We are a people that love, nay need, to stereotype people. Whether it is race, gender, religion or preferred activities, our lives are dictated and spelled out but what society believes is true of us.
We are placed within a box, like gamers who are supposedly violent, anti-social, dirty and failing at real world responsibilities. One could sift through all the studies done on children and adults and come to a logical, well thought out conclusion, all the while focusing on quantitative data that never really examines the lives of gamers.
The positive aspects of gaming rarely make headlines in mainstream media, leaving an uninformed and utterly clueless America to make rash assumptions. Like most things in life, the gaming world has both positive and negative aspects, but that doesn’t mean that one should write off the entire idea.
Rather than throwing “credited” statistics at a bored audience it seems more realistic to talk to people who game.
This article appears in Feb 17-23, 2010.