Videogames Are a Problem...

We had a thread on my local fishing forum on whether videogames were a barrier to young people getting involved in fishing. Most folks seemed to take the position that they weren't. I feel otherwise. Here's what I said (with board specific references edited):

I wish that I could be as sanguine as some others here that "videogames aren't the problem".... Perhaps I can agree that they're not THE problem, but I do believe they're A problem, and a major one at that.

While some of you have succeeded in raising kids to be avid outdoorsmen and gamers at the same time, I wouldn't think they're typical. More generally, I suspect, video games create two major obstacles to an outdoor lifestye.

First, they're a constant source of amazingly compelling, fantasy based entertainment. In the end, they burn up a lot of time that might be spent doing all sorts of alternatives, from basketball, to reading, and yes, fishing. Instead of hopping on the bike on a spring afternoon and riding over to the brook to try out a royal coachman fly (as many of you did), most kids will switch on the Xbox instead.

Second, they condition kids for a different (and in real life, unrealizable) effort/reward expectation. Only in a video game can you win the Super Bowl or kill Osama Bin Laden with so little effort. You are constantly stimulated, and receive constant rewards in terms of points, or bad guys killed, or what have you. It's much more compelling than "real" life.

By comparison, a lot of fishing is simply boring with no return. We love it: it's part of a contemplative (even meditative) activity we have learned to cherish. But it's much harder (though not impossible) to teach a young man or woman who's grown up with video games to appreciate it in the same way. You have to break through their VG conditioning first, which is a barrier that didn't use to exist (at least to that extent), and is one fewer and fewer parents can transcend.