Tag Archives: society

Taking Back Social Console Gaming

January 26, 2012 Robin Leave a comment

Last week I wrote about how gamers have started getting away from console gaming and social gaming in general. Gaming has transferred itself from arcades to homes, and from homes to online, in a matter of a few years rather than decades.

What online gaming has done to social gaming may be irreversible–it has taken gaming out of the more social environment of the home and placed it in a virtual zone that is nearly unreachable except to the single player. Along with becoming more and more online (and yet more and more isolating), gaming has become uber-competitive. The fallacy here is that games must be won to be enjoyed.

But gaming does not have to be competitive to be fun. Nor does it have to be won to be enjoyed. That is like saying that food has to be eaten to be enjoyed–and anybody who’s ever stood outside the kitchen smelling cookies baking can tell you food can be enjoyed without ever being eaten. Sometimes, it’s the gossamer touch of experiencing happiness that is all you need, like the scent of cookies wafting toward your nose.

My Social Gaming Anecdotes

Some of the best times I had with friends back in the day was just getting together and beating face on games like Soul Calibur and Super Smash Brothers Melee–me and three or four guy friends, all madly tapping buttons to do fighting moves and directing our characters around the screen.

More shouting and laughing went on than cussing and ditching the controllers aside, thankfully, and we all managed to have fun. It wasn’t about winning so much as just playing around (even if we did have some mini-competitions going on). The most prevalent emotion that veils those memories is camaraderie; I knew these guys well and we were all great friends, both within the games and outside them.

These days, I don’t get together with that old group as much ( 🙁 ), but I do play some cooperative video games with my boyfriend. Playing some Gauntlet II: Dark Legacy or Marvel Ultimate Alliance gets us working together, and we have a lot of fun whomping up on imaginary bad guys. ^_^ Not only do I get to spend time with my love, but I get to show him how my knack for screwing around and not getting the mission done can actually lead to finding secrets within games. 😛

Getting Back that Gamin’ Feeling

Because of my experiences, I don’t think social gaming is lost to us forever. As long as we have real-life friends who can come over to our real-life dwellings, and as long as we still eat real-life food with these friends, we can still game socially. Here is how I think social gaming can be won back from the brink:

Building a Social Gaming Night

First, invite a few friends to get together at your house/apartment. However many is comfortable for your dwelling–no need to have 20 people at your apartment if you can only seat 3, right?
Make or get easy party food, like nachos, wraps, chicken fingers, vegetable trays with dips, mini pizzas, etc. Pretty much any finger food you and your friends like would be great. (Good food + gaming = good times guaranteed.) And don’t forget drinks–ask ahead of time what everyone would like to drink so that you have it on hand, if possible. (Alcohol isn’t preferred if you’re going to be using kinetic controllers…just sayin’.)
Make sure you have comfortable seating for everyone, or at least clear floor space in front of the TV you’re going to be using for game night.
Bring out some of your best multiplayer console games. If you don’t have any games like that, renting or borrowing some games would be the next best option. Great options for multiplayer game parties would be:

Conducting Your Gaming Night

One of the best things you can do is to keep your computers and phones off during gaming night. I know, I know, we’re all welded to our personal gadgets these days, but just for a night, put them all in a safe place away from stray gamers’ flying feet and hands, and just enjoy being with your friends in the same room. Twitter, Facebook, and the rest of the Interwebs will not miss you for a few hours while you enjoy yourself, and you’ll be much more fun and have much more fun if you’re completely engaged in whatever’s going on. (Take it from me, just writing a status about what you’re doing is lots less fun)

Second, if you have more players than can play all together at once, make up rules for taking turns on the controllers. With my old group of gaming buddies, we used to take turns on fighting games with the rule of “Loser of this fight gives the controller to the one who isn’t playing.” Whatever makes sense for your group and for the game you’re playing, just make sure everyone gets an equal chance to play.

Third, switch games every so often. Smash Brothers is awesome, but not for five hours. Change up the game discs about every 45 minutes to an hour or so, just to keep things fresh, unless you all are really having fun with the one you’re playing. This way, nobody gets bored or tired of the games, and the group keeps trying new things.

Fourth, resist the urge to go online with your gaming console. When you have four or more real live players in the same room, who needs the online world?!

Fifth, keep paper towels and wipes handy for drink/food spills and greasy hands. You might not think you’ll need them–you will.

Sixth, make a rule: “No drinks on top of the console/TV/anything electronic.” Speaking from sad experience here. 🙁

Lastly: make sure that you’re not keeping anybody out too late. Between jobs, family, and personal time, not everyone has the ability to game all night–be considerate of each other’s time, and you’ll be more likely to get another gaming night together sooner rather than never.

Summary

If we work at it, social console gaming can come back in a big way. Not only is it freer entertainment than paying to play an online game every month, but it’s a great way to get back in touch with your favorite examples of humanity in a relaxed setting. It’s just more fun with everyone in the same room!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

I-N-C-O-N-V-E-N-I-E-N-C-E

October 4, 2011 Robin Leave a comment

I spelled this word out in my blog title because I have seen it misspelled so often it makes me laugh. “Inconvieniece,” “incoinvenice,” and even “enconvance”…and no, sadly, I’m not kidding. As a former English teacher, these spelling mistakes (on the outsides of otherwise professional businesses, mind you!) grate on my nerves like nails on a chalkboard. It’s an inconvenience to have to decode these handwritten signs! 😛

C-H-I-L-D-H-O-O-D, “childhood”

I’ve generally been an instinctive good speller, all through my life–writing words correctly came more naturally to me, possibly because of all the reading I did, and possibly because my parents used a large vocabulary around me at young ages. Unlike math, which remains a frightening overgrown jungle, spelling was laughably easy, at least on paper. I could clearly see the word in front of me, and if it was spelled wrong, it LOOKED wrong on the page–it looked ugly, ill-formed, and I eagerly sought to change it with my trusty eraser.

(Side note: Spelling out loud is quite another animal entirely from spelling in writing; the ephemeral nature of the spoken voice meant that I could not “see” what I was spelling and could not “see” where to pick up from if I paused in the middle of a word. Once I paused, it was like I was going to have to start back over if I was to complete the word successfully. Thus, the embarrassment of spelling “tied” as “tide” in the first grade spelling bee. Even though I KNEW as it came out of my mouth it was wrong, wrong, wrong, I couldn’t keep my traitorous tongue from spitting out the wrong sequence of letters because I had stopped in the middle of the word. GRR. Even 19 years later, GRR.)

But even people like me are not immune to misspelling words in print. Just now, I typed “misppelling” instead of “misspelling” and had to go back. Why? Because my little finger got trigger-happy on the P key. Keyboards make it a lot faster and easier to communicate, but you have to be a precision instrument in order to spell correctly 100% of the time. Let’s just say I’m very good at hitting the Backspace key at lightning speed to correct myself. Just like “tied” and “tide” (darnit, I did it again–I reversed the words!), I can feel when I’m spelling a word wrong or if I’ve hit a key too many times, unless I’m too wrapped up in WHAT I’m writing about to be bothered with it.

Can You Spell “I-N-T-E-R-N-E-T?” Oh, It’s Spelled Three Different Ways?

Difficulties with spelling are everywhere, due to many factors, such as the Internet, chatspeak and textspeak, lower emphasis on reading for pleasure in our society, and even less emphasis on spelling in schools. I actually had a parent come into my classroom one day asking me why her daughter’s spelling tests were pulling her grades down–“why does it matter so much?” she asked. I almost choked on my response trying not to laugh in her face. Of COURSE spelling matters; how am I going to know what your daughter’s turning in for assignments if I have no idea what language she’s writing in?

Some spelling mistakes even change the entire meaning of the word. Misspelling “from” as “form” is rather innocuous, but if you’re in a hurry and rearrange the letters of “this” into a popular four-letter curse, you’ll likely be in trouble with your boss. I know we’re all rushing around these days, but if we can’t even be bothered to make sure we’re communicating correctly, why even bother communicating at all?

What got to me the worst during teaching was that most of the spelling mistakes my students made could have been caught (and were indeed caught) when they read their papers through a second time. I took to having my students read their papers aloud before they turned them in, just to let them share their ideas with the class if they wanted to…and if I had a dollar for every time I heard them stop reading, pick up their pencil, and madly erase and rewrite, I wouldn’t be bothering looking for a job right now. XD I probably saved students a good bit of points off their papers for spelling mistakes by doing that, and I also saved myself a few headaches correcting them. It proves that they knew the correct spelling, but were hurrying through the paper and didn’t check it beforehand.

Making Our Communication Better

Adults can benefit from even just a scanning read-through of their communications, too. The number of emails I’ve gotten with “thier” in place of “their,” “your” in place of “you’re”, and “freind” instead of “friend” are amazing, and Internet websites (even the more reputable ones) are getting worse about those kinds of mistakes, too. Spellcheck won’t catch everything, either–it might catch “freind” and “thier,” but it won’t bother with “your” and “you’re.”

How can we get back to communicating clearly? This is, after all, a big problem–if we’re communicating with people who speak another language, feeding misspelled words into a translator will spit out garbage. Heck, some other native speakers might have a problem with reading what you’ve written, if it’s got enough mistakes in it. Below are some tips for spelling even in today’s Internet-driven world:

Steps to Spelling Better

If in doubt, look up the word on Dictionary.com. Better to search and be sure of the spelling than unsure and wrong, especially if you’re writing to a boss or other authority figure.
Sound the word out. To go back to the word “inconvenience” for a moment: the word is pronounced “ihn-kahn-VEE-nee-ence” (or “ihn-kahn-VEEN-yince” if you’re in the South like me). If it was spelled “inconvieniece,” it would be pronounced “ihn-KAHN-vee-neese.” Sound out what you have spelled and see if it reads the same way–if it doesn’t, you likely have a misspelling on your hands.
Practice using the word you have trouble spelling as often as you can in emails, text messages, and written communication. It might be awkward at first, but if you get used to how it feels to type and write the word, you’ll misspell it less often. (This really, really works–I had to use this trick with the word “socioeconomic” because I kept trying to put in a few too many “o’s.”)
Before you send anything out, read it aloud. Just like it worked for my middle-schoolers, it works for me–I catch all kinds of errors when I read my work out loud, like poor wording and too-long sentences. Spelling mistakes often jump out just as easily, and you can then take the time to look up any words which you’re not sure are spelled right.

Summary

If we don’t learn how to spell and practice the art of it, our writing will be dismissed, possibly even laughed at, and we might not be taken as seriously in the workplace. Our writing is how we communicate with others, and if it’s done poorly, we wno’t be udnrestode by enyun at ale. (See how bungled “won’t be understood by anyone at all” can become? …Ugh, that deliberate misspelling was painful to type. Yuck. :P)

But that is why spelling is important, and that’s what I told the mother of one of my students: “If you want your daughter to be able to write clearly when she graduates, you’ll work with her on her spelling. Otherwise, she’ll look unprofessional and uneducated her entire life, no matter how good her credentials are.” We have to keep that in mind for ourselves and our children. We wouldn’t walk into an interview or a fancy restaurant in wrinkled stained clothes; neither should we submit a resume (or an email) full of errors.

Thursday in the Zone

Gaming Makes You Smarter

August 18, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

You might be one who looks at most games and scoffs. “What educational value could this game possibly have?” you might think. Most video games and even collectible games these days seem either too violent, too cartoony, or too simple. Where’s the challenge? Where’s the mental stimulation?

Or, perhaps, you’re one of the millions of people who have discovered how stimulating and challenging games can be. As a gamer from the time I was five years old, I feel I’ve messed with enough games (and messed UP in enough games) to understand the true challenges and learning situations that can come up in all sorts of gaming concepts, from video games to collectible games, RPGs to first-person shooters and beyond. I truly believe gaming can make you smarter!

Gaming Teaches Time and Resource Management

Video games and collectible games alike help us manage time and items better. In Super Mario World for the SNES, you got a “Time Bonus” if you finished the level in a certain number of seconds. The game rewarded you for getting through the level without getting poor Mario killed or dawdling about. Not only that, but if you managed to keep all the lives that Mario was allotted in the beginning, you had them saved for later battles with one or more of Bowser’s children.

Learning to manage time effectively is one of the hardest things to teach kids–I should know, I tried to teach middle-school kids with limited success. If you give most kids a time limit of 15 minutes to do an in-class activity, chances are most of the kids are going to goof around for 10 minutes and then rush to do the assignment in the last 5 minutes. What games teach us is to value the time we’re given to complete an assignment, and to use that time to the best of our ability–i.e., not standing at the beginning of the level for a few minutes looking at the pretty background, but actively moving through it and solving the puzzles that come up.

Resource management is also difficult to teach, but easy to learn through games. While a kid may not understand that he or she only gets limited access to the glue sticks, crayons, and scissors, they can better understand that Mario only gets 5 lives to try to complete this level. Older kids might not be able to grasp that their research papers need accurate and reliable sources to be good papers, but they’ll likely understand what happens if you don’t draw a 7-card hand with enough mana in Magic: the Gathering. (A hand with no land, or mana-producing cards, leads to turns and turns of “I draw. Your turn.”)

Gaming Teaches Long-Term Planning

In HeroClix (“chess with superheroes”), having no plan of attack means you’re likely disadvantaged from the beginning. You have to assess the other player’s team, figure out which piece needs to be defeated first, and decide how best to approach to offset the other player’s strategy. This takes long-term planning, which isn’t always a strong suit for kids or adults alike.

Planning ahead, like time management, takes careful thought, and gaming strategies help people of all ages get more comfortable with how to plan ahead, what to think of ahead of time, and how to make the best of your situation. You can plan too far ahead of your opponent, or plan too far ahead of your road trip, but you can never make too many tweaks to your original plan–that’s the beauty of long-term planning!

Gaming Teaches Diplomacy

In multiplayer games, as in real life, other people’s plans may interfere with yours, or may co-opt or ignore your plans altogether. When you play a multiplayer game like the Resident Evil deck building game, you have to “buy” the resources you need without taking too much away from other players, all while trying to be the player that takes out the most zombies hiding in the Mansion. Some players choose not to be diplomatic, and end up hogging all the resources to themselves; I find, however, that diplomacy serves you well in the long term by allowing everyone to play at their best level.

Diplomacy goes beyond gaming to the classroom and to the workplace. Kids can easily be inclined not to let the other kids have their blue crayon because they’re coloring the sky in their picture; adults can easily be inclined to complain to management if someone else asks to use the room that they unofficially reserved for their special group meeting. By sharing diplomatically instead of taking all the resources for oneself, you encourage better relations among your fellow gamers (or your classmates, or your co-workers)!

Gaming Teaches Critical Thinking

Which card should I play next? Which character should I use to beat this challenge? Games often bring us mental puzzles to work out, which boosts “critical thinking,” a skill I often saw talked about in my teacher literature but which was never quite defined. I think of “critical thinking” as “deeper thinking”–not just “what” something is and “how” it works, but “when” to use it and “why” it was developed.

Going beyond facts to inferences and interpretations stretches the gray matter a good bit, and can get you out of a tight squeeze in Pikmin for Nintendo Gamecube just as easily as it gets you writing for that state test. For instance, just as you have to figure out how many and which types of Pikmin should be in your army for the day by studying what objective you want to complete, you have to figure out how to best present your position on an issue at work. It challenges you to think about the problem in different lights.

Gaming Teaches Multitasking

Games’ multitasking goes beyond hitting two buttons on the controller at once? Most certainly! In HeroClix, you often have two or three pieces going after a couple of objectives at once. You might have dispatched your second-string attacker to go and mop up the support crew of your opponent’s team, while you sent in your first-string attackers to deal with the primary damage-dealer of their team. If you don’t multitask during games, you can find yourself in a bind pretty quick.

It is the same way in our lives–if you don’t multitask, sometimes things don’t get done as quickly as they might need to be. Multitasking is a great skill to pick up because it makes you a more efficient worker. I find that multitasking keeps me from grinding away at the same problem for hours; if I find myself stuck on something, I just switch to another task for a few minutes, accomplish maybe a small goal or two, and then come back to the first task with slightly fresher eyes.

Summary

While games are entertaining and great fun, I also find that games can teach us quite a few skills that we’ll need either in the school world or the work world. Try a challenging game sometime, and see how your skills improve!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Quit Wailing and Listen, Politicians!

August 16, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

Know how horribly broken our political system is these days? It’s so broken that it took only 30 seconds of trying to watch two party representatives “discuss the issues” on Meet the Press before I turned off the TV in disgust.

The National Symptom of an Underlying Political Illness

On this particular show, the host of Meet the Press had invited a Republican and a Democrat to talk over the issues facing the United States Congress, and they appeared on the show via split-screen. When the host asked a question, I prepared myself to hear first one side of the debate and then the other. That was definitely not what I got.

In the 30 seconds before I turned the TV off, both party members began to talk over each other, as if the other person wasn’t even there. Not only that, but they would only let each other talk only for a few seconds before jumping in with a rebuttal.

It was clear, as I watched both their faces, that they were not at all listening to what the other person had to say, but were each waiting for their next opportunity to strike a verbal blow for “their party.” It absolutely sickened me. All I could hear were two babies wailing at each other about who to blame for this newest crisis–there wasn’t a word said about what these two people, or the parties they represented, planned to DO about fixing it.

The “Blame Game” Needs to STOP

I’d say I speak for most Americans when I say that I am utterly weary of this back-and-forth blame game between our two dominant parties. When people from both sides gather to “discuss the issues,” we’d like to HEAR YOU DISCUSS THE ISSUES. We don’t need to hear an argument over which party is at fault, nor do we need political double-talk that means nothing; we need a mature, compromise-based approach if anything is ever to be solved.

Politicians on BOTH sides, please hear us. As long as y’all keep acting like toddlers in the throes of the Terrible Twos, most of the general public won’t want to bother with you. We want to know what you’re going to do about what’s happening to us. We also want you to work with each other–didn’t your kindergarten teachers ever grade you on “playing well with others?”

Neither party apparently has all the answers, so the best thing to do, it would seem, is to drop the petty squabbling and seek common ground. Let’s at least TRY to get hold of this nation before it completes its swirling journey down the toilet.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Empathy–and Lack of It

August 2, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

To me, it seems like people just don’t care much about each other anymore. American culture in particular is full of examples:

Empathy-Free Television

Take television. We are apparently supposed to laugh at people getting hurt or embarrassed on TV all the time–certainly, there are reality TV shows which brutally depict how much we all lack empathy for each other.

I have a hard time even watching parts of “America’s Funniest Home Videos”–when there’s a clip of an innocent person being harmed by a prank or accident, I turn the channel. Forget about watching shows like “Wipeout” and “Most Extreme Elimination,” where the whole “name of the game” is watching people get hurt and knocked off stuff while attempting daring stunts, usually for money. I just can’t laugh at that.

Celebrities: Apparently Not Worth Our Empathy

But it’s not just the lack of empathy for physical pain. We expect celebrities of all types (political celebrities as well as singers, actors, etc.) to be perfect beings in all things. They are supposed to leave their houses looking absolutely fabulous, or they’re front-page news in the tabloids–“Is So-And-So Gaining Weight?” or “So-And-So–Too Thin?” Not to mention the “Best and Worst-Dressed Lists,” or the “Focus on Beach Bodies” types of articles in magazines.

And God help the celebrity who has an actual problem or who has made a mistake, either with addictions, family life, or some other area of their personal life. Somehow, they are supposed to be more than human because they’re famous, and every time a flaw of theirs is exposed, we’re scandalized. We gossip about them as if they are the scum of the earth, talking about them in ways we would never talk about our families and friends.

Family and Friends: Sometimes We Lack Empathy for Them, Too

More often than not, we also expect family and friends to never make a mistake, and have little empathy for them. Aunt So-and-so snubbed us at the last party? Forget going to her house this Christmas! And Cousin So-and-so forgot to send us a birthday card–obviously he doesn’t care enough about us. Sometimes we refuse to show empathy to the humans we claim to be closest to; we forget that they, just like us, are human, and as such, they are going to mess up and be imperfect sometimes. We have no sympathy for screw-ups, even the ones who are related to us by blood.

Politics: The Horrible Line Between “People I Empathize With” and “People I Demonize”

This is quite possibly the largest example of American empathy-less society: the us vs. them mentality in politics. No matter where we fall on the political spectrum, most of us are either focused on building our own party up or tearing the other party down. Talking with our hands over our ears seems to be a common posture in political debates, and listening to the other side is just not an option. Empathy for the “other side of the fence” is almost a dirty phrase; seeing how the “enemy” lives and trying to understand them is folly.

What Is Empathy, Anyway?

We have to get over this and have empathy (not just fake sympathy) for our fellow men and women. Empathy means you imagine what it’s like to be in that person’s place, imagining the hurt they feel, the shame they endure, the life they lead.

One Example

I actually have empathy for Britney Spears; might be hard to believe it, but I do. She hit the fame jackpot at 15 and was thrust into a fantasy life, but that “fantasy” was actually made up of hard work, extremely long performance and rehearsal hours, and thousands of media appearances before the age of 18. Music was her life, and yet in order to do all she did, she had to cut away a large portion of what we consider “normal” life.

I look at her now, a woman only two years older than me, having now been through court battles, childbirths, and numerous family problems, and I try to imagine how life has been for her. I know I could never have put up with the demanding schedule she did at the same age she did. She hasn’t had the benefit of a normal life at all, really–her life dramas have been acted out in front of everyone instead of being endured, dealt with, and put into the past. She, like so many other celebrities who have so publicly had difficulties, is not allowed to grow from and forget her past mistakes.

Forgetting Empathy–Shoving Our Own Humanity Under the Rug

We forget, when we look at celebrities whose lives have crashed and burned, who are trying to put their lives back together after crisis, that they are simply humans who get more pictures taken of them than we do. They are humans, who will make mistakes, grow or shrink in crisis, and become stronger or weaker because of their issues.

We also tend to forget, while we make excuses for our own mistakes by saying “I’m only human,” that other people are also human and make mistakes. That includes our family members, our friends, our significant others, our role models, our politicians, and our favorite celebrities, among many others.

Becoming More Empathetic/Sympathetic

I would love to see a world in which we truly try to understand what others go through. We may never fully understand another person’s life, but at least we can try–we can imagine, and sympathize, and support where we can. I know, I know, this is America and we’re all supposed to be self-sufficient machines who never break down, but sometimes you can end up feeling mighty alone and broken amid all the perfect images passing you by.

If we could understand that every person has struggles and pain, just as we do, and if we could support each other to get through this, we might end up with a healthier world. We also might end up with a bunch of basketcases who never fight for themselves, go to war, or defend their rights–but maybe our motivations should be to defend each other’s rights anyway.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Thanks For Taking My Space

July 26, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

The fact that I even feel the need to write this post is evidence enough that people aren’t considerate of disabled people. I am a real handicapped person, with a parking placard and everything, and yet most of the time I can’t find a handicapped space in parking lots because non-handicapped people have taken them. Thus, I end up thinking the title of this post–“gee, thanks for taking my space!”

Why Is This an Issue?

Handicapped people have extreme difficulty with mobility, and often they have to have a good bit of room around their vehicle so that a wheelchair or other mobility device can be loaded and unloaded. Handicapped spaces are thus provided with extra room around the space, and the spaces are located very close to the doors of businesses. These spaces are meant for people who have a medically-issued, government-approved handicapped placard.

At least, that’s the intended purpose. But most of the time, non-handicapped people use handicapped spaces as convenience spaces for a “quick trip to the store” (which ends up being ALL DAY). Or, people park in the striped lines BESIDE the handicapped space and make it impossible for people with mobility devices to get out of their cars/vans at all.

Both of these actions are incredibly inconsiderate and infuriating to me, as a real-life disabled person, and I know other disabled people get frustrated about this too. In my case, any walking I do aggravates one of the major nerves in my ankles, causing sharp lightning pains up my legs with every step. When I can’t find a handicapped place, it literally hurts so much to walk into the building that sometimes I just have to turn around and go home rather than run my errand. (And if I took enough medicine to dull the pain, I’d be too doped up to even consider driving in the first place.) I can’t imagine what it’s like for people who need extra room for mobility devices!

Fixing This, One Driver at a Time

Leave the handicapped spots for handicapped people. If you do not have a handicapped placard, you should not be parking there–it’s ILLEGAL, and it will cost you quite a bit in fines if you’re caught.
Even if you’re not caught doing it, there are people who actually need those spaces, and you’re robbing them of the legal right they have to park there. Does your convenience trump their right to run errands as normally as possible?
Do not park in the striped space beside a handicapped spot. Be respectful (and save yourself the parking fines).
If you’re parking beside a handicapped spot, be sure to leave extra room on that side so that future visitors can get out easily, no matter what side the handicapped person is on.
If you see a car without a placard in a handicapped spot, report it to a parking supervisor. I hate to advise being a “tattletale,” but maybe a few fines will make people realize this is actually an issue!

Thursday in the Zone

Why Do We Game?

July 21, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

Games in many forms have somewhat taken over our modern life. Oh, who am I kidding–they’ve taken over almost all of our lives these days. Even buying groceries is a game for extreme couponers; even Facebook is a game for social networkers. We love the competition, pleasantly pitting ourselves against friends and neighbors to see how many virtual crops we can grow in a week, how many items we can sell on eBay, etc.

But WHY do we game? Why is this such an important part of our world culture? I think there are five reasons why:

#1: Escape from Real Life

For most of us, life is either the drudgery of a 9-to-5, days full of hectic parenthood, or a combination of both. Games, by contrast, are things we don’t have to do, things we aren’t expected to succeed at (at least the first time), and are a way for our brains to wind down. During the time we’re gaming, we don’t have to think about our responsibilities outside the game.

#2: Mental Challenge

Games help us think in different ways, whether it’s fitting all the blocks together just so on Tetris or figuring out how not to get killed on Call of Duty. Some people unwind best when faced with a totally new type of challenge, one they would never see in their day-to-day work or family life. Plus, it can boost your real-life ego when you conquer a challenge in your virtual life.

#3: Social Competition

Admit it: It’s fun to see how your skills stack up against somebody else’s, even if we’re just growing some crops in Farmville. That’s why the Playstation Network and XBox Live exist–we as a human race like to compete against each other, both to test our own skills and to see how we compare to others. Virtual competition just takes some of the physicality out of the contest and makes it into a mental competition, leveling the playing field somewhat for people (like me) who aren’t as sports-oriented.

#4: Entertainment Experience

When a game is really fun, it’s a memorable experience, and we actively seek it out again and again. It’s like watching a favorite movie again–reliving it brings back some of the fond memories of the first experience, and we build on those memories as we replay. Games are not just challenges, but interactive entertainment, and it activates some of the same emotions, memories, and morals/values that other forms of entertainment do.

#5: Fantasy Experience

Some games are more based on social interactions than anything, and this brings in yet another element: fantasy. You might think this is interconnected with the “escape from real life” point, and it partially is; however, in a game with a heavy social interaction component, such as The Sims or even World of Warcraft, you can literally make yourself over in a fantasy world. You can feel more open to speak your mind, be funnier and wittier than you usually get a chance to be otherwise. You may even begin to judge people by what they say instead of their avatar’s looks!

Summary

I believe gaming has become very important to us today because it fulfills many of our needs. Yes, we have a real life to return to outside of our games, but games do help us to unwind, challenge ourselves, compete socially, be entertained, and experience a very different type of life.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Texting and Driving

June 14, 2011 Robin 1 Comment

About texting and driving: Who do you need to talk to so badly that you’re willing to risk your life to do it?

I say this because I know people who text and drive all the time, and I’ve even tried it myself. But having tried it–and almost causing a couple of accidents because of it–I don’t understand why people continue to do it. I definitely understand that the conversation is important, and it’s REALLY tempting to try to carry on a text conversation as soon as you receive a message, but personally, I’d rather not have a half-finished text message as my last act on Earth.

The REAL Dangers of Texting and Driving: Distracted Driving

This infographic from TextingAndDrivingSafety shows how dangerous this is. When you text, you’ve spent at least 5 seconds not looking at the road, which means you’re covering a lot of ground while not even looking where you’re going. This causes over a million crashes every year, as this Google search will show you.

Anybody, even the most skilled driver, becomes an erratic driver when their attention is focused elsewhere. You can just tell when there’s a distracted driver ahead of you–they weave between their lane lines (and sometimes cross them), they are either driving way too slow or way too fast for the speed limit, and they either brake randomly or tailgate like crazy. Texting/distracted drivers scare the heck out of me, and for good reason. Thus, I don’t want to scare other drivers with my behavior.

How to Safely Read (NOT ANSWER) A Text While Driving

ONLY in emergency situations, if you are waiting for a text to tell you which hospital to go to, or where you need to be ASAP, here is a procedure I have followed:

Make sure there are few to no other cars around (i.e., you’re not on a major highway)
Make sure you are on a straightaway and there are no curves or lack of road shoulders ahead
Hold the phone up on top of the steering wheel with one hand, so you can glance quickly down at the message and then glance back up. You should spend 4 of every 5 seconds looking at the road ahead.

Notice that I did not say “answer the text”, but “read the text.” If you need to ANSWER the text, pull over onto the side of the road or into a well-lit parking lot to do so, because this is not something you should attempt while the car is moving. (Trust me, I consider myself a master of multitasking, and yet when I tried to text I felt like I was completely out of control of the car. I couldn’t put the phone away fast enough.)

The Moral:

Don’t type a text while the car is moving–keep yourself AND others safe on the road!

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Loneliness, the Bane of My Existence

May 10, 2011 Robin 5 Comments

Author’s Note: This post is pretty heavy lifting, emotionally, but this is one of the reasons that the category “Tuesday on the Soapbox” exists on this blog–it forces me, weekly, to dig into personal, social, political, moral, and ethical issues and really get down to what these problems are really about. If I’m not brave enough to tackle the minefield of my own emotional makeup, then I’m not really doing right by this category. And maybe those who read this post will be inspired to dig down into the detritus of their memories, as I have, and find some beautiful “a-ha!” moments along the way.

If you understand that I fear being lonely–not being alone, but being without people who love me and care for me–then you understand me. It literally rules everything I do. I am the way I am because I greatly fear the moment when I am utterly without love.

One might wonder why I, an only child of doting parents and loving extended family, would have grown up with this type of neurosis. I can give you a one-word answer: school.

Where Loneliness Grew

Everything I needed to know about life, I did learn in kindergarten. I learned that friendships were often political alliances; I learned that they could be made and broken in the same day. I learned that friendships were fragile because people were petty creatures, able to hate you or fear you deeply over nothing. Five-year-olds do all that just as well as 30-year-olds? You better believe it.

I was an only child, desperately seeking children my own age for friendship. But even the first day of kindergarten proved to me that I had royally bungled that attempt. I was exuberant and talked in outlandish imaginative words. I wasn’t used to having other kids to play with, they weren’t used to a weird kid like me, and I didn’t understand their “picking” and “teasing.” All this difference didn’t serve me very well, because soon I was the absolute outcast in the classroom, apparently too different to befriend or even speak to.

The Pattern Continues

Elementary school passed in much the same way–the glass wall between me and the rest of my classmates did not come down over time, but only strengthened. I would attempt to play with the popular kids, and they would laugh and walk away as if I wasn’t even human enough to treat with respect. I would try to talk to the kids sitting on the edges of the playground, who also looked lonely, and they would scream and run away as if I was some terrible monster. It made me feel unworthy to be alive. I had parents who loved me and told me I was a good person–but how good of a person could I be if my entire grade level couldn’t stand to be anywhere within ten feet of me? I was clean, I dressed neatly, and I was good at schoolwork. Despite this, was I somehow tainted?

Whatever was “wrong” with me in the eyes of my classmates has been a mystery to me since those long-ago days of early grade school. All I know is that my role in the school’s social system was established early on, and I was not allowed to move from that Godforsaken role until well into high school. I was the whole class’ emotional punching bag, no matter if you were a “nerd,” a “jock,” a “prep,” or anything else. Anybody could pick on me because I didn’t know how to defend myself against it, and it was apparently great fun making me cry because I gave people what they wanted–a response. I got teased for my hairstyles, my clothes, my grades, the way I walked, the way I talked, my height…absolutely anything and everything they could think of.

And yet, I continued to try to reach out to these people, because they were my classmates, for better or for worse, and they were the best shot I had at trying to form friendships with kids my own age. My life was school and home; I had no neighborhood of kids my age to come home to. I kept trying the same things expecting a different result, hoping that this attempt might get at least one of the kids to respond positively. Some days, after 7 1/2 fruitless hours of this, I came home and fervently prayed to God that I would die in my sleep. And that was just elementary school. Even then, I already knew death would be an escape from the horrible, crushing loneliness I felt.

Loneliness -> Depression

Around second grade, largely due to loneliness, I lapsed into what I now know as my first cycle of depression, which had been immediately preceded by several severe crying fits in the classroom. I cried because of the teasing; I cried because I was hurting emotionally. My second-grade teacher could not deal with me, so she sent me to the office, twice. I was reminded that if I had a third office visit, I would be suspended. I was horribly afraid of that third office visit (what it meant for my precious-seeming permanent record more than anything), and so I began to internalize my feelings so that I wouldn’t be sent to the office and permanently marked as a “bad kid.”

Depression came to join loneliness very soon after, at the same time my teacher began to praise me for my magical “turnaround” in my behavior. If she had only known what she had helped to engender in me; the sadness stagnated within me and festered into a darker emotional infection. My life thus became my schoolwork; pride in my work took the place of friendship. If I could not have friends, then I would just be the best in school and no one could disrespect me for that.

I spent the rest of elementary school in this fog, which only a few people pierced through to become friends; I still remember them fondly and have kept up with them over the years. But I remember also the silences which followed every “cool” comment I tried to make in groups; everyone just got awkwardly quiet, and then resumed talking as if I had never spoken. I also remember the moments of aching for someone to just recognize that I was there, that I was a fellow human being, and being too afraid to make the first move for fear of being laughed at and teased. (Isn’t it funny how our brains focus on the negative memories?)

Middle School: A Fertile Ground for Loneliness Indeed

Middle school did not clear this fog very much; in fact, as my body bloomed into its bigger adult form, I began to be teased for my weight as well as everything else. To think that I had looked forward to middle school, thinking would be better because I was with people from two other elementary schools, and I could make a clean slate of things. Unfortunately, the kids from my elementary school warned the kids from the other schools about me on the FIRST DAY, spreading vicious rumors and lies that they had grown up to believe about me.

By the second day of sixth grade, I was again an outcast, except with three times more people around to either tease or ignore me. But now, instead of just verbal abuse, I was physically assaulted, as well. Other kids slammed my head against lockers, held me against the wall so they could jiggle and pinch my flesh. A gang of six girls got together to torment me in the bathroom, dumping bathroom trash (used tampons and pads) down on my head in the bathroom stall, standing on each other’s shoulders to look down at me while I tried to use the restroom in peace. (Years later, I watched the movie Carrie and envied the title character for her ability to get back at all the hateful people in her life. I was all too familiar with the tactics her enemies used against her; the movie hit far too close to home.)

The Only Defense Against Loneliness

If it hadn’t been for seventh-grade choir, I probably would not be alive today. Choir gave me a sudden reason to live–I was suddenly one of the strongest singers in the choir, and other people depended on me for the voice part, whether they liked me or not. I was suddenly useful. The loneliness sped away when I sung with the group, because I had a purpose and I had people who needed me; it didn’t matter that I was fat, that I wore “high-water” pants, or that I still cried easily. Thus I learned something else about society–as long as I was useful, people would like me. I also discovered that I had a gift for vocal music, and coupled with the writing I had begun to do more of, I began to cling a little more closely to life.

Outwardly, I began to be more self-assured as I left middle school and went into high school. I looked very confident and poised on my graduation day, when I urged my classmates in a graduation speech to “be bold” and grab their futures. All through college, as well, I was considered to be studious, helpful, and well-educated, and people depended on me for help in tough classes. I was eager to help, not only because I enjoyed seeing other people achieve their best, but because they were genuinely grateful for my help and appreciated me.

Where Loneliness Still Blooms

But even as successful and “happy” as I appear, even today in my late twenties, I am actually no more self-assured now than I was back in seventh grade, as my teacher training so painfully taught me. As I watched my seventh-grade students flounder in loneliness and self-doubt, I saw myself…even the “teacher” skin could not cover it. I’m a Magna Cum Laude college graduate, generally well-liked by the people in my life, loved by a wonderful Christian man, and on my way to becoming successful with the writing and music I used to keep myself alive. Yet, I still apologize for everything and do my best not to get in people’s way. My past has taught me to err on the side of being too nice and too friendly. If I am considered “nice” and “friendly,” people will like me; if people like me, they’ll stay close to me, and never betray me.

Yeah, I’m a pretty pathetic person once you get to know me. I’ve been crushed by loneliness and depression for so much of my life that it’s almost more normal than normal. Almost everything about me is a coping strategy–my helpful nature, my humor, my writing, my music, even my gaming. Everything I do helps me deal with the horrible fear of being lonely as I once was, even as I’m surrounded with people who care about me. I live in fear of the ill-considered remark, the unintentional slight, the momentary mistake that leads to someone leaving my life.

With the help of my beloved, my friends, and my family, I am starting to dig out from under this loneliness…but it’s going to take a long time to free myself from these choking vines. But I hope one day I can see others as purely friendly instead of as potential enemies, and be rid of this loneliness at last.

Tuesday on the Soapbox

Think Before You Type

May 3, 2011 Robin 2 Comments

Have an idea for a hilarious joke to post on Facebook? Maybe a prank comment on one of your friends’ statuses? How about a note detailing all the crazy things you and a bunch of friends got into on Saturday night?

Instead, how about not clicking “Post” just yet, and instead rereading what you wrote?

Why Reread? Because It Could Save You a Lot of Pain

Rereading won’t take long. Just for a few seconds, think about how your parents will understand this post, or how your boss will take it. If it’s a joke or prank on a friend, think about how this friend might interpret your words. Is it as funny? Does it make sense to post it now? And, most important of all, would you be comfortable with a potential employer, new friends, or a future significant other seeing this five or six years from now?

The reason I bring this up is because a lot of things get posted on Facebook these days that really shouldn’t be broadcasted. Though writing statuses or notes on Facebook seems harmless, sometimes thoughtless words can get you fired or spark fights (like the Facebook fight over a boy which resulted in a girl’s death).

If You Didn’t Reread Before Posting, You Can Still Delete

We all have things out there on the Internet that represent who we WERE, not who we ARE now–especially if you’ve had an online presence for a long time. But if we don’t delete things that no longer represent who we are, they don’t just vanish into the digital mist; they’re still archived somewhere, and someone may well access it one day much later when it’s embarrassing (or even incriminating) rather than funny or cool.

This is one reason I’ve gone about the Internet deleting and cleaning up my very old profiles. I’ve changed and grown up a lot since I first started using the Internet; I used to curse a lot, for instance. Now that I’m older and more professionally-minded, I don’t want bosses or new friends coming across things I posted that no longer fit my personality, my hopes and dreams, or my ambitions. (I am aware that archives of my old stuff may still exist somewhere on the Internet, but at least my deletions will make it much harder to retrieve.)

So now, before I post anything on the Internet, even blog posts like this one, I stop and think, “Could this possibly get me in trouble someday? Could someone take this the wrong way? How does this reflect on me as a person?” This keeps me from posting a lot of (usually frustrated) statuses that wouldn’t serve any good purpose anyway, and it also keeps me from accidentally offending anyone, which could easily come back to bite me in an uncomfortable bodily region later.

Summary

Since so much of our lives are on the Internet these days (even our work and family lives), it’s important to think carefully before posting anything online. This doesn’t mean that we live “fake” lives on social media, but that we just think as much about what we type as what we say in person.