Consoling the gamer

I read an interesting article about a supposed (I am always skeptical) move in China on the future of gaming, where they are introducing legislation to restrict those under eighteen of playing games other than for an hour on Friday night, weekends and public holidays. Obviously, enforcing this is going to be difficult without centralized measures in place, so they are banning online gaming companies from providing services outside of these time and also requiring real names to be used in order to play.

Perhaps obviously, I disagree with centralized control like this - but I do agree that there should be limitations on time children spend gaming.

There are reports (again from China, but very plausible) that children's eyesight is being damaged from all of the screen time and it reminds me of my parents saying "Don't sit too close to the TV, it will ruin your eyes". Yet now, we all sit 12 inches from screens for many more hours a day than we did as children and we no longer even have the break periods, as we carry the screens with us wherever we go.

For the last decade, there has been increasing alarms due to living sedentary lifestyles where we don't move enough, and at least anecdotally from my own life, me and many of my friends are suffering for it - where our parents did not. This has been further emphasized over the last year and a half where many people don't even need to leave the home for work, meaning they are not only walking less, they are also often sitting in less than ideal conditions for many hours of the day. and for a lot of people during this time, restrictions on movement as well as instilled fear, have kept people at home outside of working hours too.

This obviously has effects on our health in many ways and as such, will increasingly put strain on healthcare systems and it will expand as we age, probably ramping up as while we get into worse condition, we will become even more sedentary in our living.

I know that a lot of people defend gaming, but this is not only about gaming itself - it is more a commentary on how many of us live our lives in general. I know that for myself, I am far less active than I should be and I feel it in my body daily, yet I also find it difficult to get motivated enough to move. I am guessing that out of 7 billion people, I am not the only one who suffers to get inspired.

That said, I am an opponent of centralized control and take the "my body, my choice" approach. A lot of people say the same things - and then they also want compulsory vaccinations introduced - without seeing the conflict.

What I do think is that parents should do a better job of parenting, but we too are caught up into the trap of culture and would apparently rather spend our time gaming or on social platforms, rather than parenting. What is interesting is that if we had to directly pay for the healthcare of children other than our own, we would probably want parents to take a more active role to ensure their kids are well educated, fed and exercised, so that they were less of a burden on our purse strings. Yet, since this is pushed to the state, we take the "to each their own" approach, even though the state is using our wallets to cover the costs.

We are all judgmental though, it is just that most of us choose not to talk about it publicly, because we fear reprisal or social backlash of some kind. Rather than having open discussions, we censor ourselves, which can make our lives easier, but it takes away a lot of the social value of communication.

In many ways, it is like how talking about money issues was made taboo and as such, the knowledge and tolls needed for financial literacy ended up in fewer and fewer hands. We can see where that has led us today, as the economy is filled with people who are financially struggling, yet don't have an inkling as to why, other than blaming those who have money. They don't question how the money ended up pooled in a small population, they just no it isn't fair.

For decades already, it "isn't fair" that people are in better physical condition than others, with many blaming genetics. This of course plays a large part, but it is like social and cultural considerations do not count, as they are a "freedom of choice" matter and therefore sacred. Even though, what people actually prefer to do is have the freedom of choice to impose rules onto others, in much the same way that the Chinese government has this freedom of choice - the freedom to take away other's freedoms.

Don't you find it interesting that we are often no different? Given the power, how many of us would be much the same, impressing our will onto others, because we think we are right? Like children, we all complain about being grounded and losing our toys, yet we still expect to be looked after when we can't take care of ourselves.

We are living in strange times now, as what is really important to our future, doesn't get much attention, yet what is quite insignificant, is blown way out of proportion. We are all part of the process though and we can all affect the average by handling ourselves well, even if only slightly. I think that at the moment though, the average is getting worse in many areas of what makes us powerful as a species - but a worsening average doesn't mean everyone is getting weaker.

While we complain about not having freedoms - we seem to be more than willing to keep handing ours over for other people to make the choices for us.

It is all a game.
Do you have a controller to play with?

Taraz
[ Gen1: Hive ]