Ye Ole Video Game

Oil’s not going to last forever. We all know that. But woe to the hapless video game addict who is left in his or her dark coven, looking expectantly at his or her plastic-encased boxes of wires that once provided so much joy, but alas, without boundless electricity have gone as dead and cold as a drowned polar bear. Video games and television take up huge chunks of Americans’ time, but these pastimes should be sent down the tube, electricity or no electricity.

We know one enterprising lad named Enrique who has found a way to cope with his post-societal-collapse boredom. Setting down his game controller and venturing outdoors one day, Enrique noticed that a small planter on his back porch was filled with (possibly West Nile Virus carrying?) mosquito larvae. Taking repose in a handy chair he discovered out there and finding a stick in the debris that had accumulated, Enrique hit his invisible ‘play’ button and began.

Five points for the big larvae, two for the small ones, Enrique began slapping the water with his handy stick. He figured that the larvae had to get to the surface in order to develop and breed, and his challenge was to (literally) single-handedly keep that from happening. The fun didn’t stop there. Two days later Enrique was the proud owner of two larvae-eating fish, several lilly pads, and a decorative water-oxygenating fountain. What’s more fun than fish in a barrel? Fish AND larvae PLUS expensive accessories in a barrel. So Enrique discovered.

Ye Ole Video Game kept Enrique enraptured for hours. Researchers at the University of Rochester have found that video games really are addictive. Just like crack cocaine, they actually fulfill deep psychological needs – achievement, autonomy, and a connection to other players. Television also provides similar feelings of connectedness, as well as a hell of a lot of distraction.

Apparently the average age kid in the US starts playing video games is age six and that kid spends 2 to 2.5 hours per week playing them through age 17 or so. Kids spend a whopping four hours of television per day.

I support people having their deep psychological needs met. Feelings of connectedness, achievement, and autonomy are beautiful things. But we should be meeting these needs the natural way – by actually getting outside and moving around (which produces just as many of those happy hormones as Mario Kart), interacting with plants and animals, and cohabitating with each other throughout the day as evolution intended. Instead, Americans are spending time shut indoors and trying to fulfill our intrinsic needs through “interacting” with pixels on a screen. Playing games outdoors and having other genuine experiences like growing a garden or playing music under a canopy of leaves are the sweet stuff that life is made of, and doesn’t even burn fossil fuels.

People like Enrique are the everyday heroes taking that indoor frown and turning it outdoor-down. He is modeling one way to entertain oneself while building up steam do bigger and better things to build a sustainable, people-centered community. Keep at it, Enrique, one larva at a time!

- Lacy MacAuley