It’s that time of year again: a major publication has decided that children play a lot of games, and this time it’s a COVID-flavored special, courtesy of the New York Times, designed to make parents feel guilty about letting their kids play energetically. video game after spending all day stuck in school online.
I will not pretend that video games are actually Perfect, although it is tempting to go on defense here. There are many predatory practices in games, such as microtransactions and game mechanisms that can easily seduce children to become addicted. In addition, the past two generations – those who grew up with technology – are so used to everything being displayed on a screen that we often struggle to be alone for any length of time without one in front of us. Yes, we all take our phones to the bathroom. Yes, we play Switch on the couch while watching movies. Can you blame us? Technology is so delicious and life so short.
But I want these publications to take into account the children’s point of view. They are bored! They’re trapped inside! They miss their friends! Where is the empathy for this generation of children who are spending a significant proportion of their lives in a global pandemic, where nothing they do is right, learning is almost impossible and governments continue to rewrite the rules?
Honestly, if I had been a child during all of this, I would have been in turmoil.
It is not a very hyperbolic statement when I say that video games have kept me sane during all of this. If this pandemic had happened during the early 2000s, I would have only contacted my friends via MSN Messenger, limited to small text explosions and withered rose emoji spam to symbolize how sad we went. I would have my tiny Game Boy Advance game library to entertain myself. I probably would have read more books, but it would be books that I had read before, anyway.
In 2020, I can ping my friends on Discord and run in a virtual world with them in minutes.
The NYT article refers to the increase in online use, being associated with anxiety, depression, obesity and aggression, which – in my experience – may be true. Getting on Twitter makes me anxious. Trying to win a difficult platform game, like Guacamelee or Ori and the Blind Forest, makes me stressed. Playing all day and not leaving the house makes me fat.
Do you know what else is true? Relaxing with Hades helps me actively when I’m anxious, because it gives me something to focus on. Playing Ring Fit Adventure every morning not only helps me stay in shape, it makes me actively I want to go out and do more exercises. Streaming games helps me feel less alone in a pandemic in which I am separated from almost all my friends.
A few weeks ago, on New Year’s Eve, I played Among Us for the first time with a group of friends. I haven’t seen them in a year and a half – they live in England, I live in Canada and we are in a pandemic, so taking flights across the ocean for a cup of tea and chatting is frowned upon.
Now, I never killed any of those friends on a real-life spaceship, so accept that with a pinch of salt, but when we’re playing together, it feels a lot like going out. Even when these games are about cheating and lying (which I did very successfully, by the way). We also play Dungeons and Dragons together, watch Bridgerton together and play cooperative games like Animal Crossing and PHOGS!, When we can find time. I don’t feel trapped in a house, on the other side of the sea, without being able to go out – I feel that I have a rich life (although virtual).
My partner and I spent most nights in front of a screen. Sometimes we do puzzles while watching a movie; sometimes we play Final Fantasy VII Remake together; we sometimes gather some friends to destroy each other in Puyo Puyo Tetris. The secret is moderation – we also cook together, take walks in the city and eat most of the dinner at the table. We even banned phones at bedtime, so instead we read or talk. This balance was achieved with difficulty and we slipped a lot. But when we lived apart during the first months of the pandemic, we would play Minecraft to hours together. That time was no less of a high quality than the time we spent without a screen. The game enriched our lives and our relationship, and life would be very different without it.
Seeing a lot of children getting more and more depressed and worried during a unprecedented global pandemic, and then blaming the so-called depression in the game – its only release, and perhaps its main form of socialization – is cruel and unfair, and comes from a point of fear for what we don’t understand.
I grew up with games. I understand your fascination and its dangers. I’m not going to pretend to know anything about parenting, because I’ve never had a child (even though I’ve already been one), so I’m not going to lecture anyone about raising children. I know these plays are written for exasperated parents, who want their fears confirmed when their child is having a tantrum over the wi-fi being turned off. Got it.
But children are also people. They are lonely, they are probably scared and they want a way to escape for a while. Do you remember how stressful it was to be a child? It doesn’t seem like much to adults, who have real responsibilities and jobs, but having to go to school every day is wayyyy more expensive than most jobs, where you can basically do what you’re good at and get paid for. There are social dynamics to navigate, basic human functions to discover and the horrible and vague threat of puberty, all while trying to remember when Henry VIII died. Wouldn’t you like to play at the end of that too?
Yes, we all preferred the kids to be out and about, running, making friends and sunbathing. At the moment, however, we are just trying to survive this, physically and mentally. Video games are not scary. They are not bad. They are just another way of entertaining, and many of them are just very good.
I keep thinking about this quote from the NYT article:
The family’s dog died on New Year’s Eve and James said playing with friends helped him not to think about the loss. This worried his mother, Kathleen Reichert, who felt that her son was escaping the emotions of real life.
“What are you going to do when you’re married and stressed? Tell your wife that you need to play Xbox? ”She said to her son during the interview.
Listen, one day, this kid is going to grow up and maybe marry someone. He will still play Xbox, because that was his childhood. He will probably still play to connect with friends and control his emotions. Is it the healthiest way to deal with this? Maybe not. Is it better than not dealing with it? You bet your ass. I just hope this kid finds a wife to whom he can say, “I’m going to play Xbox”, and she understands. Maybe she will even participate.