I was about four years old when my parents brought home my family’s first computer. A Tandy 2000 from Radio Shack. A complete joke by today’s standards but state-of-the-art for the mid-80’s.
It was supposed to be a business machine for my father but as with many who get their first computer, my parents developed a bit of a video game habit and I quickly latched on as well.
However, my parent’s taste ran more towards adventure games like King’s Quest which were mostly, if not all, text-based. For a four-year-old who was just learning his ABCs, this posed a slight problem. I had to learn to read.
And so I sat down, doing my best to sound out the words on the screen, frequently asking my parents what the feedback the game was giving me meant (and picking up proper pronunciations from them) so I could slog my way through the quests.
So, what was the result of spending so many hours in front of a screen immersed in virtual adventures? Did I slack off on what little homework could be given in kindergarten? Did I become obese?
Neither. Instead I entered the first-grade able to read at an adult level (and somewhat underweight, I might add.)
Why am I relating this story now? Well, it’s a response to a column in yesterday’s National Post by Father Raymond J. De Souza.
He recounts his own addiction to Tetris the detrimental effect it had on his grades to explain why parents should never let their kids play video games.
Video games are like a black hole into which time disappears. Students today often confess to wasting a couple of hours a day on them. Corporate Canada likely loses whole weeks of productive work to those who are playing games at work. Video games have some kind of addictive allure that means any number of hours is not enough. It is always possible to play again — to rise to that “next level” which somehow acquires near-mystical importance. They are the crack cocaine of the electronic world.
With all due respect to the man, I thoroughly disagree with his assessment that video games are the “crack cocaine” of the electronic world.
Now, I’m not implying that I’d be illiterate if not for the video games. But I wouldn’t have excelled the way I had without that driving force and being able to read at an advanced level probably did mold my early love of books.
Admittedly, I have had many hours disappear into a black hole playing games. Okay, so I’ve probably lost several days at a time into a black hole. But I’ve also lost many hours reading Tom Clancy novels which contain far worse examples of “graphic violence, multifarious delinquency and borderline pornography,” that Father De Souza decries in video games. Yet it’s a more respectable activity, since I’m reading a book.
It does make me sad that the majority of games these days have replaced text with (usually horrible) voice acting so they may not be helping as many kids learn to read, but there are still lessons to take away from them.
Even Tetris.
I’m probably the worst Tetris player around, but many of my friends who’ve spent too many hours playing it are quite proficient. They’re the first people I call when I move into a new place, since they also seem to know how make all my furniture fit properly.
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