Musings

Turkle’s article made me think of a million different things. First, I had no idea that Space Wars was the first video game. I always thought it was Pong. Obviously, Pong was the first video game to be mass marketed, but hey, I learned something new! Second, the constant involvement of video games, while at the time unacknowledged, is obvious to me as a psychology student. Kids with ADHD have trouble focusing on things like school (slower paced) while they can sit for hours playing video games. If these games were static, there is no way a kid would sit still for that long. And now for the heart of my thoughts on gaming…I’m scared for our future. If these kids are getting involved to the point of feeling that they enter into a world more real than the tangible, what does that leave for the Earth? Meeting people in a game, destroying a monster, saving a princess cannot substitute for human interaction, facing ones demons, or falling in love. At some point, you’ve got to differentiate between the game world and the real world…or else you become Neo choosing between the red and blue pills. If everyone becomes a philosopher, who is left to do anything else?

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