TITLE
Are Electronic Video Games Bad for Kids? Well, Really and Not Really
AUTHOR
Frank Deford
PUBLICATION
Sports Illustrated
YEAR
1982
ARTICLE TYPE
Article
FROM THE ARTICLE
In the suburban town where I live there has been—as there has been in a lot of places across the country—a fuss about electronic video games. In my town, a promoter sought permission to construct a monstrous emporium to house scores of these quarter-eaters, and a great many citizens came out violently in opposition. Really.Some of this was, of course, no more than a case of routine generational hysteria, the sort of knee-jerk response we can expect from a certain segment of the adult population anytime anything new and mysterious comes along that appeals to the young. That’s life. That’s the way the middle ages. But somehow we have survived as a nation and as a planet these past three decades despite grim grownup assurances circa 1955 that rock ‘n’ roll would be the ruination of mankind. Alas, the same old fleshpot world destroyed poor Elvis Presley, not he us.
It has also been difficult for me to think of video games as a newfangled instrument of the devil, inasmuch as pinball games long preceded them. It seems to me that video games are to pinball about what big Prince metal rackets are to little old wooden ones. The products may be modified, but the arcades, like the tennis, remain much the same as ever.
Really.
TOPICS MENTIONED
Games And Children
ALTERNATE LINK
Archived Copy @ Internet Archive
PRINT AVAILABILITY
October 11, 1982