Episode 7 – Rotting Your Brain

Did your mother ever tell you that playing video games will rot your brain? Mine did too. She also lumped comic books and television into that also. The TV thing I could see… but more with today’s stupid reality content. Comic books to me is the same as looking at art, unfortunately not enough people think that. And videogames have just always left such a bad taste in peoples mouth.

I was an eight bit tike, growing up on Nintendo. I think what my mother, and what the general public don’t realize is that it actually takes a lot of brain power to make the little guy in the green tunic walk around on the screen. Well, walking isn’t hard. But some of the dungeons in Legend of Zelda are pretty difficult. You need certain weapons to beat specific bosses and the whole thing is really complicated. I probably used my brain more playing Zelda than I would have outside playing tag with the kids on my block. I played video games for my whole life and my brain, as far as I can tell, is not rotting.

Why is it that our parents said that? On the most basic level, they just didn’t want you to play video games. They were exposed to video games at arcades when they were growing up, so it couldn’t be that they were on some level afraid of the video game. I’m sure my parents played their share of Pac Man at the ice cream shop. So maybe they were just afraid that it wouldn’t sufficiently exercise our brains.

Maybe they also thought it would decrease our social skills. By only playing with video games, we couldn’t make friends. Yet, what was the first thing you did when you brought a friend over? Played Nintendo.

But that was then. During the eight bit years. I guess playing video games with friends pre-LIVE had its social disadvantages, looking back on it. But at the same time, it helped strengthen my imagination. Because, inevitably I would turn off the game (NES, SNES, PS1…) and do something else that would use my imagination. Video games were more a gateway to coming up with crazy worlds I could have never imagined.

It’s a lot like reading. Only in a book, you’re not really making the decisions for the characters you’re just following along. I used to read science fiction, and your going to tell me that a hero in a green tunic that has to travel through dungeons defeating monsters wont spark a kids imagination? Preposterous.

It could be argued that Online gaming increases the social aspect because you are playing with other people and you can talk to them etc. Look, I’ve had a LIVE account for going on 3 years. There is nothing social about hearing some 12-year-old spew out a string of profanities. Not the type of people I want to talk to. Unless I’m playing a tactical game I almost prefer it to be quiet. It doesn’t help the social thing, but it doesn’t hurt it either.

I realize now, several paragraphs through this episode that I have kind of gotten off track. Somehow, I intended to link all this stuff back to how video games increase our brain capacity, make us more tech savvy, and help us. I’m pretty sure I had some really good points but I honestly can’t remember them.

I’m sorry dear readers. I promise tomorrow’s topic will be more thought out. I think it has to do with television… I’ll check my notes.