Life Before Video Games or When Reality Ruled the World

[Daveparts]

It would be unfair to say I was a bad kid growing up not inaccurate just unfair. I was a product of my times I only set the house on fire just that one time and even though I was only five my parents never let me forget it. Now a days in our enlightened sensitive universe it would have been them up against the wall explaining to the police and fire department why they left a cigarette lighter on the coffee table with a five year old in the house?

Just like the time I wrecked my fathers car now before you judge me too harshly remember, there are literally millions of teenagers who have wrecked their father’s car.I shouldn’t be graded too harshly just because I avoided the rush of teenage years and wrecked the car at age six. I was an early bloomer I tell you that’s all there is to it. Today of course the concern would have been if I had been traumatized by the experience. I will add this note for any archeological historian; my Father at that time had the greatest interest in the level of my trauma and was insistent that I received the fullest in educational opportunities that the experience could provide me with, but my Mother intervened and prevailed and I remained ignorant of it.

That’s my point entirely; with the rise of video games Children have no anchor in reality.What are they going to do when they reach my age? Talk about the time they got high score in Vice City and shot the head pimp? When I got a little older we moved to Dallas to a new subdivision on the very edge of civilization. The other boys and myself we whiled away the summer hours taunting the bull in the cow pasture. Or we would go to the new home construction site and borrow wood for tree forts. We would begin construction in a tree in a vacant lot and a whole gang of us would construct a multileveled colossus. Adult’s heaped praise on us for our courage and our aptitude in such high level construction work why even the policeman who ordered us out said so.

But today’s children overburdened with parental concern for their well being have no such memories of childhood, the joy of outrageousness. Of new experiences of exploration and excitement here I was ten years old and I’d been in house fires auto accidents chased by bulls evicted by the police why I couldn’t wait to get up in the morning. But today’s melancholy children aren’t even allowed to ride their bicycles out of sight until they are almost old enough to drive. They must live vicariously through fictional electronic characters their only connection to excitement is through a joystick. To this generation whoops means hit the reset button while in my youth whoops might mean run for it!

When I was growing up the question, “Do you play sports?” Meant, “Hey kid, do you play sports? Like right now this minute!” Now it means do you have Madden Football 06? Or MLB we had our own outfield fence sections we carried with us wherever we were going to play. We learned about hitting to the opposite field by closing fields because of either a shortage of players or an abundance of dog poop. Football was three complete passes for a first down, back in Chicago Hockey meant climbing through a hole in the fence on a local golf course we would play all the shortened winter day long in a perfectly shaped water hazard hockey rink at about half the scale.

We would use Coke cans packed with ice to mark the goals and would begin heavily overdressed dressed in hats and coats with scarves on. Then as we played slowly the jackets would come off then scarves then hats finely we would end up in blue jeans tee shirts and gloves playing in the twenty-degree weather. I don’t remember winning or losing there were no awards or all stars just kids having a hell of a good time just being kids. Our Mothers would have screamed at our half naked condition our fathers would have just smiled but we all lived to adulthood. No X box or play station could replace that or even come close to imitating it, we weren’t just playing hockey we were learning about getting along in life.

In the summer our hockey arena became a revenue source with mask and swim fins at dawn we dove for golf balls. Funny how I remember the cold of those June mornings in that pond better than I remember the January cold. Retrieval was only half the job before we could take them to the pro shop and cash in, our booty had to be carefully dried each ball as well as the bucket. For some reason the Country Club had gotten the idea that those where their golf balls at the bottom of that pond. They would cock an eye of suspicion at us and wanted our home addresses ostensibly for the voucher if the balls were at all damp or had water in the bottom of the bucket. What video game could teach you about both larceny motive and reading people?

We would take our cash and ride our bicycles twenty miles to Indiana where the forbidden fruit of childhood was sold, Fireworks! So I would stick my head in the house and ask, “Mom can I ride my bike out of state to buy fireworks?” Not! We had to hurry so as not to interfere with mealtime. We crossed the border and headed straight to Injun Joe’s fireworks they had the best prices and asked the least questions. Spending all our money in less than twenty minutes out of state we would begin the return trip laden with childhood gold.

To some of you I’m sure we looked like hellions, that view was not considered far fetched at the time, but we were eleven and twelve year old kids and as I think about it now I shake my head and marvel at our own audaciousness and ambition. To conceive plan prepare and carry out and operation to ride our bicycles out of state forty miles. Children today won’t get up and look for the remote control they will sit on the couch and say, “Mom I’m bored.”

A mistake I only made once, by the time I had finished all the chores given to me I made a vow that I would never ever claim to have even heard of the word boredom. Because we didn’t have video games we had to proactively entertain ourselves and not sit back passively waiting to be entertained. We had to work together compromise and negotiate before we even started our chosen endeavor. I think video games are the worst things to hit childhood since the invention of homework.

Video games are artificial entertainment children learn only how machine works not how humans work.The primary purpose of childhood to learn how the world works and your place in it and to act accordingly, you must deal with the problems as they come there is no reset button on life. We had to deal with fair, foul, off sides, icing, checked swing, we were the players, umpire, referee, line judge, commissioner, navigator, co conspirator, plaintiff and defendant. All these years later I can still remember their names and faces remember our glories and our fiascos. What will the rising generations of youth look back and reminisce about? I wonder where my best friend X box or play station is now?

[monarch]

1. Great post! K & R

[ixion]

2. I have been playing video games since 'pong'

and I've somehow managed to simultaneously maintain a firm grasp of reality.

blaming the video game for personality flaws in some individuals simply doesn't make sense, IMO.

just sayin'...

[Daveparts]

4. I'm not

blaming anyone for anything only trying to make the point. That a generation of children that are imprisioned in the house with only electronic playmates is sad. Not bad or abusive just sad

[Fierce]

3. Read "Last Child in the Woods"

It talks about this exactly. It focuses on the lack of connection kids have with the natural world and the lack of idle free time. It doesn't say video games make you a bad person; it just says you'll miss an awful lot if you play them all the time.

[Marrah_G]

7. Because these days if your kids goes out in the woods and gets lost or hurt...

Then you become a "bad parent" and social services comes in to teach you how to "watch" your children. It's not like when we were kids and we'd leave in the morning and not see home until supper time. If your child did not come home at sunset these days, and you said you hadn't seen your kid since morning and wasn't sure where they were you would get thrown in jail.

[SoCalDem]

13. When I was about 10 three of us girls sneaked away from our girl scout camp

and headed for the stables to ride horses..It was well after midnight.. Did I mention that this was in Panama..and we camped at the edge of the jungle?. We hiked into the jungle on a "shortcut"..promptly got lost, and wandered around until daylight, when we saw high power lines and figured out where we were.. We got back to camp before anyone ever knew we were gone.. :scared:.. Everything in the jungle can "hurt" you, but that night, we all were unscathed..

The odd thing is that we were not really scared.. we were pissed because we had planned to ride horses, but we never did make it to the stable.

[Daveparts]

15. Fun, fun ,fun

I bet you can still smell it and feel it today and name the the girls with you. But what kind of moron lets them sell fireworks a mile from the Boy scout camp in Horseshoe Bend Kentucky, we were ordered home a day early but our bus wouldn't start somehow the coil wire fell off and got lost.

[KoKo]

48. The lack of "natural time" is worrysome. You don't get to observe much

that's real. I don't see any kids playing in their safe fenced back yards or buiding anything anymore in the Suburban Sprawl neighborhood I live in. Many homes already have those expensive Tree Houses with gym and slide attached that I never see a kid playing on.

I don't see little or older kids out doing anything. Maybe where I live in NC is weird..but if you never get out to roll in the grass or lie under a tree and watch the clouds go buy...you aren't going to care much about "Global Climate Change" or endangered species. You are going to figure you can see that stuff on Discovery Channel or maybe in a Game or VR.

Odd times we live in. But, maybe the video games substitute for what's vanishing in ways we just don't know yet. Maybe our brains will rewire and our sensory perceptions will recalibrate without the stimulation of the natural world outside our homes and classrooms.

[symbolman]

5. Great stuff!

ME TOO! Did all those things, LIVED A LIFE.. all the way up through the Tech Bubble :)

I have this running joke, on account of my bored stiff kids. I tell my wife of a day when one of these kids will be in a bar, and some guy will offer to kick their ass (and that's another part of life you don't want to miss), and they'll step outside and say, "Oh man, are YOU going to be sorry.."

And then their thumbs will work furiously in the air at each other :)

Thanks for this, brings back great memories - dozens of kids in a big field playing, Red Rover, kickball, baseball, tag, pickle, all of it..

I've always considered myself a "Home Entertainment Center", look at my kids and tell them, "You may not believe this, but I've never been Bored in my LIFE."

Love going over Mountain passes with them, looking out the window in awe, and then in the back seat, where they had the headphones on, music, and playing some stupid little game where a dot moves around on a two inch screen. I was ready to toss them out, and make them walk home. :)

[Greyhound]

6. I both agree and disagree. It was far better when we were young and

hit the door as soon as we could and didn't come home until the streetlights came on. We ran and played full speed and were incredibly fit, while we learned our lessons, usually the hard way.

It is also true that my parents would probably have been jailed for child abuse when I ran my bicycle straight into a brick wall, opened up my forehead, was taken to the hospital where they stitched me up, and then that very afternoon I did it again. Even back then, the Nurses and Doctor looked askance at my parents but let it go, today the police would surely be called in. Half the shit we did, and everything we got caught doing, would today, mean prosecution and a JD record, whereas then we suffered the ultimate punishment, they called our parents and we were told to never be seen again. We hit each other with rocks or bottle rockets in our "wars", we dug a thoroughly unsafe tunnel in a vacant lot that served as our hide-out, we made a dirt track complete with banked turns and two jumps, which only cost one broken arm in 3 years. We created rolling roadblocks down 17th Ave with our bikes. Most of us had BB-guns and used them constantly and the only serious injury would was Ray's big brother shot him in the arm and the BB was so deep the doctors decided it was safer to leave it in. Hell, we could actually go to the hospital, see a doctor and get patched up, without bankrupting our parents.

I'm not even going to start about what we did as teenagers.

OTOH, there once was a lot for a kid to do, whereas now everything is illegal. Where can kids go to ride their bikes in a thoroughly reckless manner sans helmet, kneepads, elbow pads, and full body armor? We used to tear through the local college campus (Temple Buell then CWC now) cause they had these really smooth, windey, concrete paths, where you could skid a really long way, today the campus police will stop that right away and confiscate your bike. Where are you going to ride your skateboards? Where is a park where you can just start a pick-up game of football, baseball or basketball without a fee, registration, insurance, municipally approved adult supervision, and a reservation six months in advance?

We've made our whole society hostile to rambunctious, loud, violent, smelly, and thoroughly obnoxious, children. So what else is there for them to do?

[Daveparts]

9. Great stuff!

We used to flatten out cans and skid our back tires on them to make the sparks fly out. My bike came off the can and I did a triple summersault over the handlebars landing mercifly on my ankle. My nephews were telling me about riding their bikes down a big hill and they were so excitied about it I didn't ask but I thought to myself were the cops behind you?

[PVnRT]

30. "We" is very appropriate

If by "we" you mean "baby boomers." The baby boomers who wax nostalgic about how great things were in yon olde days when kids were kids and men were men are the same ones who attach a bungee cord to their child that stays attached until they turn 25.

So, please, all of you boomers, spare us your horseshit about how great you are and how inferior we are. You made us. Try taking some fucking responsibility for once in your lives.

[Greyhound]

41. I'm a gen X, so that particular "we" doesn't apply, but I do know that

the experiences I had as a kid cannot be had today in this age of "society knows best" and the "you will do as we say, or we'll ruin your life" state. Everything is illegal and or regulated, and there is no slack anymore.

I don't know where you got any accusation of you or your generation being inferior, I think you attached that all on your own.

[vickitulsa]

55. Sometimes I see it that way too. But hey, it wouldn't be so bad

for younger folks to actually listen to us Boomers once in awhile and at least get a feel for how much more "real" life as a kid can be if you just use some imagination and be creative -- and are willing to get active as hell.

I was a total tomboy, saved my own money earned from doing chores for others (not my folks) and bought my first horse at age eight, and then each one, always a solo, after, over the years. Then I rode as far from the house as I was allowed to engage in all sorts of mild mayhem and total FUN.

My dogs would trail along behind me, and my pals were other kids, not all my age by far, who also rode with me with their dogs trailing behind. We explored a lot further afield than many kids with bikes or only their feet could, and of course we were truly out of sight once our parents let us go that far.

Once I brought a billy goat home, after my friends and I found him loose and bashing his head into the plate glass of the foyer of the bowling alley at the edge of town. I roped him and took him home and put him in the corral with my horse. Dad came home, looked out into the corral, and hollered, "What the HELL is that GOAT doing in the corral?!" He took him in our old jallopy pickup out past the railroad tracks and let him go ... and he chased us for awhile as we pulled away. I cried but I got over it.

After that, I only brought home smaller critters like horny toads or frogs or weird insects. Once a mole got caught above ground during the day and I kept him for awhile. I traded my horny toad for a pigeon this other kid had, and it was cool.

We went fishing with cane poles in small ponds, and we built treehouses in pastures that belonged to we knew not whom, and seldom got thrown out of them. No one ever fell or got badly hurt, nothing more than a rusty nail incident, maybe, and we'd get treated thoroughly by parents.

I was on foot with a friend across the four-lane once, and we came across a farm pond. I was a water baby who would jump into any liquid body deep enough to splash in. I waded out into the pond with my tennis shoes on but couldn't swim worth a damn in them, so I took em off and threw them ashore. Then I stepped on a broken beer bottle in the edge of the pond as I came out, slicing the bottom of my foot enough it had to have five stitches. Sue had to carry me back to her house piggy back!

My mom said I hollered so loud as the doc shot the number into my foot, she wanted to stuff a sock in my mouth!

I didn't get in trouble, though, not really. It was all just growing up, just "kids' stuff," and it was to be expected.

We weren't above sneaking onto others' property, too, but we never did any damage or stole stuff, except for at the salebarn, closed during the week, when we found this big sign above the auctioner's area, a Chevy sign that had all their little car models for that year, about eight inches long, in little boxes behind faded plastic. This was not a NEW sign, it was dusty and you could hardly see the cars. We took a couple of them and treasured them like a pirate's booty.

Sometimes we'd ride our horses into the evening, and drive-in movies back then were just alongside pastures, so we'd ride up in the back and watch the movie from horseback for free!

We'd ride into the parking areas during the day and practice "pole bending" weaving around the speaker poles.

We did have some rodeos for kids in our small OK town, too, and we all rode in the downtown parades, at the end, a ragtag bunch of kids on ponies and mounts of all sizes, some of us bareback and barefoot.

Then we'd do the same at the first night of the rodeo for adults, when they had the "Grand Entry," again at the tail, "riding drag," bringing up the rear and winding around the corners marked by riders with flags in pole-holders on their saddles.

My parents knew quite a lot of what we did, but they didn't object much if at all to most of it.

But there were so many other things we did right in our own yards that kids today could do, also. We played Mother May I? and Red Light, Green Light, and tag and hide n seek, till the cows came home, while parents were cooking out and then making homemade ice cream. We'd make up new games, or play catch or try to get together enough kids for a "real" game of baseball or football. Right in the yards, driveways, and vacant lots within shouting distance of our parents.

I built "obstacle courses" out of scrap lumber with my dad's tools in our back yard, for my dogs to learn to navigate, and I tell ya, they wouldn't have been put to shame by the fancy "agility courses" that dogs run now. I got in trouble (bad trouble) if I left Dad's tools out in the rain or to be hit by his lawnmower, and I learned to be responsible any time I was honored with the trust of using things that belonged to anyone else.

What bothers me most is that the kids of today simply do not get any plain old "play exercise"! They are overweight and sluggish. You can't get em off the couch to go PLAY for anything! They whine and complain about being bored and expect to be taken to Disneyland or at least a local amusement park to be entertained. Nothing wrong with that, it's just that regular old playing in the yard stuff seems to have disappeared.

What I don't disagree with is your remark about how we raised you younger ones, made you what you are. It's sad but true, imo. I didn't get to raise my only child, but I've had a big hand in child-rearing with my brother's kids and neighbors' and friends' kids all my life. I offer them the same or similar sorts of activities I had when I was growing up, and they love it (if I can just get em to TRY it).

I don't think we feel "superior" or like you younger ones are deficient or "bad" in some way. It's just that we regret that you can't and don't have the sorts of wonderful, wild and woolly experiences WE had and benefitted from so much in our childhood years.

We skated on the pond in our neighborhood on the edge of town when the ice froze over hard enough -- but not with actual SKATES, we just wore our winter shoes or boots and slid around, using a can or rock for a hockey puck and tree branches for hockey sticks. No one ever broke through the ice or got hurt.

We tied a HUGE rope to the big cottonwood tree in a neighbor's yard and swung down from the tree on it, perched on the knot tied at the bottom.

Sometimes I wonder at how much things have changed, how little of this sort of FUN kids can have these days. I do all I can do share such types of fun with kids I end up being around, even to this day (and I'm 57!) ... and they come running to my house whenever they see me outside.

I play video games, too -- not bloody ones though, just puzzles and games and jigsaws that help me pass the time I have to spend indoors. I don't have anything against them, was a pong champ from the earliest days of video games. I just wish there were a lot more variety in the way kids "play" these days.

[trumad]

8. Oh Bullshit!

My kids have every game system out there--- XBOX---Playstaion--- Game Cybe--- Wii--- you name it.

But guess what--- they do other things to... sports... ride their bikes.... movies... you name it. Hey they're pretty good at multi-tasking their entertainment.

I hate generational arguments that try and glorify our generation compared with todays generation. Ya can't put it back in a bottle---it aint gonna happen. I think the kids today are fantastic and think they'll be far more Progressive than their parents.

Question: If our old school generation was so great, then how the fuck have we ended up fucking up our environment and our country? I contend that our generation is far worse than todays.

[Daveparts]

10. I'm fifty years old

and I bet I can out run them

[trumad]

16. why--- because you played stick ball as a kid?

too funny.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

24. I bet you could out churn butter too.

Or whatever the hell it was you did when you were a kid.

Me? I'm a lot older that you, and I play video games.

Do you know what the average age of video gamers is? It's thirty. If anybody's out of touch, it's not video game players.

Why don't you go on a rant about people who play Monopoly or something.

[Daveparts]

37. I Never Churned Butter But I can

guess what you practiced with.Why the outrage? Do you think elctronic babysitters a superior method of childrearing. I'm not against video games I play them myself I also see the school bus come and drop the kids off that don't come back out of the house. I'm talking about some kids not all kids, not everyone got cancer from smoking so is smoking alright?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

38. Oh, so you play video games yourself, eh?

Hmmmm...

[YOY]

40. So you play video games?

Whatcha playing right now?

Just curious.

Like the smoking comparison...except the studies have actually show that smoking is dangerous whereas video games...meh...not so much.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

42. He's playing Phony Outrage 3 on his DUbox.

When he could be outside running around in the yard.

[YOY]

43. I was thinking maybe "Jack Thompson's Strawman 2, Ravin' Republicans"

n/t

[bleedingheart]

12. my brother-in-law hates when old folks tell him how corrupt today's generation is

and he always replies...

"well let us see...your generation saw the rise of Hitler and Stalin and wouldn't let black folks drink out of your water fountains..oh yeah...we are so corrupt today..."

[trumad]

17. My generation--- the sixites and seventies---spawned Neo-Cons.

and George fucking--W. Bush.

[Greyhound]

14. Will you buy me a Play Station 3?

:rofl:
I don't think it was our generation (assuming we're in the same one) that did all this. I know I've never had any say in how our society works, in fact I've hated it all my life, but ya gotta eat, ya know. Following the Boomers has meant I've had to live on their scraps and bow to their rules, so I won't accept any blame for a situation that I had nothing to do with creating.
:kick:

[Tektonik]

25. agreed

this post is unadulterated horse shit

[Gelliebeans]

69. I agree with you

My kid has all of those systems also and he skateboards and plays hockey. In fact he and his friends have a fort outside and use their imaginations to the fullest.

Multi-tasking is the key and that is what our children are learning to do. You are so right about selective memories when it comes down to generational arguments, "I remember when..." or "Things were so much better when...".

I wonder if it occurs to people that back then we didn't know about all the rotten things other kids did because we didn't have access to those statistics and a 24 hour news cycle to report from every corner of the globe? The internets have made this big wide world smaller and more compact.

:shrug:

[bleedingheart]

11. I think the big problem is Air Conditioning

when I was a kid very few people had it.

Most of us had big fans and even then the houses were hot during the day...

So it was far better to be outside than inside.

Today it is the reverse...the inside stays temperate and the kids will gravitate toward the indoors as well as parents.

In addition, it is also related to parenting. If the parents are not outdoors...the kids will follow that example.

Yesterday was the first gorgeous day of Spring...my entire family was outside. Here and there my kids would go inside to get a drink or relax a bit...but they were outside most of the day playing with their toys, bikes..etc

Most people were not outside ...why..?

Now I did see some folks do some yardwork but a lot of them were out for a bit and then went directly back in? Who am I to judge? People have more options today...

[NashVegas]

49. Interesting - A Study Last Winter Linked Air Conditioning to Overweightedness

But for different reasons, saying that the body didn't have to work to regulate itself.

http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Diet/story?id=2120381&page=1

[gatorboy]

18. Not to mention you guys using your legs to run all those cars.

And the brontosaurus burgers? Heaven!


Good times, good times....

[MedleyMisty]

19. What is it that old people have against video games?

Seriously. I grew up playing them. I still play them. Along with a lot of my friends. Everyone is fine. It's just a hobby like any other hobby. Yeah, some people get addicted, but being addicted to WoW or Everquest is no different from being addicted to the internet in general or to porn or to anything else like that.

I am an adult now. And even when I was a kid, the only rule I had was a bedtime up until around sixth grade. I didn't even have a curfew as a teen. I was not overly sheltered and smothered. Anyway, I choose to stay inside and play The Sims or Oblivion or Final Fantasy or Dragon Warrior or whatever because, and I know this may be hard to understand, it is fun. It is something that some people choose to do for fun in their free time. That's it.

Pick up a few games and play some yourself before running around screaming that they're the cause of the end of civilization. Isn't that what your parents said about Elvis?

[TransitJohn]

21. As an aside...

...isn't Oblivion a gorgeous game?

[trumad]

22. Exactly

I'm 49 years old and I hold my own against my kids and their friends when we play Halo 2. Here's the thing that non-gmaers have no clue about about. Gamers get bored of playing video games. Non-gamers think that all players play 24x7. LOL It's like anything--- after a while of playing something--- you lose a bit of interest and move on to other things. I-Pods, Roller blading, YouTube... whatever.

My kids don't play that much during the week because they're swamped with homework---- by the time they're done, it's dinner and family time around the TV until we go to bed.

On the weekends, they may have friends over and might play 2 hours at the most on a Saturday or a Sunday. Oh sure there are kids and adults who play far more than that---BUT... not me--- not my kids, or their friends. AND I suspect that's the norm for game players.

Non-gamers simply don't know what the fuck they are talking about and I'm sick and tired of them acting like they are experts on video game behavior.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

32. Because it is a very convenient scapegoat; it can't fight back very well.

The parents don't want to admit that they bought the system for their children.
The parents don't want to admit that they find it a convenient babysitter.
The parents don't want to admit that they allow the children to sit in front of the set and play the games for hours on end.
The parents don't want to admit that they've done this, so they point the shaking finger at the video game console and scream "How dare you!!!"

Here's a hint I wish more parents would take to heart: the console has an off switch. Use it.

And I thought Elvis did bring about the end of civilization. Or was that The Beatles? :shrug:

[Beelzebud]

44. I remember when Dungeons and Dragons was destroying our youth.

Then it was Heavy Metal music!

Now it's rap music and video games.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

51. Aaaah! Thems Dungeons 'n' Draguns is the debbil's work!!!

:evilgrin:
Ahh, the 80's.
Wait...they're still blaming D&D!!!: http://www.adequacy.org/stories/2001.8.1.165438.1158.html

Some of the comments are hilarious, some are insightful as to the errors in the original post, and a few are insensitive, unfortunately.
Granted, this was apparently posted in 2001, but it's interesting to note that people are still blaming D&D for these things because
they don't want to admit that they might have done something wrong. The parents might not have made any horrendous mistakes,
but blaming things that can't fight back is much easier than looking inward.

Edited for clarity.

[nadinbrzezinski]

61. I had a lady tell me this as I was writing an article for Kenzer

at a store

I had all them main books out... players, dmg, monster manual, manual of the planes (that one was the worst ofender)

And she kept ranting and raving, and for god sakes I NO LONGER look like a kid.

So after half an hour of having biblical quotes (that were not, I have read the dang thing a couple times over) and a bible waggled at me, I got sick and tired. I looked her in the eye and said

"Look lady I'm going to hell anyway..."

You could see the jaw hit the floot

"you see, I'm jewish, now buzz off before I call the cops since you are verbablly assaulting me."

I didn't know a seventy somehting could move THAT FAST

Oh and that happened in Hawaii four yaers ago.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

33. Hey, don't blame old people.

I'm older than he is, and I play video games.

[Forkboy]

54. Yeah but Cacoon the Video Game doesn't count.

:evilgrin:

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

62. Listen, son...

If you want, we could step inside and go a few rounds of Fight Night Round 3.

I can stick to Marquis of Queensbury rules, if you don't mind getting whupped by an old fart.

[Forkboy]

70. Hey,that's the first time I've ever been asked to step INSIDE.

:D

[Phoonzang]

34. Amen!

Sure people can get addicted to video games. People can also get addicted to doing things that anti-video game Luddites consider living the "real life". I have a friend whose father is addicted to Tennis and is obsessed with it so much he neglects his family.

You made a good point about being fun. Maybe some people found it fun to run around in the forest and get covered in ticks when they were kids, but technology has evolved and there are new forms of entertainment. People who hate video games have no idea of the complexity or the intellectual value of many games. They're all not like Doom.

[TransitJohn]

20. Dude....nice post.

I've been thinking along those same lines for a while.....especially as a parent of a delightful intelligent 11 year old. I try to manufacture experiences for her that will provide some spark....ersatz as it may be, I try.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

23. Sheesh.

And you accuse people who play video games with having no anchor in reality.

Oh, the irony.

[PVnRT]

26. Would it be ironic

for me, a Gen X-er who plays video games, holds a master's in chemical engineering and has a stable job, to be married in June, to list all of the various grammatic and spelling errors in this post by a supposedly superior baby boomer?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

27. Ironic?

No, I think they call that poetic justice.

The ironic part is how he's sitting in his house by himself staring at a video monitor.

[SteelPenguin]

64. No no no

Apparently, he's sitting at the window watching the neighbor's kids get off the school bus, followed by watching their houses for signs of their children coming out the rest of the night.

If that doesn't sound creepy and out of touch with reality...

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

67. LOL

[Blue-Jay]

50. No, that wouldn't be ironic.

Irony is a different thing.

[YOY]

52. Shhhhhhh...

He's on a Mr. Benchley kick.

Let him enjoy the moment of ridiculous thought of us being incompetent children who live in our parents' basement and twiddle joysticks 24-7 instead of functional beneficial members of society.

[Hong Kong Cavalier]

53. Hah!

I almost miss the "twiddle you joysticks" comments...

[YOY]

58. RIP Benchley...

and know that I will always remember your poor debating, insane Lieberman support, and the fact that every time I saw your name I thought of shark meat.

[Forkboy]

28. That's an awful lot of writing for such a silly point.

[omega minimo]

66. Try imagining it as a voiceover from "The Wonder Years"

The anti- "PC"and "blame the mother" crap is distracting, but the point isn't silly.

It's sunshine folks. Outdoors. RE-ality. Bricks and mortar and bicycles and ponds and fireworks. People n' stuff. Communicating.

[ComerPerro]

29. the "prayer in schools" crowd uses a very similar argument

[treestar]

31. My nephews have those, but they still spend every minute they can

outside. You have to drag them into the house at night.

[SmokingJacket]

35. It's one of the reasons I'm moving out into the country.

I want my kids to be able to run around and experience nature without having to take a field trip to do it.

My kids don't have video games but they're drawn to the computer like a moth to flame, and who can blame them. And I think it's mostly fine, but I think they should ALSO have real experiences, not just technological ones.

[Jcrowley]

36. K&R

[porphyrian]

39. Yeah, you're old.

I can't wait until I can't understand what young people do so I can say they're wrong for it.

No anchor in reality my ass.

[misanthrope]

45. Good post!**nm

**

[NashVegas]

46. The Flight to Suburbia Had More Impact Than Video Games, IMO

Until age 11 I lived in a small city alongside the Hudson River. We had great playgrounds, with plenty of grass to run around on, within easy walking distance no matter what neighborhood you lived in and quite often, organized activities to go with them. Baseball, kickball, wiffle & dodgeball, arts & crafts. Basketball, tennis, too.

We knew our neighbors. Young and old. We helped the widow down the street with her yardwork, for a small fee. We played ball with children both older and younger than us. We tried to be as patient with those who were younger, as the older were, with us.

We had beaches on the river and we could get there in a short walk. And we had sidewalks to help us safely get to where ever we were going.

Oh, there was plenty of danger to be had, some for the better, some for the worse.

Better: you break a window playing baseball, and lose the next several weeks of your allowance to pay for it, along with having your dad march you to the neighbor's door for an apology.

Worse: child molesters, whose activities were never spoken of.

When we moved to the suburbs, just about all of that was gone. There were no playgrounds, so we made our own, on a vacant lot. But when all the vacant lots were gone - no playground. That left us the street where we got tons of abrasions from the asphalt.

With no sidewalks, we carved out a trail system in the woods for easy transport but again, when there were no more vacant lots, access to the trails was cut off (unless you wanted to trespass).

Is it any wonder that we turned to alcohol and drugs at such an early age?

Is it any wonder that video games became so appealing?

[semillama]

47. It's not the video games but the modern suburban environment

Look at these manufactured communities with their tiny saplings and barren yards. No where to go, nothing to do outside except ride your bikes in circles.

I grew up with Intellivision, nintendo and Sega Genesis. I still spent more time on my bike than on a video game.

Now I have a shiny new Xbox 360. Saturday I spent about 9 hours birdwatching and two hours playing Dead Rising. I also tried to come up with some drafts for wedding vows.

Your post is a nice little just-so story that has no basis in reality.

[slampoet]

56. We got trouble Right here in River City!!

Here in Rhode Island we have the world's longest continuous operating penny arcade at Spring Lake. For the first 50 of the 75 years the owner has been open, they have been being threatened with closure as a public nuisance.


Do i really need to resurrect the articles from 1953 saying how this artificial entertainment IS CORRUPTING THE LIVES OF OUR YOUTH?

I BLAME PINBALL!

(Now do you see how silly and ignorant you sound?)






The fact is that EVERY time the youth population swells to a certain percentage of the total population, the authorities try to illegalize normal teenage behavior.



Or haven't you wondered why 90% of the behavior in "Dazed and Confused" will get a kid JAIL TIME today. Not just harassed by the cops.

Kids today can't go outside without being bothered by the cops. In my neighborhood i have had to talk to the mayor just to get the police to back off harassing a 12 year old boy who is being raised by his mother and Great-Grandmother.

The cops actually thought this kid was using his paper route to do some crime even though the cops couldn't say WHAT CRIME. Eventually one of the officers involved was convicted of beating his wife and kids. So I guess we see how superior his generation is eh?


The fact is Generation Bigots will always use technology as a divider because that is the only thing that differs.

Old people always want to feel morally superior.


My input is that if you don't like this upcoming generation then Stop having them pay your social security and also STOP STAYING ALIVE ON THEIR DONATED ORGANS.

[YOY]

60. Well then you better pay the...

[indie_voter]

57. I'm 43. I got on line when I was 17

I played ascii star trek, adventure, etc. I reminisce about the games, the technology back then, and how much it's changed.

I see the games my kids play and I wonder what their kids games will be like.

My kids play computer games, board games, are on-line, run around with their friends in the park, etc.

Things change. Things changed a lot in the 80s, and is changing even more rapidly with the im'ng etc. I don't think there is anything wrong with any of this stuff done in moderation.

I had a well rounded late teens, even though I was on the computer a lot, I witnessed the early days of Usenet and the explosion of newsgroups which followed, I consider myself very lucky I had that front row seat.

My kids see a different 'net, live in a different environment than I did, but I don't think it is worse(well politically it is, but not technologically). I think they will have fond memories of whatever they loved from childhood. Not everybody enjoys the same things.

[nadinbrzezinski]

59. and antoher great example of tribal thinking

1.- the average of video game players is not fifteen but thrity two... if your math is good enough, (and I suspect it should since they made you do math back then) you will realize that IS the median, so how many of the people your age are right now playing Simm City?

2.- The average age for role players is 33, read above

Next, I will use my niece as an example... why not, I have done that repeatedly. As much as she plays video games (and she is probably what you envision as a gamer she also plays competively mind you, soccer. In fact, I doubt you could outrun her... and she is close to making it to a national team (junior and all but you get the picture)

So them sweeping generations can go you know where

Oh and as to artifical, as I said yesterday in another thread, at one time Patrician kids got Gladiuses to play with... then the kids of the Empire got toy lead soldiers to play on sand tables, neither of them was really real, both were play pretend... today in many ways it is the same shit, different technology

[blues90]

63. Sad part is , now the computer world is the job world

Unless you want to do blue collar jobs americans don;t want even if you could find one that paid enough to live on . So now kids don't look toward physical work and the job market has almost banned this work .

I am old enough , plenty old enough to remember the times you speak of and I miss them .

[AngryAmish]

65. We had an onion on our belt, because that was the fashion at the time...

[SteelPenguin]

68. Don't confuse technology with culture

The problem isn't the x-box, it's the family culture, or parents, that encourage such behavior. It's also not as common as the media would have you believe.

Yes, there are children today suffering, or will some day suffer, severe repercussions from having no 'reality' to use your term, growing up. They'll have no real memories aside from making level 53 by turning in that one quest in Orgrimmar. It will cause them serious and ongoing issues. The key thing to remember though is these are a vast minority of kids, and they're not the first generation to suffer.

My generation, X, had games come into the equation later on, but for most of us, it wasn't games, it was television that was the issue. My wife was a borderline sufferer from this. She watched way too much television growing up and now has relatively little 'memories' of her youth aside from it. SHe would watch hours a day. Oh sure she DID go out and do things, especially when she got a little bit older, but most of her early childhood is now a blur to her. This was caused primarily through a cultural means, not the television.

Like the new generation, the gamebox isn't the problem, nor is the television. The problem is the family culture and parents, who didn't limit their children's indoor time. We had a television and an early computer growing up (interestingly we got our first computer a TRS-80 when we were breifly living as you did on the edge of civilization in Dallas). I loved both, and first learned to program on the TRS-80 but oh how I loved it and the Apple 2 for their games. I also loved the TV, cartoons, primetime. Yet my parents limited me. At first it was hours per day, but I got them to adjust that to per week (this was before TIVO) and I would get the TV Guide and block out what I was going to watch that week, and when I would spend time on the computer. I stole wood from building projects with my friends to build a fort, and walked the one nearly dry creek bed, looking for Armadillos. The games didn't ruin me as I had parents who taught me to do everythign in moderation.

For previous generations it was tv, or music, or books, or whatever, but the awkward kid who never leaves his house other than for school wasn't invented in the past 50 years. the X-Box didn't make these kids, it's just giving them another outlet.

A better one too, I'd say. With today's MMO's they actually interact with other people, granted digitally, but rather than TV or a book...they're communicating with other people. Interacting. Working together. It's different from stealing wood from a house under construction and building a fort, but if you're doing it with your friends, and you're accomplishing something, isn't it the memory that is still formed?

In conclusion to hit a couple other points...

I think you need to meet some more kids. In my neighborhood the kids are active. Sure there is one girl a few houses up that we were surprised to see actually lived there, but for the most part the kids are always out, weather permitting. They're walking around. Riding Bikes. Playing hockey in the street on their rollerblades (quite an accomplishment on our hilly street let me tell you) running up in the woods behind our houses building forts and what not, going to or coming from soccer practice, softball practice, school, community fairs...I could go on. Honestly, the people who need to get out more are the older people, the baby boomer generation, and the gen x'ers with newer kids.

I'm too busy playing World of Warcraft though. At least after my two kids go to bed.