With all the craze in technology today from handheld gadgets to even space-aged technology that allows hologram-based devices to transmit images under certain atmospheric conditions. On a more personal, home-based level, gaming has come an astounding way from the era of using a simple joystick attached to a television screen. There has been Atari, Nintendo, Super Nintendo, SEGA, SEGA Genesis, Gameboy, PlayStation, PlayStation II and III, Xbox, Xbox 360, Wii, etc. the list goes on and not to mention the gaming systems on the computer and the ones that are always being modified and created by gamers and designers worldwide. The technology will not only become better and much more efficient, it will allow gamers of any level, no matter how long it's been since they last played to sit down and use the game with little to no previous tutorial.
However, with all the advancement with such ingenuity these days, we come to sometimes forget about what life was like before it and what people of society had to do in order to entertain themselves. From the days gone by of storytelling (much of what modern society's rap culture relies on), to radio. The days of the family sitting down by the radio system to listen to a special program, (like my father sometimes recalls the days when as a child he would listen to his favorite radio program, The Shadow). Once the TV entered the picture, families would entertain here. Eventually, once the workforce began to grow and wives took to the workforce, so did the world change, and for the worse at times. Children were forced, (since the late 1970s) to think and fend for themselves.
Once the 1990s arrived, so did the world of internet gaming. The trend was then set in stone as children would arrive home from school and throw themselves in front of their PC screens and game for hours. The old excuses of "my dog ate my homework" eventually gave way to simple grunts and groans, or the excuse, "I don't remember being given that homework." or, "I didn't do it," or even perhaps, "Oh. I forgot it at home." Excuses started becoming a way of life for the youth of the 1990s, but the worst was yet to come. As the 2000s rolled around, the simple babysitter coming over to watch over your children gave way to the internet gaming websites where a child could chat, type, and game all at the same time if so desired. Having children gaming for four hours or more on a weekday became the norm, while whole weekends were wasted sitting behind a computer monitor. The typical teenager's mindset was even changing as hostility became more evident. Studies out of Philadelphia magazine in 2010 showed from numerous research studies from the University of Pennsylvania, Drexel University, the American Medical Association as well as others, just to name a few stated that: "The majority of our youth have found desire, affection, approval, sexuality, fame, glory, trust, and even a disillusioned way of thought behind the computer screen. The belief that your children are receiving a proper and acceptable way of life is far from this at all. The typical child aged 12 to 17 games between 4-6 hours daily, (sometimes more), and upwards of 400 hours a month." That is a lot of sitting and looking at a screen for an extended period of time.
It appears too, from the AMA in 2009 that the average teenager, (aged between 13 and 16 years) spends more time sitting at their computer screen gaming than doing homework, and from simply getting up and moving around. According to national statistics in 2009, the AMA conducted research showing that children who gamed from the age of 13 to 16 years, at least 4 hours daily for one month, showed significant greater signs of (blood clots, obesity, depression, hostility, and even an entire change in personality). Why? This is a rather simple question to answer now as opposed to answering it fifteen years ago. Since gaming began, and became more intensive and interactive for children, it has allowed them to go to a place where they can still interact, but also be something that they're not in real life. Unfortunately, many psychological conditions have developed because of gaming. Not gaming itself, but really the "abuse" of it. It is wrong for the irresponsible parent to blame the media or the game manufacturers for her son's death or mental-related issues that he suffered while playing the game for over 10 hours a day, and now he is being held a grade back, his developmental skills for an 8th grader are poor, and is social skills are ungodly. While it is unfair to blame the game designers for making such an exciting game, it is also fair to blame the parents of the children who play them. That's where the form of some bullying comes in. Look at the tragic horror at the Columbine Massacre. Do you realize the majority of the hostility that came from Dylan Klebold and Eric Harris stemmed from video games. This falls to the parents, not the designers. If parents would simply take the time out and tell their children, "Now all because you played this game where you blew somebody's head apart with a 12-gauge shotgun doesn't mean you can really do that in real life." I played dozens of games like this and I never went around killing or hurting anybody. I actually wanted to be a chaplain for ten years.
It has become the accepted norm for parents today to allow their children to play video games as long and as often as they wish, just as long as it keeps the kids out of their hair. Many children have actually died from playing video games. Kids not getting routine and daily amounts of exercise have died from embolisms, strokes, have even gone into heart failure. However, some of the more long term effects, (aside from the obvious examples above), are more related to the mental and psychological changes. Since the late 1990s, cyber bullying became the next big thing. It isn't unknown anymore to be bullied "online" than it is to be shot dead while getting your newspaper in your driveway in the city of Philadelphia. These things seem to become the norm and with no need to as well. These are simple things that can easily be corrected, but it seems that we are so far involved now, it would be like taking the governmental stimulus package back. It's just not fathomable.
Cyber bullying exists in every form. From a simple abuse of race to nationality, to demoralizing someone else online. Gamers have unfortunately become "fakes" in real life. Their greatest achievement was getting 50,000 points in World of Warcraft or getting accepted to the pathetic |RD| clan on Call of Duty: United Offensive. In 1930 it wasn't unheard of at the age of 13 to have a job toiling away as a labor. Granted the money wasn't good and the craft was hard and sometimes even meaningless to a very thoughtless employer, it was something that was worth doing. Why? Because unless you have worked at something in your life, then perhaps you cannot know what I'm talking about. It's a certain feeling one gets that cannot be replaced by a video game. A feeling of pride to know that you're doing something of worth. That as a human being, you're contributing in some way. The norm with video gaming after time became pointless. Children would sign up to a website to "fit in" and if you didn't sign up or go along with what the chief of that game website told you to do, then you were often looked at as being a coward, or in gaming language, "troll", "noob", and other pathetic made-up words that have no meaning in the intellectual world. It's unfortunate to say that the majority of children who play more than 10 hours of video games a week, whether on the computer or TV, have a less likely life of exceeding the age of 60 and not having some disease to fulfill those last few years of their life, not to mention these types usually have less ambition, and tend to fall into dead-end jobs, and in worst case scenarios, commit suicide before the age of 45.
Still, there are others that use gaming as a defensive mechanism. They harbor their feelings here where really, in the cyber world, feelings mean nothing because we're dealing with circuits and mechanisms of power, much like that from the film trilogy, The Matrix. It was documented in early 2011 in a national review of police statistics that the majority of teenagers between 13 and 18 who were arrested and charged with a serious crime (felony) learned it from a computer game. The thing is, is that parents are not teaching their children that you cannot go out and shoot someone and expect them to get up and walk away. This just doesn't happen in the real world. Their world is based on running tanks through buildings or sniping a German soldier from 150 yards. The basis of human communication has stopped in the form of regular sentences and has conformed to the use of abbreviations through texting and gaming alike. Intelligence has dropped significantly and it was even documented in the magazine Philadelphia that the average high school student can't even tell you the days of the week, but they know how to defeat a certain level of a video game. This poll was taken from Main Line Today as well.
The biggest problem of all of this has become that whether you're a gamer, a YouTuber, a Tweeter, or one of the others, people use the screen to hide behind. Few people today use it as a simple mechanism to communicate or locate literature. They use it as a tool to fight. Gamers often erupt into arguments where they use the forceful power to control their opponents who don't follow their lead by kicking them off of the gaming server until they apologize and admit they were wrong. They will even go as far as to harassment via email or Facebook sites. Many lives have been lost among our youth because of unpleasant children who think in their own demented minds that they are God and should be treated with respect because on their server screen they are referred to as the "Almighty General" or the "High Lord of the RD."
So, do you agree that our society has lost its intelligence and has become more digitalized as well as computer savvy, but not human savvy?
I think we have lost a good deal of the "human" factor and instead, are becoming "fakes". Saying things hidden behind a computer screen, where in real life we would never say these words or outwardly insult someone without even thinking about getting our face punched in.
In the end, there are harsh consequences to face. Are you ready to face them before it's too late?
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