Take a moment. Step back from your television. The mindless chatter of scripted reality TV. Focus.
Take a moment. Swipe out of your social media. Stop swiping, clicking, consuming but not thinking. Think.
What do you think about video games?
Are they too violent? Causing the uprising of a rebellious youth?
Or maybe too addictive? Are you or somebody you know unable to separate themself?
Is it a black hole that turns your brain to mush? Do you think that spending time gaming is time wasted?
Take a moment.
Thank you.
I’ve heard it all, “You waste your time,” “It’ll make you dumb,” “They cause violence”. I’ve heard it all. One day, a friend of mine looked me straight in the eye and said, “Don’t you think that playing video games is like- really unhealthy for you? You’ll get dumb.” I asked her what she had done over the weekend. Made her think. Scary. She said, “I scrolled through TikTok. That’s about it.” I ask you now, how is that any better than playing video games all day? I’m ready to explain. Ready to fight for what I’ve learned to be true. Explain my stance on this issue with as little bias as possible.
Lots of children, teens, and adults struggled with loneliness and boredom during the height of the pandemic in 2020. I remember what it felt like. How scary the world seemed. How on edge we all were. Still are. Some things never change, huh? None of my friends wanted to hang out. Couldn’t hang out. Dogs on leashes. Tugged and tugged. I remembered then, what had saved me when my best friend moved away: Minecraft. We had built the world of our dreams- played pretend and stayed in touch. So that’s what I did with my time. I spent hours playing with her. Hours playing alone.
Until all of a sudden, things changed. A group of guys that I had been acquainted with invited me to play. Suddenly, I had a group to play with. Something to be a part of. I looked forward to talking to them every day. Those words grew into universes. Our texting grew into hours and hours of FaceTime calls. I met friends of friends. Cultivated a group of people who were interested in the things I was interested in. The world- a little less lonely. I discovered new games- Rocket league, Hyperscape, Apex; best of all, I came across the game that I now call my favorite game of all time- Sea of Thieves. It was all so exciting. Each day, we had something to do. Something to build. Someone to talk to. Life was never boring.
My mom made comments about how sophisticated my friends and I sounded while talking on the phone. It had been months since my last phone call, now I had people calling me all the time. We absorbed ourselves in the drama of playing video games. Like an escape from the world. We played survival games, our brains on constant alert. Puzzle games, never unchallenged. But all in all, it was when we worked together to make something beautiful that I realized: video games saved me. This group of people saved me. Saved me from being lonely, bored. From feeling like I had no control over my own life. The way that everyone else seemed to feel. I saw the beauty in things around me. Learned to appreciate once more, the people around me. This time, those games, what you may call “mindless and stupid” changed me. Infinitely for the better.
Social media- a wonderful thing I’m sure. Sometimes. Constant flow of mindless following. Politics. Adding someone just to say something awful. Leaving people out (see Be a Rebel: Join the Revolution!). But how does spending 12 hours scrolling through dancing, pranks, and hating help you? I ask. How does seeing and seeing and seeing the way that the internet and the algorithm wants you to be help you love yourself? How does succumbing to that tunnel vision help you learn to love others? How does normalizing one thing, one way to be, one opinion, help change your world?