Skepticum

Wired’s article “Battle With ’Gamer Regret’ Never Ceases” talks about the potentially wasted time spent gaming. Using “time played” can throw one into “Gamer Regret” when discovering one played 4 hours per day for a whole week, or in a case, more than a month in a year.

So is gaming truly wasted time that we should regret having spent playing rather than… volunteering at a hospital, or something productive (someone call me on this one –”define productive”)?

Videogames, like crosswords, are a form of play — and play is a key element of a healthy adult existence. As game theorist Raph Koster has always pointed out, our playful brains love to seek out patterns, to solve problems — and there’s something existentially joyful about doing this in an environment that doesn’t have any stakes if you screw it up.

Or here’s a more radical way of putting it: Wasting time is one of the central reasons we play. If play were productive, it wouldn’t be … play. Monday Night Football doesn’t achieve anything either.

Let me give my 5 personals reasons why gaming is not wasted time:

1. My hand-eye coordination improves after consistently gaming for a few days.

2. Gaming keeps me linked to a social context unique to web 2.0. Thus I’m web smarter for it.

3. After a stressful day of work, during a cold winter day, there’s nothing a little bit of WOW can’t cure. It completely clears my mind of any thoughts, which is complete bliss.

4. Gaming keeps me technologically apt. The newer and more challenging the game the better the computer needs to be. So I built my own, twice, to keep my games running smoothly. There’s some girl power right there.

5. As Koster said, playing is a part of life. Some play cards, some play charades, and some game.

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