Games are good for you
OPINION
Parents and politicians have always thought games were mediums of entertainment that destroyed a teenager's brain from the inside out. Instead, try this reality on for size: not only are games not bad for you, they're good for you.
A parent's nightmare? Absolutely. But it shouldn't be. Trust me. I'm a teenage gamer, and I know.
Halo 3 is the latest iteration of the conventional wisdom--an anarchic, twitch-speed shooter. People die gruesome and (depending on your point of view) hilariously over-the-top deaths. Cars crash or explode in gigantic balls of fire. Played out to a pounding heavy metal sound-track that would not be out of place at a rave, Halo is the embodiment of all that is wrong with today's youth and our gaming culture.
Right? So wrong. Parents should beware of Halo. After all, it is what it is. But mom and dad, it would be sad if you let this turn you off the wonders of our fast-growing video game culture. Instead, try this reality on for size. Contrary to popular belief among parents and politicians, not only is gaming not bad for you, it's good for you.
For as long as I can remember, video games have been thought to be childish or brain-rotting, at best. This may have been true in the 70s to mid-80s. But with the ever-growing power of computing and 3D graphics, video games have evolved to become a medium that challenges people to think outside the box.
Gruesome as it may be, Halo is an example. You can't go in with guns blazing and expect to win. You need to think. To win at this game, you need to plan your way through a difficult maze of challenges, anticipate what your enemy will do next, and map out strategies many moves in advance. It is not all about how fast your fingers are. It's about strategic thinking and planning--the very things that games are supposed to destroy in teenagers.
A far better example is Nintendo's Legend of Zelda. At its lowest levels, this game has been about going from dungeon to dungeon, solving sophisticated puzzles. You might fight a battle here and there. But the real test is wit. In Zelda's world, the clever inherit the earth, not the strongest or fastest.
Some of my favorite games are titles such as Warcraft. Dare I say it? They are a test of, well, patience. To win, you need a magic sword. To get it, however, you need to make it. That means digging up iron ore and other materials. For that you need miners. Miners means finding a labor supply, including highly skilled blacksmiths. None of them work for minimum wage, which means you also need economic wealth to pay them. Getting a sword, in other words, requires you to build whole industries out of what begins as a daisy field.
Here too, success in this game requires players to multi-task. If you do everything step-by-step, it will take much longer to craft that sword. While your miners are doing their thing, you need to have your smithy getting his tools ready. You need to manage your money to afford better tools and speed up manufacturing. It's slow, painstaking work, requiring a lot of attention to detail but offering a strong sense of accomplishment at the end. Parents would call it deferred gratification.
This isn't an entirely new idea. The new media guru Steven Johnson wrote a book called ''Everything bad is Good for You.'' More recently, a new ''serious games'' movement has emerged as a force for social good, with games like ''A Force More Powerful'' that teaches students in autocratic societies how to overthrow dictators.
Then there are the many educational games, from the old Reader Rabbit series to the newer Brain Age franchise. These games are designed to improve players' memory, visual processing, and math skills through repeated play. Nintendo, the developer of Brain Age, also recently introduced Flash Focus, a game that improves player's eye sight through a variety of visual tasks. If most parents have not yet caught on to the phenomenon, the U.S. military has. America's Army is a multi-player online shooter, developed by the army for recruiting young gamers. While it doesn't exactly teach problem-solving skills, it has become a useful tool for teaching new recruits common army tactics through a familiar medium.
So, parents, as you apprehensively put those presents under the tree, think on all this and be happy. Amid the blasts and zany bings and bongs of the sound-track, your kids are thinking, not merely twitching. You've given a gift that grows.