Posted by
Georgiaboy on Saturday, July 22, 2006 9:55:59 AM
Few activities will have as great an impact on the development of young american males over the next few decades as video games. Game producers have worked consistently over the last decade to make games more immersive. They want gamers to feel as if they are in the game. Combine the immersiveness of the games with massive amounts of time spent playing them and you can see that video games will have a large impact on the mindsets of the next generation. But what kind?
I have yet to see a video game about reforming social security or reforming the judiciary, but I could spend the next 15 minutes reading off names of video games devoted to fighting. Oh how young guys love fighting. So, the chief area of impact video games should have is on foreign policy. Once again, no games about talking with terrorists or doing diplomacy with rogue states. You shoot them, blow them up, kick their butts, and break their things. This is not a tutoring lesson for the next generation of American males to practice convincing a dictator to play nice by appeasing him. The likelihood that a resurgence of aggressive, peace-through-strength, foreign policy will result from American males addiction to video games seems likely to me.
Of course, many guys will not transfer their gaming mindset completely to politics. There will be plenty of gamers that leave their gaming at the door of the living room and think by a different set of principles about politics. But, not all of them will. Only time will tell how much of an impact the "Gamer Dad" will have on politics in several decades.