of our elected officials. My conclusion has just as much basis as yours.
For shame, sir.
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If I drop out of highschool, its not going to be because of video games; it will be because of the deeply flawed eduational system in which my teachers are relegated to mere graders.
I also reccomend you check out the other side of video games before you judge them all as mindless violence. Many in the roleplaying genre, for instance, have plots as deep as any fantasy novel. And some are designed to stimulate “ratiocination”; Brain Age for the Ninteno DS, for instance.
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Hello Mr. Boris,
I would just like to reiterate here what I have commented at another website where gamers of all ages keep up with relevant political topics.
Here is what I wrote at GamePolitics:
I just realized when I read his website that he’s blaming the wrong agent for the correct reasons. He seems to be complaining that boys hate to do book-related assignments in school (e.g. book analysis and reports). I haven’t read any studies to this effect, but it seems to be a natural notion that if two things go hand-in-hand that the brain affiliates them as a group. More specifically, schools attach work to book-reading, so children affiliate reading with work. That’s it.
The solution is not to eradicate video games; that was never mentioned in my analysis. It might be something chosen preferentially over something affiliated with work, but it is not the cause of illiteracy. The correct solution is not even to stop the book reports and analysis. I have always hated those, but they are necessary nonetheless. The best answer is to find some way of making that particular work more enjoyable. I am not going to delve too deeply into that prospect right now, since any ideas I come up with would never become concrete. I’m sure that British school employees are not reading GamePolitics. However, the idea of giving kids some sort of reward for their work or perhaps making the work itself the reward should be considered.
I don’t know whether you include USA in your assumptions, but I do believe that I am correct in a general case that children are merely choosing something fun over something that is not fun. The solution is not to remove the fun but to give the children a good catalyst for the desire to read. Pouring tons of money into making children do more work is not that catalyst.
One last comment: I have learned a good amount from gaming. I recommend that you give a serious look at the following games and their educational value:
Medieval: Total War
(represents historical facts fairly accurately with just enough leeway to make a game. In one mode of play you must achieve what actually happened historically in order to win. Strategic thinkers will also generally do better in battles.)
Hitman: Blood Money
(while this game is about a hired killer and is very clearly designed for an adult audience, some real thinking is necessary to correctly carry out hits. The game could only be truely interesting to a gamer who wants to think through everything he does before he does it, and a careful analysis of your surroundings and others’ reactions at all times is highly encouraged. You must also think through each action very carefully.)
I could name many more but I have already written enough. Once again, I encourage you to look at those games, possibly even play them yourself, and analyze the amount of planning and thought that needs to be put into them. Regardless of whether you like the story or the mature theme of Hitman, it does encourage careful thinking.
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Your generalizations about games and the kids who play them are quite disgusting.
If we were to assume that a large percentile of successful college students didn’t play video games, assume that many of these games did not have artistic merit, assume that ALL games did not involve any reading whatsoever, assume that nations such as Japan and South Korea, nations which consider gaming a part of their mainstream pop culture, were not among the most literate in the world, assume that thousands of people that call video game journalism their profession did not exist, assume that games aren’t used by surgeons and physicians to train their hand eye coordination, assume that video games don’t help kids make friends and form bonds, and assume that games don’t keep kids away from alcohol and drugs . . . your article MAY have been worth reading.
[Ed: deleted comment]
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British Parliament Member Goes Off on Games
It’s a ridiculous rant with tons of great comments, oddly similar to the just as awful on Bill O’Reily made a few weeks back….
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Well… I must say. He does make a decent point. 7 to 15 year olds shouldn’t be playing that many games these days anyway. Most of the games for these next-gen consols are for ages 18 and up. I’ve been playing games scence I was 7 years old. My parents never really had rules as to when I could play, or when to stop playing. I am a pretty well educated person, and I feel that it might not be the games that effect people from being able to express themselves thru literature.
Playing video games does keep your mind active. Reading in most video games is needed in order to find somthing out, or accomplish a task. Creative minds are what video games establish in my opinion. They even help some people with there jobs. I read a study on some remote controlled surgeons having to play a video game before an operation, making it easier for accuracy, speed and reliability. Now I know that this is one of the few skills related to video games, and if your not going into become a remote surgeon, it’s kind of pointless.
Literature on paper… I think everyone has an idea as to why people are losing there ability to be able to use there literature skills on paper. It’s simply cause of computers, I hate writing on paper, I could do it, but my hand writing is really poor looking, wich is because I type the majority of the time. Ever scence I was introduced to the computer, I’ve been using this great tool to type. Now I know that pretty much every school contains a computer lab to complete there projects and essays, but I feel that they should inforce more literature to be completed on paper. Doing so will make test day less stressful toward the students.
Some life experience I also feel has somthing to do with why kids and young teens are not doing so well with there literature. I feel that parents should need a license to be able to raise kids these days. I’m not calling anyone a bad parent, I’m simply saying that enough parents sit there kids down in front of a television set, and let the television raise them. Or in some cases the video gaming console. I find this really sad. There are so many fun ways that you could teach your kids to learn. If they like video games so much, get them to write a little before they get to play. Get them to explane why they like this game so much, and what would be the next best game that they would like to play, and explane why. They will only get better at expressing themselves, spelling and expanding there vocabluary will be inevitable. As long as you correct there spelling and grammar of course. They will get the chance to express how they feel about somthing they like. It doesn’t always need to be about video games, they could write about a trip that the family went on that week, or whatever you choose. If you get them doing this at a young age, then you shouldn’t have a problem with wanning and fussing.
So there are my thoughts on how in my opinion, video games don’t really have much to do with literature. I’m 22 years old, and I’m a hard core gammer, and have been scence I was 7 years old. Getting at lease an hour a day of gamming in. I’ve had as much as 8 hours go into a day of gaming too, and here I am writing my thoughts, and doing an alright job at it. Rules and order I find have much more to do with kids not haveing poperly developed literature skills, not games.
Post this anywhere you would like, cause I feel everyone should know this, thank you.
Eric Lamothe.
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At 17, having played hardcore games since I was at least 4 years old, I can safely say you are ignorant. Your studies and statistics, unfounded, misconducted, questionable at best, you are merely acting like all the old men who fear what they fail to understand… you could more safely correlate this to lack of school funding which exists because of ignorant fools like you wasting money and time pursuing a harmless entertainment medium.
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It’s telling that while Britain’s children may have trouble being able to write an essay, at least some of their members of Parliament appear to be equally unable to interpret statistics.
In case nobody told you, unrelated statistics prove nothing. No matter how many you may trot out.
(As an aside, I’d suggest that you actually try playing one of these games. You may discover an odd thing: many, if not most, require literacy to play.)
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Your argument is flawed BJ. This was nice:
http://www.little-dudes.co.nz/comics-35
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An opposite and somewhat better researched view from a professor of epistemology:
http://epistemicgames.org/eg/
Trust experts before politicians…
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“still awaiting your response Boris….
[Ed: we saw your posts but not sure what exactly and succinctly is your question]”
but surely this is a debate and not Q&A?
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Exactly Tom – it’s a blog, not letters to the editor. But if you have a question you most fervently wish to be communicated to Boris then post it here, clearly labelled. The site moderators will be glad to help you. Alternatively, post a question on the appropriate thread on the Forum.
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“Have I got ignorant views for you!” now collecting dust on a bookstore shelf near you!
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Wait…
“And if they still kick up a fuss, then get out the sledgehammer and strike a blow for literacy.”
Are you sugessting that parents bludgen thier offspring with sledgehammers?
Oh my.
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“They become like blinking lizards, motionless, absorbed, only the twitching of their hands showing they are still conscious.”
Gee Boris, do you read books while doing handstands and solving complex physics equations on a nearby blackboard? I pretty much sit still, absorbed, only the turning of the page showing I’m still concious.
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You say you’ve watched an 11-year old play one random “fairly historical” game you fail to mention by name and he didn’t learn anything, and you say some games “may cunningly pretend to be educational”.
What about these new-fangled book thingies? I watched my sister read Cosmo the other week. She didn’t seem to learn anything so I’ve concluded that letting my son read To Kill a Mocking Bird will turn him into a dribbling idiot.
I challenge you to complete Rome: Total War and learn nothing about that period’s warfare and politics. Try playing through Armadillo Run while learning nothing about mechanical physics. As to literacy, I challenge you to play through an RPG like Torment: Planescape or Baldur’s Gate without reasonable reading skills. Good luck!
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My favourite subject is English. During primary school I was one of the few males in class who enjoyed the prospect of studying or writing short stories and poetry. In fact this love of creative writing was instrumental in my desire to become a Game Designer (Which has taken something of a back seat now, due to the difficult technical issues involved in Game Design, which is no obstacle for literature).
I often scored very high in my English classes in both Primary School and High School, I was one of the few to take English for my full stay at High School (It is no longer compulsory after Year 11) and my writing would often receive Excellence under NCEA Achievement and at one time I achieved a mark of 100% for a short story in Year 9 (Which was actually a story about a Video Game alias of mine).
My other passion is Video Games. I have been playing Video Games since before I was five years old.
I’m not going to have you turn around and say they’re making me illiterate. No. Just no.
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hear hear Jaq
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so i were to into the forums, copy this entire article and all the reponses in to it, and then ask for Boris’s opinions on the responses he’s recieved, he’d answer? Is that what you’re saying?
i doubt it somehow…
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I disagree with this article quite strongly. Although I’ll admit there is a disturbing drop in the number of children reading for pleasure, it is not the fault of videogames but of a society that praises the notion of instant gratification that videogames can provide. Compared to the ten plus hours it can take to read a decent piece of literature for example Machiavelli’s The Prince to the near instant enjoyment of a shooting game, it is easy to see the attraction.
I do hope that this is not merely bandwagon jumping-remember the furore over video nasties in the 80′s? or the Moral panic over cinema in the early 1900′s?
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Please use something like statistics instead of anecdotal evidence that has no real names and sounds hypothetical if you want a valid argument. Your arguments are unsound and the last part of your rant it seems that striking a blow for literacy with your sledgehammer is advocating child abuse. How’s your literacy if you fail to make it easily understood you intend that they strike the console.
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Video games are just the same as any other form of media, while some games focus on random violence others edge towards narrative and puzzle solving. Interestingly in general the one point even anti gaming organisations agree on is that video games stimulate the brain regardless of their genre. The only difference is that anti gaming organisations follow the idea that violent video games stimulate the “wrong” part of the brain.
I must note one personal experience regarding literacy, my own father was illiterate till a late age only attempting to learn to read in order to join the army. In the many years since then he has become an avid reader of books relating to his area of interest – military history and fiction. The reason i bring this up is that my father has never shown any interest in any form of video gaming of any genre.
In contrast to this i myself was both an avid reader at a young age and a fan of video games, currently i am learning chemistry with the aim to become a teacher.
while children become agitated if you remove their video games is not the same true of any childs possession. When i was younger for example i had several books that i considered to be my favourites. On learning that my parents had dissaproved of some of these for being “too childish” and thrown them away behind my back i proceeded to spend the rest of the day sulking.
This kind of thing isnt uncommon it just happens that video games are the prized possesions of children these days not standard toys.
This increase in the number of children who dislike books despite “literacy hour” is just another example of children’s well known disposition to reject any idea that is forced upon them, if more of an effort was made to find non insulting ways to engage children into reading instead of forcing it down their necks or insisting on making them read the kind of garbage that is usually written for children. It seems like a lot of people make the mistake of underestimating children’s intelligence and try to find other reasons why their initiative’s are failing instead of realising that children are quite discerning.
As a counterpoint to that it is quite amazing how many parents complain about video game violence affecting their children after buying 18+ rated games for their ten year olds. Obviously a ten year old is going to be affected by a game that centers around sex and violence, thats why they are not made for ten year olds. Games like that are meant to be played by adults who already know the difference between shooting a virtual character on screen and joining street gangs.
As i mentioned in the beginning of my post video games are just like any other media, while there are good books and bad books, horror films and romantic films, there are many types of video game. We already have age restrictions on movies which are enforced, we don’t do this for books but there are ratings on games which clearly are being ignored by the very people who complain about the problems caused by them.
The popular video game comic and news site Penny-Arcade while filled with swearing and references to violence or worse things is run by two video game enthusiasts who have been caught in this argument for several years against a US senator with exactly your view. The man whose name i forget challenged video games developers to make a game about killing game developers claiming that if it ever happened that he would pay an obscenely large amount of money to a charity. Of course the game was made and the charity has yet to recieve a donation. meanwhile penny arcade has been spearheading the child’s play organisation calling for all people who play video games to donate to them in return for donated items of video game merchandise, all proceeds of these events (including the auctions as well as a charity dinner) go towards childrens hospitals. Once again showing that not all people who play video games are bad people for it.
As a final point i ask you how many video games have you ever played? How many of those did you find engaging and what kinds of games were they? What age rating were they?
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I apologise my previous post was incorrect the man in question is a lawyer not a senator
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Even those of us way over in America like to check out what kind of anti-gaming arguments are mentioned overseas.
Here in the States we have a guy named Jack Thompson. Mr. Thompson has the same fire-and-brimstone attitude toward games that you seem to, Mr. Johnson, but he is among company that claims that video games caused the September 11th terrorist attacks. Keep in mind that he’s equating a flight simulator–y’know, that program they train jumbo jet pilots with for a JOB–to a video game, and while they are in many ways similar, video games are GAMES designed for entertainment. Even Brain Training (released in the US as Brain Age) entertains by giving you different methods of training your brain, from sudoku puzzles to memory-related games like counting how many people come in and out of a house.
Video games are entertainment, plain and simple. While there are many games that have educational qualities and require much more of the gamer than you claim them to, Mr. Johnson, in the end games are just entertainment. They’re meant for you to have fun (and for companies to make money off you wanting to have fun).
Doesn’t the idea of “having fun” come down to personal taste? One who isn’t physically active may not find going outside and playing football with friends to be fun, but they may find reading a book or–GASP–playing a video game to be fun. It’s how they pass their time.
Then again, TV, movies, and rock-and-roll music are entertainment, and apparently all of these rot our brains and/or turn us into mass murderers.
The problem with decreasing literacy is not just because kids aren’t interested in reading. It also has to do with the fact that PARENTS buy the games for their children and won’t regulate how much they play or what they play. Back when I worked at a Blockbuster Video, a woman wanted to rent Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas for her child. I mentioned to the woman that it was a very violent game, and it might not be okay for her kid, but she assured me (rather dismissively) that it would be all right, it was “just a video game.”
A couple hours later, she comes back and tears my head off about how I let her rent the “filth” she had earlier approved.
If parents, and subsequently politicians who want parents’ votes, are going to complain about games, maybe they should actually listen to the people who are knowledgeable about the topics they’re attacking BEFORE actually attacking. Funny, that sounds a lot like the Iraq situation.
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Oh and here’s something of interest:
http://www.missvideogame.com/starbuck.php
Any comments towards the mentioned people of that article (gamers who are both female by the way, and one who’s only 8 years old but can beat the boys, and men, in Quake4).
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I believe that blaming an entire industry for the case of whiny children is not only imature, but irresponisble. To say that these children are being corrupted by the video games that they play because they lack literature would be a dismal failure of a debate considering that any good video game reviewer takes story into great consideration. Saying that shooters make up the “meat” of the industry wouldn’t be far off, but that’s like saying most films and books have shooting in them. It’s most likely going to happen, because it is exciting.
You say that children sit in front of a screen as if in a comma, but have you ever watched someone read before? Yes, they are quite active while reading aren’t they? To say that vocabulary doesn’t increase while playing a game is also a distant shot from the truth. Witty and often intelligent/nerdy diaolg is included in the plot and most certainly provides the player with some new English to look up.
I also find it insane that you would blame video games for the lack of education that some type of learning system isn’t catering to. I think that these are opinions that you have created before you have sat down and enjoyed some of this “brain rot”.
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Video games allowed me to explore my imgination and relieve stress in a safe way that didn’t harm anyone. They also taught me several new things and ideas. Things like how violence isn’t always the answer, expect the unexpected, taught me to use logic to answer puzzles and more. They are not addictive and are a healthy way for children to explore the world of technology.
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[Ed; deleted]… focus on what the real problem of the world is, then some lil kids playing there lil games, what about the 100′s of millions of people watch tv everywhere everyday.
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[Ed: deleted]… How can you just come out and say,”Video games rot the brain”.
Please, let’s be realistic. There are so many wrong things going on in the world today, that you can look into. Instead of wasting your time.
[Ed: deleted]
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The opinions and views posted in this blog seem to make a very loud and clear ‘cry’ of misunderstanding. For it has always been known that one fears what one doesn’t understand.
We are now in a generation where entertainment and media can be used just as educationally as text and written words, yet refusing to accept a fundamental technology shift is very disturbing for a legion of polititians that make every effort to appear ‘in touch’ with modern youth.
Away from games used as education, the majority of games are used for entertainment purposes. Many gamers spend an hour or two each night unwinding by playing a game, the same way that the older generation may sit and listen to music, or enjoy a glass of wine – in the same way we find out relaxation by playing computer games.
Let us not forget that with the modern age of computer gaming being based more and more around the use of online gaming, that most modern games and systems revolve around communication between players – physically talking to them and communicating strategies, advice, or simply to enjoy a chat with their friends whilst they unwind. It is a very social aspect now, which I believe Mr. Johnson is profoundly unaware of.
It is a sign of the times that sitting to enjoy an alcoholic beverage as a passtime is accepted, yet a young person sitting to talk to his or her friends whilst playing a computer game is deemed unacceptable. Also, with today’s youth suffering Anti Social Behaviour Orders, and being moved on from gatherings in the evenings, what does Mr Johnson recommend? Obviously sitting and reading a book is his preference, but what I am asking is ‘how is it different?’.
With television, the viewer has very little brain activity – the programmes are not interactive and the viewer simply sits and watches. However, video games actively stimulate the mind in different ways – whether logical, strategically, or reactionary. The player interacts with the game, meaning that they are concentrating, actively making on-the-spot decisions, and improving co-ordination and reactions as well as imagination – in this sense, it is more brain enaging to play a computer game than to read a book! A book provides an imaginary experience but does not engage any other part of the brain – I know it’s a trite comparison, but then again Mr Johnson’s comparison is not exactly a shining light of relevance.
I am now 21 years old, and currently employed with one of the largest Steel Companies in the World, as their business analyst. I completed my degree in BSc Computer Science with a high 2:1 grade, and have been predicted nothing but a fantastic future career. I have also been playing video games, day in-day out, for the last 15 years.
[Ed: deletion]
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Yes, it’s the old ‘misunderstood’ case again. This is coming from a 17 year old who grew up with a Commodore 64 since he was 3 by the way:
I agree with Chris Walker above, Legend of Zelda and such games wouldn’t make much sense if you weren’t able to read the tutorial or get stuck in a puzzle 15 minutes in or whatever (i’m not a fan of Legend of Zelda, just stating facts based on a friend’s opinion).
But, growing up with the C64 had its plusses, yes there were educational games then, but there was no Modern Technology then, so no voice-overs for characters. Speech bubbles and text-adventures were the norm and everything was just peachy.
Sure PlayStation, X-Box and GameCube and their successors are starting to dumb games down, but I still blame it upon parents who have no time for us kids so they leave us in front of the TV, the virtual babysitter as such. First-person shooters are okay iguess, ‘m not a huge fan of them, but I ended p playing Tom Clancy’s “Rainbow Six” so much I went into the bookshop a month or two ago and went out and bought 2 or 3 of his novels (upon which the games are based upon) and they’re quite good and i’ve read cover to cover.
It’s not our fault that the human brain is devolving, it’s the fault of the adults, if they played along with us they’d know how good some of this stuff is.
And in light of everyone jumping on the Grand Theft Auto bandwagon I’ve got to say one thing and one thing only, a quote by Mr. T [citation needed, i saw it in a magazine somewhere]:
“If these young fools are too busy terrorising streets on a screen then they’ll have no time to do it for real”
So here’s my Last Word: Don’t knock videogames until you’ve tried them. You, and Jack Thompson should sit down and have a good old session on Tony Hawk’s Project 8. If games like that can get kids like me to go buy a board and get out of the house and get active, how can that be bad?
Note to Mr. Johnson: Use your loaf before you start making commentsabout things that you know nothing about. Because when my generation grows up and we are the parents that likes games, they’ll be uncool then and there’ll be some other trendy gizmo that’ll last 15+ years, then you’ll have won your nonsensical war. Happy now?
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Excuse the typos above, that is NOT the work of the apparent brainwashing of modern technology, that is the work of a tempermental keyboard that sometimes doesn’t recognize a key being pressed.
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You know what I love about this? Is that it has no liable evidence. Yes children do spend time playing video games, which does take away from time reading. But then again so does sport, art and general socialising. does than mean we should all be inside reading books just to know the meaning of antidisestablishmentarism.
I think that video games is connected with the problem, but don’t think it is the root cause of it. My personal opinion is that working in parliament rots the brain, of varying opinion (instead of jumping on the anti-gaming band-waggon) and ability to use fact, rather than just blaming something just because you don’t understand it!
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Mr. Johnson, I’m not familiar enough with Britain to comment on the brain rotting effect of video games on British boys. But here in the United States, your brand of ignorance-meets-hubris might just land you a job as our president!
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Anyone with even the most tenuous grasp of the state of the videogame industry today can tell immediately that BoJo is talking, essentially, tosh. He’s made sweeping generalisations, suggested links where none exist, and is self-admittedly talking from a position of complete ignorance on the topic he intends to address. What’s worrying is not that someone believes what he does – someone has to, I suppose – but that a member of Parliament, supposedly a highly educated, informed and literate man, is capable of producing a polemic as misguided as his. Is he incapable of seeing the parallels between his inflamed spoutings and the similar articles published in past decades decrying TV, videos, and essentially any new pastime which is predicated on technological advances? The common thread from these is that those in positions of power were forced to watch the expansion of the new medium but without any familiarity with it, or any real understanding of what the appeal of these things might be. Fundamentally, the effect of the bile sprayed at TV and video nasties in the early years has been utterly negligible – market penetration is almost universal, and these have become the most mainstream and popular forms of entertainment. There is no reason videogames will be any different, and BoJo’s unfortunate rantings must go down as the last desperate struggles of a drowning man, unable or unwilling to swim with the tide.
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From observation and experience I am quite certain that obsessive computer game playing is bad for the brain; and that reading is good for it. I take particular issue with the commentator above who claimed that Legend of Zelda teaches problem solving skills better than Classics. I have not done a Classics degree, but I did Classical Civilization at A-level, and if one applies oneself properly to the subject it does a lot more for your brain than you’d think.
I always advocated classical education when I was young because I was a traditionalist at heart; only having done Latin and Classics up to A-level have I really understood their value.
I grant that computers do teach certain skills – but the addiction itself is often damaging to academic success, reducing time spent on work.
All the references to wikipedia and the BBC site are quite off topic – that’s nothing to do with PC games. I myself read Hansard online. What of it?
I occasionally give in to an impulse to play Age of Empire: Conquerors Expansion, usually to design scenarios on; likewise Medieval:Total War: Viking Invasion, with the Total Realism patch and a number of edits to increase historical accuracy still further.
But what Total War is doing for me is simulating a board game, in a sophisticated way, which I would be happier playing with a real-life person.
Games are good for you, they do increase the powers of your brain, but board games/wargames/etc can do the same as pc games, without most of the negative side effects. More sociable and with more freedom for ones own imagination. I used to play warhammer; before that I made up various games with model knights and so on. I used to make up games with my younger siblings in the garden: and what taught me the football related maths referred to by one earlier poster was poring over genuine premier league tables, which proved to be effective enough.
A point I would like to make is that it all depends on what sort of person you actually want to create at the end of it all. “Intelligence” is pretty broad.
Also, as with many things, computer games are not necessarily so terrible “in moderation”.
One problem with spending ages on the PC is that it reduces your ability to concentrate. It also damages inhibitions; it is also very easy to sit on the computer and never leave it, and let your body fall to pieces. It disturbs sleep patterns, and communication with other people is all very well, but it’s not good for you if they speak in abbreviations and emoticons and textspeak.
I don’t have any evidence here: I’m going from personal experience, which has been mixed, and observation of my friends, who were very a fantasy/wargames/computer games group/rugby/football/history/writing/art group in terms of interests shared by more than one person, all of whom I knew/know very well.
I used to run a warhammer rules development website, called The Hammer and Anvil. I don’t know how it’s doing now, because a few months ago I finally cut myself off from it. This has done me an enormous amount of good. Even though, whilst I had it, I ran a site on fairly sound business principles, organized people, wrote stories, improved my critical faculties, and so on: and we had a lot of very educated sorts of people – I learnt all sorts of things about Arabian poetry for example. But I could’ve learnt that same stuff from a book. I could’ve practiced those skills with real people. And without the negative side effects.
So – I’ll stop rambling now – my point is that Boris is, as usual, exagerrating to say that PC games and computer use, etc etc, can have no benefits, but there are other much less harmful/potentially harmful means of enhancing said skills. Moreover, console games are worse than PC games from observation/experience, and, addiction to them is bad for you – and I would also say that being absorbed in them at too early an age is probably bad for you.
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IRJM – not rambling at all, thankyou for your insightful comment.
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After reading your article describing the negatives of video games and they’re effects on the youth of today, I have compiled the following argument.
Where I live, in Shipley, West Yorkshire it is normal for a girl to have a baby aged between 14 and 16, it is ok for young boys to drink underage and when a teenage boy is addicted to heroin, nobody bats an eyelid. In fact right now in the block of flats I live in there is a drug addicted 17 year old, who also has a child and is a single parent, due to her 19 year old boyfriend being in prison.
Why then must you point the blame for today’s decline in youth society upon video games? How can a harmless piece of hardware which brings a small portion of happiness to millions of people be a bad thing?
Would you rather I was a drug addict?
I live in a rough area; I am a student at college living on a pittance (£30 a week), I get no financial support from anyone yet I have never had the urge to do drugs, alcohol or be ‘anti-social’. You see video games and my home computer provide me with an escape from this rat infested hellhole, my alcoholic mother, and my drug addicted older brother.
It is through these video games I aim to escape this all, by passing college and earning a decent and respectable living. I am studying game development
So we come to the point. The blame doesn’t lie with video games, it lies with the government. They encourage teenagers to live for free on jobseekers allowance. They pay students less than the unemployed thus discouraging the idea of becoming enrolled in education. They offer recovering drug addicts equally addictive drugs which apparently help them recover.
And finally, I put a question to you.
Of all the things mentioned above, would you rather YOUR child be addicted to video games, or drugs?
I face this choice every day…
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thanks for deleting my ENTIRE COMMENT! my opinion counts too ya know, even if i accidentaly DID have caps lock on the full time. The least you could do is slightly modify it. It’s not hard to do with MS Word and a big “Change Case” button ya know…
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Do you believe half the things that are coming out of your mouth? Video Games are not bad. They give jobs to many people, a problem right now, and they increase coordination and help vocabulary. In something like a Role-Playing game, an RPG, sometimes in a quest or mission or whatever have words that you may have never seen before. They are anything but ileteracy.[Ed: rele?] I play video games all the time, i actually learn a thing or two once i get on. I like to play World War II games. They teach what it was like back then in history, equally to a book. I just took a high school Placement test, I had a better score than 92 percent of the people that were there. That test earned me a scholorship. Some of the history I learned from video games. Video games broaden your imagination and spark creativity. So if you think video games are bad, you are sadly mistaken. Even violent games can have some positive aspects. Vocabulary, history, current events, anything. So please email me back i want to hear your response.
[Ed: first correct your misspellings mate]
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And i also agree with Adam Lambert.
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A gamer – out of interest, would you tell us how old you are and how the motivation of a history lesson compares with that of a video game? Do you find them both equally stimulating and informative?
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