I had a yearning to read some young-adult fiction while we were on vacation, so we went to the library. But this town's library was different from what I was used to - or maybe just modern, as opposed to the dusty, old-fashioned libraries of my childhood. In the young-adult section there were no books on the shelves. Just video games, DVD cases, and board games. I picked up Lego: The Board Game. It was basically Pictionary, but you had to build things instead of sketching them - a lot more challenging on the surface, except that the things were really simple, like "pillar" or "circle".
Eventually we found some books on the shelves at the side of the room, but all the kids and teenagers were clustered around the more exciting entertainment options in the middle. There were even some video screens set up where kids could preview games for a minute or two before deciding whether to check them out (like at music stores where you get a free listen for the first 15 seconds of each track).
Suddenly there was an announcement over the PA that the speaker was ready, and that everyone should take their seats. Wondering what was going on, we shuffled over to an area where ranks of plastic chairs had been set up and sat down along with all the other people. The speaker was a scruffy, goateed dentist who was supposed to give a motivational speech about the importance of dental hygiene.
Instead (and unexpectedly for the librarians who had arranged this), he launched into a tirade about the modern video culture. He walked up and down the ranks of seats emphasizing his points. Pulling a young girl up from her seat, he pointed out the fishbowl glasses that she now had to wear after years of focused video gaming. "See that? Those games are poison!" he exclaimed. Next he pointed out a fifteen-year-old boy and with a gesture got him to cover his ears to show that he was deaf (from too many rock concerts). "Poison!" the dentist said. "And how many of you can even see the lyricism in books like Love for Lydia or Wuthering Heights? Your ability to concentrate on the written word long enough to see the color in those pages is gone. Now, you can only see color where it already exists." He raised his arms and with a gesture, included all the shelves of games and movies that the library had spent the last decade amassing to keep kids coming in the doors. "Poison!"
That's where I woke up. I wonder if anyone has thought of that Lego game though. I think it has potential.
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2 comments:
You totally had me going there. I thought it was real. Very interesting dream. Do you believe that video games are poison? I wonder what the hidden meaning is...
Well I've been reading a really interesting book about how kids are losing their connection to nature, spending all their free time indoors instead of exploring and enjoying "unstructured" play outdoors. The book argues that over the long term, this pattern is preventing them from developing an appreciation for the natural world and an ability to recharge in nature, so they experience more problems like ADHD and get more easily stressed out. So that's probably where it comes from. I don't actually believe video games are poison, though. As long as they're balanced with time doing other things. Some people just spend way too much time on them.
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