I'll admit there have been times in my life that I have been addicted to gaming. Interestingly some of those times in my younger life I was limited in the time I could spend gaming, but that didn't stop me from planning and thinking about strategies for every hour I wasn't playing. Those were some bummer days of life.
As we talked in class about how many people worry about gamers and worry that they might be or become addicted and how actually few gamers are addicted. Now although many gamers are not currently addicted I wonder how many have been or will be. And that got me thinking. This isn't limited to gamers. How many Pinterest users sit pinning crazy plans and ideas they have never and will never use and are, or will be addicted to the habit of finding the cutest ideas? How many online shoppers become shopaholics and how many of them realize what they've done before its too late? How many people sit on facebook, instagram, and twitter with hours that consume there life in comparison so deep they are depressed? How many football players ignore their own health for the sake of the game or their team or getting better? How can any person with a hobby they enjoy make sure that they don't become addicted? Honestly, I'm not sure.
Each of these have their place and their time and can be wonderfully enriching and can be a part of an organized, balanced, and healthy life. But the key is being just a part. For the longest time as a child I never understood the judgement that church leaders passed on my hobby of gaming as violent and worthless.
One example in my life that bothered me for the longest time was when I was a leader in my young men's quorum and we had a less active member that we were trying to get to come to mutual. Our leaders asked us to think of an activity that he might be interested in. Being his neighbor and classmate I knew something about him and thought of a video game that the whole Quorum of nine young men could participate in at the same time in the same place. The game was equivalent in my mind with the violence involved in risk. Conquest is the goal of the game, but there is no bloodshed, no swearing, no drug use, no immodesty, no anger, etc. I believed I had come up with an activity that could start with a little lesson, play a game, and end with dessert. I thought I had at least a half decent lesson.
I did not expect to be shot down by my leader with a laugh and a new plan to go to a basketball game.
I feel a little backstory or explanation is required for my reaction to be understood. As a young child I did play sports reluctantly at times due to my mother signing me up. I thoroughly enjoyed playing sports when I was younger and was first pick for any soccer game my friends or classmates played knowing I was a quick and solid goalie. However as I got older, it was my experience that the players who were praised the most were the uneducated bullies that were tough and big because they had been picking on kids for years. As high school came around, I was exposed to football, in many ways, for the first time. All I saw was a modern day Colosseum. Sure killing wasn't allowed but bad mouthing the other teams, tackling was a must, and bragging was a right. And the players were a mix of those who enjoyed hurting others, those who wanted to show off, and those who were practically the slaves like in the Colosseum of old as they saw it as their only way to pay for college. Beating up other kids for the amusement of talent scouts who would pay a handsome scholarship as the prize. It didn't comply with any social standards I had ever seen. Barbaric was the best word I could think of.
This being my background on sports I didn't understand his idea. Never missing mutual activities as I thought was my duty to attend, I went to this new activity as well. Sure enough even at a basketball game which I thought was a more... (for lack of a better word) virtuous sport at the time it was everything that I saw wrong with sports and went against the very reason that he gave for dismissing my idea. At the basketball game there was abundant swearing, drunk people everywhere, cheerleaders wearing nearly nothing, blood had to be wiped off the court twice, and the players where anything but sportsmen (a word I thought was truly a misnomer at this point) like.
I didn't understand his judgement on video games until years later when I was first exposed to graphic, violent, and lewd games like grand theft auto and left 4 dead. And it wasn't until college that I was exposed to a few professional athletes who were truly sportsmen like and made me realize that all sports weren't corrupt.
Well that got really sidetracked. But I think my point was that any hobby can be painted in either light by the media. And both would be true. To almost any hobby there is a side that it is healthy and enriching and there is a destructive side. We just have to choose what side to be a part of.
