As a person who has grown up with tons of different video games, I of course do have an opinion about them. During my childhood, I've been playing various video games on different consoles and I've also had a phase in which I was constantly playing flash games. I loved video games so much that I decided to program my own once I'd be an adult.
I've never actually been addicted to playing, I just enjoyed it and I loved the fact that I could be anything in a game - be it a cute little dragon, a professional photographer or a brave hero. When I got a bit older, I started to enjoy the Animal Crossing series a lot because I didn't have to be anything, I could just dwell in this virtual world, visit concerts, go fishing, decorate my house and design new clothing.
But among all the joy I've had while playing video games, there has also been that dark side, too. Every now and then, just like today, I've been thinking about my life and what I'm doing with it and I always came to the conclusion that video games are a huge waste of time.
While I might be a super rich tradeswoman in a video game, all I effectively did to achieve this was sitting on the sofa or lying in bed holding a handheld console and staring at a screen.
I always kept wondering in those moments what my life would be like if I had never been introduced to video games. I could have spent so many hours doing so many more interesting things that might have made me happy. More happy than any game can. I probably would have gone outside a lot more often, I would have met other people more frequently. But those games and apps and the internet in general always kept me inside the house, wasting my time watching movies, playing games, searching the internet for how to be happy. Isn't it ironic?
Thank you for posting this terrific evaluation on the benefits and drawbacks of playing video games. I concur that video games provide a fabulous means to being anything you’d like to be such as a superhero or a tycoon. I feel they also gave me an outlet and something I could enjoy after a hard day. Yet, I do understand that I consumed so much time playing video games when my time could have been better channelled into other areas of my life.
ReplyDeleteYou may be interested in a guy who’s spent his whole life on video games. His name is Joel Hopkins and he’s an Australian with over 17,000 video games. He also holds the Guinness World Record for the most video games. He offers a tour of his library at this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sjjGblGtiU
Thank you again for this wonderful and insightful post on the impact of video games in a time context.
Wow, this is pretty impressive..! That's certainly a LOT of video games!
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