Video Games are the Mind-Killers

For years I have credited my time playing video games as a youth to enhancing my peripheral vision and reaction time as a driver of automobiles. I used to love playing them as a boy, and I did play them for years, while also doing many other things. I still love the occasional video game, but I also consider “everything in moderation” good advice.

Yesterday I played Star Wars: Battlefront on my son’s PS4 with him for a few hours, and I learned two things I consider worth writing about:

I. I can see why young people today find video games far more engaging than their daily realities. Playing a game such as Star Wars Battlefront (or Call of Duty), one becomes the hero in an exciting story. Reality doesn’t have much on that, especially when Reality includes things we don’t like. As a teacher, I have found students playing video games on their laptops and phones in class, and though I have stopped them from doing so, I didn’t really appreciate their lure until now.

II. After playing for a few hours, I found that the images and sounds from the game filled my mind to the point that I found it difficult to think of anything else. This effect, if allowed to continue by playing more, could and would stifle my own creativity. I am currently writing a science-fiction novel, and if I were to keep playing that exciting and immersive video game (i.e., someone else’s story), I would find it impossible to return to my own. If I were an engineer or architect, I would find it impossible to concentrate on my own designs. If I were a doctor, I would not be able to concentrate on medical literature.

I know that not everyone is the same, and I might be more susceptible to these effects than others are, but where children are concerned, I think the potential dangers are great and should be studied. What if the imaginations of a few (for example, video-game designers motivated to create ever more engaging material) are overwhelming, stifling, and ultimately replacing or canceling the imaginations of countless others? Are we losing generations of ideas to mass immersion? The rise of VR suggests we are both seeking and realizing a Matrix-like experience in which we never think or live for ourselves.

I do not think we will reach such a conclusion, but it is a trend to watch. As we face great real problems (pollution, disease, fascism, inequality), we will need every available imagination to solve them.

As I said above, I still love video games, but when something threatens imagination, I remember, advocate, and practice moderation. I have an anti-theocracy dystopian science-fiction novel to write.