Now that we are home, I play games, and I love it!
I have had a great relationship with games since childhood, whenever I am not travelling, I play games.
I remember seeing “it” for the first time. Our teacher had taken us to a “lab” at school which was connected to a TV. TV in my childhood only had a single broadcasting state channel, it was not a Saturday morning as we were at school, so no Goofy or Daffy Duck cartoons to watch – what could that TV be used for now? “Why are we here ?” Some machine started working and we saw huge pixels of a guy on a bike and we were supposed to lead him up an alley trying not to get thrown off the bike by obstacles that came down raining (2D gaming is actually a background sliding/raining towards your protagonist, but that’s another story). I immediately fell in love with what I was experiencing. That was an Amiga or a Commodore – I don’t remember exactly and that was almost 30 years ago. And guess what? I still game on 😀
How gaming started
Machines that you could program whatever you want them to were poised to become gadgets of entertainment and from Bertie the Brain that needed the author to design a computer specifically for it, the Cyberpunk 2077 hype train that crashed into overblown promises and short-term gain targets of investors, the video game industry has been advancing in the rate our computers do. Games are how the offspring discover themselves and get ready for the experience outside the nest and video games are no different. They even got use as simulators to get astronauts, pilots, soldiers get ready as best as it could before reality hits the fan. They improve coordination, quick-thinking, analytical abilities, reflexes and even social skills as they weave an “unconventional” web of friendship among co-playing participants. Remember the nerd who used to build a website while you were dating girls? Well, you’re the same age now and balding now, doing a 8-17 routine to survive while his app is on 1M download and girls are dating him, LOL. It’s a new age, bud.
Video games are not that bad
Anyway, there has always been an ongoing debate on whether video games affect the young in a psychologically deviative way, as in “playing those horrible violent games will dull your senses and make you an aggressive sociopath later on”. Nope, they don’t. According to a study published on Cyberpsychology, Behavior and Social Networking journal participated by some 500 adolescents at the beginning and the end of 10 years of their gaming of violent games at varying rates, and there was no difference in the rate of aggressive behavior at the final point between those played low violence games and those that preferred very violent ones.
This topic will not be put to rest anytime soon though. Anything that was not there some 20 years ago and was totally absent for a generation into the late years of its lifetime is disturbing. Television, video games, internet, you name it. Somebody will always find evil in the new, the old will always loathe the young. I even read such whining from Ancient Greek times. The old just don’t die. 😀
This is not to say that you can’t die gaming. Getting stuck with your body immobile for hours could easily produce a clot getting you a stroke or a cardiac arrest which will prove debilitating under the most optimistic circumstances plus training your body and shifting your focus will always make you a healthier person, both in body and in mind.
We’ll continue talking on the subject.
Star Tuned…
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