The Xbox Generation

Xbox Children

Once again the Media points its shady finger at gaming for once again doing something awful to children. The gaming world is now finding more problems at the worrying change in statistics that a child is more likely to get repetitive strain injury playing games then breaking a wrist due to falling out a of a tree.

My personal view on this subject is although it is a shame that kids aren’t frolicking about as they used to be I don’t actually believe that playing games has everything to do with that. I men sure there is a small percentage of children that are addictive and those problems need to do dealt with, but surly the parent must notice that the child is spending way too much time on a console and should try and get them a bit more interested in something else. I think it’s all too easy to blame a computer game for problems, as it seems like such an easy target.

The problem seems that there is a breakdown of family homes; the household is a lot different to what it was about 50 years ago. The standard nuclear family household (Father, Mother and children and probably a dog.) is not as dominant as it once was. Single parent families are becoming more and more popular and the last thing a single parent would want is for them not to know where their kid is when they are at work. Games and the TV are often used as mechanical babysitters, an endless supply of entertainment whilst the parents are away or busy and every parent will plonk their kid in front of the TV just to catch a break from the hectic struggle of life.

The increase in cars on the road have increased in the thousands over the past few years, I can’t help but think that some of these people that point the blame to games are thinking in the past. Let’s face it life isn’t as safe as it used to be 10 to 20 years ago. There are more cars, housing estate are built next to heavy roads, kids are becoming prime targets for mugging since technology is trendy to have, nearly every child will have a mobile phone on them or an iPod or a DS. Some kids get bullied, mugged or happy slapped so home becomes safe, games become comfort. Both parents and children are constantly bombarded with the media displaying terror stories of child abductions and children bringing knifes to school. This world is a terrifying place to live. I grew up in a fairly small town in which life was pretty normal and nothing out of the ordinary happened till a girl about my own age at the time was raped and killed. You just can’t trust anything anymore.

I think the main difference between now and 20 years ago was that places were a lot smaller and more people had access to a supportive community, which is dying out as more and more people shut themselves off from everyone else. Sad to say is that people don’t really need each other anymore, real life communities have been dropped in favor of online communities so people are still connecting with each other but doing it in different ways then before.

Anyway the point I’m trying to make is that the media is using gaming as a scapegoat to cover some more serious problems to do with upbringing and community in the 21^st century.