TV vs. Video Games

When I was a kid my video game usage was severely restricted, while TV was viewed as more or less neutral. If I was being punished, which was more often than not, video games was the first thing to go, whereas TV was almost never restricted. The occasionally during the summers when my sister and I did almost nothing else, my mother would put a limit on how much TV we could watch a day, but I honestly think it was just so she could find something else on her long list of things to nag us about.

But enough about my traumatizing past, and moving on to the point: TV is f'n awful for you. It totally rots your brain, while video games are often good for it and in a worst case scenario, neutral.

Anyone who has studied communication even the slightest knows that TV is a cold medium. One of the very few, and probably coldest. A cold medium is one that you don't have to interact with to be using (I'm sure Becky will correct me with a better definition). Reading materials are hot, video games are hot, even movies are hot. But TV (radio as well, but that's totally different usage) is just there, a continuous stream of consistently lowered standards. Like Carlos Mencia or George Bush.

After years of not bothering with it, if I spend a day off watching TV my brain hurts for lack of use. However, if I spend that day playing video games my eyeballs may be bleeding, but
my mind is racing. Of course, I do watch TV seasons on DVD, but in the same way that a movie is much hotter than TV, the way I watch seasons of TV shows on DVD is better for me than TV itself. Since they are shows I like, I pay full attention and rarely do anything else but eat while watching. That isn't to say that if you pay full attention to TV and turn it into a hot medium that TV is good, it also has a lot to do with the quality of programing. The TV shows that I watch lend themselves to additional thought: I think about the metaphor in Buffy, I dissect the joke in Simpsons, Futurama and Scrubs to see the format, or I contemplate why I'm watching Angel again. Typical TV broadcasting allows you to just shut your mind off, specifically with bad dramas, game shows and reality TV. So TV can be fine if you watch decent shows, but that is becoming more and more difficult.

Even if TV were better, it would still take a backseat to video games. Video games take a lot of heat from the media, and the only thing anyone can say for them is that they improve hand eye coordination. Well, hand eye coordination is only extremely important if you're a surgeon or an assassin. What video game supporters so often forget to mention is the mental reward you get from them. Even if you ignore mental games like Brainage and Word Coach, while playing a game the player still solves puzzles, reads and applies, does simple math in many cases and in almost every game subconsciously or consciously plans a strategy. In addition to the natural mental exercise a video game provides there is an almost entirely untapped educational potential there. When I was in the 9th grade I learned more about Ghengis Khan in Age of Kings than I ever did in any history class. Once we move gaming beyond leapfrog and geometry wars in education, parents will take a breath from blaming video games for ruining their kids and start using it to babysit them again.

I'm not going to preach something like 'Your brain is a muscle, use it or lose it.' mostly because I hate people who say that and I want them to choke on their own condescending words (people who say that are all stupid anyway, perhaps it's from experience), but I will say that if I ever have children I will discourage TV as a leisure activity and encourage video games, in addition to exercise.