When I was a teenager (during the '80s) I spent most of my weekday nights reading and/or writing. I went into this because I just felt so uncomfortable in life, and needed the escapism. - Of course, the reading and writing them thousand nights has served me later in life.
If a was a teenager today, I would probably have “escaped” through computer games instead, when everybody else were asleep, because I love any type of gaming, and it’s so much easier to double-click an icon and instantly lose yourself in them games, than to begin reading the thousand page novel, boring Chapter 1, or the history book, or biography, or whatever, or struggle with your own novel.
I’ve been thinking that in a way I probably was lucky not to have access to all these fancy games (I play today now and then), because I would never have read all those books if I had, or wouldn’t had nursed my talent as a writer. (No comments - english is not my native language, mind you.)
I’m not scared or very troubled by the idea, and do certainly not think that “those were the days” (they definitely were not), but does this make anybody else ponder on the… well, education of future generations? Personally, I’m not sure what I think.
Both my daughters read and game, it’s about 50-50. New book more reading, new game more gaming. They both keep busy with other stuff as well, one plays premier league soccer the other does competitive dance. I’m not worried about the time they spend gaming. On the other hand, I had to take a break from gaming (15 months now), spending 20+ hours a week with EQ2 took it’s toll on my social life.
I probably read far more now that I would have pre-computers but the difference is that now the vast bulk of my reading comes from the internet and not books. I’m an obsessive checker of reddit and I devour news on my PDA. Not to mention these forums of course. I would wager the average number of words read per day for teenagers is going up, not down.
Kids might miss out on books, but it’s not to say that games won’t provide its own kind of stimulation. I’ve learned a lot about basic economics and human nature in the years I’ve been playing MMOs, things you can’t learn from books (unless they’re books about economics or human nature). I would only care about my hypothetical kids’ gaming if it interfered with their schoolwork, social life, and other responsibilities.
I’m sure there was a generation of parents that pondered book reading vs. playing outside or doing chores or whatever the heck it was that preceded reading.
Y’know, everyone wants to make a big deal out of reading, but what people miss is that the type of book you read is important. Sure, “War and Peace” is going to give you more than the equivalent amount of time levelling up that half-elf rogue. But I know there were a lot of books I read as a kid/teen that were no more good for me than a video game, and less good than some games.
we’;re all big readers (I rarely game – I don’t need another black hole for my time). MilliCal has recently discovered computer games – mostly simulation games and ones where you take care of animals, but she still reads voraciously.
Well, I’ll step in to express my anecdotal WAG that a significant increase in gaming over reading, or reading of primarily computer content and text messaging instead of books and magazines, can have an undesireable effect on young adults’ ability to express themselves clearly in writing. And I’m enough of an old fogey to believe that the ability to express thoughts/argument clearly and convincingly in writing will continue to be a useful skill for some time in the future.
As a parent, I’ll also observe the obvious that there is absolutely no difficulty in limiting the amount of time a kid spends gaming.
Well, I’m not a parent but I can relate my personal experience as someone who was not allowed to game (unless is was educational) with someone who grew up gaming all he wanted (my husband).
As I said, I had a computer (an Apple IIGS!) but was only allowed to play educational games or, if they weren’t educational, I had to play them with a parent so it was quality time. My husband, on the other hand, had a gaming system and was allowed to play whatever he wanted. I was also read to often by my parents and encouraged to write. Dad and I often sat around the kitchen table at night writing stories. I grew up an avid reader who did very well in school and went on to major in English lit in college. I write for a living and read every day. My husband does not read or write well. He did not do well in school early on but it was later discovered that he had ADD. After that he got Bs-Cs. He reads about things that interest him and have to do with his hobbies but will not sit down and read a novel. He is the more mechanically inclined and can generally take apart/rebuild/build anything. He often asks me how to spell things when he’s online because he has no sense of how things are spelled. He’s very smart in many other ways. He went to carpentry school but is currently in sales.
I do enjoy gaming now, especially the Sims 2 and games like Zelda. However, I suck at most games and it takes me a really long time to get through them. I do very well at word and puzzle games though. I always tell my parents it’s their fault that I go online and play word games. My husband kicks ass at whatever games it is he plays on Xbox.
I’m sure there are a lot of other factors that went into making us the way we are, but I think it’s interesting to look at the contrast between the two of us. Neither of us turned out badly by any means.
I have three adult children–two daughters, 23 and 22; and a step-son, 20–and they all read and gamed when they were younger.
They all still read for pleasure and to learn more about their interests and they still game; I’d say Kyle doesn’t game as much as the girls because he is too busy doing other things and the girls tend to hang at home more for various reasons–and that’s where the games and books are.
As long as there is a balance, and you’ve managed to convince your kid that reading can be done for fun, I think they’ll be fine. If your kid hates reading, he or she won’t read. Instead, he or she will find some other outlet, whether it is sports, fishing, crafting…you know, the things that non-readers did before computer games.
I had one of the first pong machines when I was 8 years old. Stayed for hours in the arcades, and had more game systems than I now remember. From 13-onward I had a succession of arcade machines in my bedroom (Asteroids, Battlezone, Gravitar).
Never kept me from reading though, nor from acing any reading proficiency tests the school threw at me. As an adult I read far more than most people: when my wife asked for a good formula for buying books for me, I told her my favorite books are “more than an inch thick, with 6-point font, and very few pictures.” For example, Cities in Civilization. Nearly four pounds, 1,200 pages, and wordy as all hell. A lovely, lovely book, it has everything I need in a piece of non-fiction.
I also write a lot too, but most of it work-related and with a lot of pictures. I might like big blocks of text personally, but when you’re writing manuals for a program you’re developing, screenshots, simple sentences and short paragraphs are the order of the day.
