Diary of a Mad Editor

Recently, my friend, the poet, Robert O’Neal and I were having a discussion about the influence of video games, a discussion inspired by Susan Jacoby’s book, The Age of American Unreason. Jacoby’s book traces America’s development from a highly literate society to the post-literate abomination it is currently. Among the many influences she blames for this deterioration are video games and the Internet. I’ll admit that while I agreed with much of Jacoby’s thesis, I bristled somewhat on her comments about video games and the people who played them. I found her commentary to be wholly based on stereotypes and not on any real knowledge of the games or gamers. Robert had a different opinion.

Although we agree on many things, I differ somewhat with Robert on technology. He’s much more anti-technology than I am. I tend to view technology as neutral and not a particular good or evil unto itself. Whereas he’s sees things like video games, Internet and cell phones as a destructive influences on our culture (like Jacoby), I see it as a natural part of our evolution. And, as an avid gamer myself, I’m a staunch defender of the video game industry and the games they produce. Robert says, “Hell, John, you are the exception because every kid who plays XBox I ever met is a zombie.” I might point out to Robert that those teenagers play XBox because they are zombies, they are not zombies because they play XBox. Let’s face it if you are a dumbass to begin with, you will not get anything positive from video games or the Internet because you will lack the capacity to do so — and not because there is nothing positive to be gotten from those things. If you are some pimply-faced kid in need of better acne treatments, with no more than two brain cells between you and oblivion, you will not have the intelligence, imagination, common sense or self-control necessary to use technology properly. So you will be attracted to video games that don’t require a lot of thought to play. Or, you will play thoughtful games in an unthoughtful way. You will spend too much time with the XBox. Too much time on MySpace chatting with your friends. Too much time depriving your brain of oxygen and knowledge. Not enough time reading books — good, well-written books that instill a love of language and inspire creativity and individual thought.

In moderation, and with the right attitude, computer technologies are marvelous tools that have the capacity to enhance our world. As long as we don’t let that technology become our master. But, at the end of it all, technology is not the problem; we are the problem.