Fodder For My Rebuttal
Dubble on the Daily Telegraph’s ‘Junk Culture’ themes:
A letter to The Daily Telegraph sparked off what is now an inferno of regular coverage of the issue. The reasoning behind classification of gaming as ‘junk’ follows the regurgitated, simplistic and ignorant arguments of the past, whereby video games coerce kids into staring at a screen rather than socialising or exercising in the fresh air. The fiery letter furthered the fodder for my rebuttal by alleging:
“Since children’s brains are still developing, they cannot adjust. . . to the effects of ever more rapid technological and cultural change,”
The letter was fronted by people whom should be role models and authority figures to children - 110 teachers, psychologists, and children’s authors contributed to the wording. It would seem that the above quote would be better applied by removing the first six words and applying it to the authors of the comment.
Yikes!
I’m writing another article attacking these kind of themes at the moment and already have material enough for two or three more. I think it’s going to be open-season on the small-minded and the ignorant. Too many people are allowed to attack what they don’t understand (and therefore fear) without any real response from us technophiles.
September 22nd, 2006 at 10:19 am
WHAT?
Children have the most malleable brains there are! That should be “they CAN adjust…”. Of course they can. It’s always the young who like new modern things and take to them like ducks to water.
See: everything about computers. To anyone under 21 (or more?) it’s all completely normal and easy and logical. They grew up with it.
Jesus. Good luck in your reply to that Jim. We need someone speaking who isn’t an idiot.
September 22nd, 2006 at 11:42 am
Thanks Jim!
If I write on this topic again, I think its important that the message to the technophobes is considered and understanding… its easier and really funny to make a joke out of their oldie worldy ways but if we don’t watch out, we could find ourselves sceptical of nano-holo-mecha space beds one day. We should empathise with the unknowing.
September 22nd, 2006 at 2:42 pm
Following the appalling accident suffered by Richard Hammond this week (apologies to any non-uk readers of the site) I was struck by the similarity of the knee-jerk comments in the media to those usually levelled at computer gaming.
I think there is an interesting comparison between the way that “petrolheads” and gamers are viewed.
The points I was going to go on to make were, in no particular order:
Cars and computers both seen as “boys toys” and looked down on by “grown-up” culture
Gaming and petrolheadery (petrolheadliness?) both “macho” activities (both activities are dominated by men and exhibit highly male culture)
A lot of people (especially older people) alienated from computers/gaming because they are seen as “complicated”
Most of the media (including news shows) are an exercise in ratings-grabbing, dumbing-down, and time filling - hence everything is a “shock-horror” story reduced to the lowest common denominator
Its arguably pointless to engage on these terms - it doesn’t matter how much you try to rebutt these stories, the people making them (a) aren’t listening ["Games journalist provides cogent rebuttal of media scare stories" won't be featuring heavily in the news-at-ten any day soon], and (b) aren’t interested in shooting down the bogeymen that allow them to fill airtime without the effort of actual journalism ["New figures show that hardly anyone watching this program will be stabbed, shot, contract bird-flu, have their children stolen by paedophiles, suffer identity theft, or die from playing Generic MMORPG for 270 hours without eating or sleeping, here's Phil with the weather"]
I suppose its necessary to constantly engage with these mouth-breathers to try to hold back the tide of ill informed comment? But it would be more of a step forward if there were some sort of mainstream appreciation of “gaming” as a medium and of “gamers” as a part of society rather than as a sub-species of “geek”.
I guess that part of what’s required is to try to get prominence for positive stories (of which there are many). Part is to remove a lot of the barriers (if you live in a self-created ghetto you can’t really complain too much if “outsiders” feel uncomfortable and want to leave). And part is to try to get as many people involved in gaming as possible (there’s no better path to understanding than through participation).
September 22nd, 2006 at 3:36 pm
n0l0g0: Quite so, and people like myself or DuBBle will need to get good at writing in our respective ghettos before we’re able to get gigs in mainstream culture and start throwing squibs into the public eye.
I might seem to be writing as and preaching to a ’sub-species of geek’, but that’s because of the way the media is structured, rather than any intentions of my own. As a full-time writer I’ll have to write for the people willing to pay me.
But make enough noise and people outside the immediate area of effect will begin to take notice. That’s my philosophy and I’m sticking with it.
Additionally, however, there is a sense in which writing to gamers is extremely important. We are conditioned to feel some sense of guilt about gaming as an activity. It has been deliberately associated with time-wasting by opinion-forming folks like those in charge of the Daily Telegraph and that needs to be challenged not just by us, but by gamers in general.
I interviewed an academic recently who has been spending a great deal of time surveying gamers feelings and attitudes towards their activities. He reported that many of them felt like they ‘wasted time’ by gaming, but when asked what they should have been doing with their leisure time most of them struggled to respond. The default answer was ‘read a book’, because reading is the sedentary activity that has been repeatedly associated with self-improvement. Of course, reading Harry Potter isn’t going to improve anything much more than basic language skills, and it’s definitely not going to improve dexterity, problem solving, spatial awareness, or computer literacy.
Helping gamers to identify positive aspects of gaming is essential to improving their self-esteem and their confidence. Enabling others to carry on arguments you have started is one of the responsibilities of the critic: we redescribe things so that others might find new ways of describing them. Provide the vocabulary and people will use it. Right now gamers need some positive descriptions of themselves, and I hope we can provide them.
September 23rd, 2006 at 8:39 pm
Having not previously considered the question, I find that I immediately recognise and identify with the idea that when I’m gaming I feel as though I’m wasting time and ought to be doing something else.
My use of the term “sub-species of geek” (intended to represent a percieved external view of gamers) to describe a category in which I include myself would tend to reinforce the idea that I have a bit of a siege mentality in this respect. Perhaps, in part, stemming from the expectation of being criticised for being a gamer, rather than the reality of it.
Some introspection called for on my part then…
I hope that I wasn’t coming across as implying that the media was justified in (largely) ignoring gaming. In fact I think the wider media is impoverished by ignoring (or demoninsing) gaming in this way. “Serious” newspapers such as the Guardian would gain (and keep) more readers by including a thoughtful gaming column, than they ever do with a single “shock-horror” piece.
I guess you’re right though, it is hard to preach to the unconverted when nobody provides a platform.
So I guess that leaves me in total agreement with you.