While looking around our campus lately, something that has struck me has been the very large amount of people that are glued to their phones. There isn't anything abnormal about this in itself, college students have spent a large amount of time on their phones ever since the invention of texting, it is what they are doing on their phones that is new. Many students are now spending an inordinate amount of time playing silly, free games on their smart phones. Some of these games, such as Words With Friends (basically scrabble played on a smartphone), have a marginal intellectual value. Many others, however, such as Angry Birds, have little to no intellectual or educational value but are very popular nonetheless.
When asked about why they like these games or desire to play them, many students will answer with some variation of, "it's a good way to waste time." My response to this is: when did "wasting" time become desired or even acceptable? We live in a world full of excellent books, great TV shows, and countless interesting articles on the internet. With all of this material available that is enjoyable and also a very good way to better ourselves, why do students feel the need to waste their time playing countless hours of frivolous online games? Whether it is because their friends do it, they feel as if they need to do it in order to fit in, or any of the countless other reasons that they use to justify these hours of games, it is ridiculous to spend time playing them that could instead be spent in intellectual pursuits that are entertaining and self-improving.
Image credit: http://www.free-games.net/play/angry-birds-online
No comments:
Post a Comment