Video games: danger or opportunity?

Amid the debate over the effects of technology, particularly the Internet, in our lives, perhaps the most negative—and most misunderstood—views relate to video games.

But most of what we think we know about video games is wrong, writes Leigh Alexander in the November/December 2013 issue of Columbia Journalism Review. She reviews Nick Yee’s new book The Proteus Paradox: How Online Games and Virtual Worlds Change Us—And How They Don’t (Yale University Press).

She points out how Yee debunks many of the stereotypes most of us have about video games and who plays them. For example, she writes, “only 20 percent of online gamers are teenage boys,” and “50 percent of online gamers have full-time jobs, and 36 percent are married.”

She quotes Yee about the implications of this broad range of ages among players: “The stereotypical association of video games and teenagers is not only false but hinders our ability to understand how online games can be positive social spaces for younger players.”

Yee’s research also discounts preconceptions about addiction or antisocial behavior in the players of online games. For example, 70 percent of online gamers play with someone they know in the real world.

Yee comments on our prejudices: “A family sitting together silently in front of the television is deemed socially acceptable, but if they chat and collaborate in a virtual world, this is stereotyped as being antisocial.”

Alexander notes other books that defend gaming, including Reality Is Broken by Jane McGonigal, which claims that “gamers are actually the world’s best problem-solvers.”

Yee goes further and argues that online game worlds are not living up to their potential. In spite of this potential, Yee says, games are played by humans, who re-enact their superstitions, gender and race biases and generally imitate reality rather than escape from it.

Alexander writes, “Given infinite possibility, we loyally gravitate to the familiar—nearly every game or online world contains chairs, for example, even though virtual bodies never tire of standing.”

Human beings are just more comfortable experiencing humanity with all its limitations. “Even when we believe we are free and empowered, our offline politics and cognitive baggage prevent us from changing,” Yee writes.

Alexander calls Yee’s book “pleasantly neutral.” His book “deftly avoids righteousness and works primarily in the important service of challenging a medium rich with unexplored potential.”

Another advocate for gaming from a Christian point of view is Kevin Schut in his book Of Games and God: A Christian Exploration of Video Games (Brazos Press, 2013, $16.99).

Schut addresses such topics as how to understand a video game; the interplay of games, religion and spirituality; violence and ethics in games; the peril of addiction; how men and women are portrayed in games; the effect of games on the brain and education; games being developed by Christians; and the social side of gaming.

He calls for a healthy criticism of games and concludes: “Video games can be just as much a part of God’s kingdom as anything else, if only we have eyes to see.”

While I do not play video games, I believe in the importance of play and creativity. Like many tools, games can be used for good or ill. We should explore the good.