Good+Old+Days

In my childhood, I prided myself on being an active kid who’s never just sat around doing nothing. If I wasn’t outside doing something or playing the game with someone in my house, then I felt bored and had a constant urge for some kind of activity. I remember the days in which I would spend the whole day with my friends playing video games and doing all the things we liked to do until we did everything we could think of. Waking up on a Saturday morning, I’d head over to the phone to call each one of my friends’ houses as their parents would usually answer and I’d say, “Hi, its Ryan. Is __ there?” The good old days where you had to go through the family to get to the person you wanted to talk to and there was always that chance they weren’t home, in which you’d have to wait for them to call you back. Waiting in my living room with a videogame glowing on the screen, I’d wait for my friends to arrive, knowing that when they saw what I was playing, they would join. I heard the knocks and saw a couple of my friends carpooled over at my door. They’d walk in and see the game on the television and would immediately be drawn in as their faces lit up, grabbing the controllers to join. One of our favorite games to play was a first person shooter game called “James Bond,” in which we’d play rounds of death match to see who could get the most kills. As we played we were in constant conversation, trash talking and laughing at each other as we battled for the lead. During the game my mom would bring down a bowl mixed with potato chips, M & M’s, pretzels and goldfish. We’d dig into the snacks as we stopped game play and watched some TV. As soon as we were done eating, we’d come up with something else to do which usually involved going outside to play basketball or if it was dark; we’d play Laser tag around the neighborhood. We’d play either until we were either completely exhausted or somebody got hurt. When we strolled back inside, dead from all the activity, we ran to grab something from the fridge and then would pick a movie to watch or continue to play videogames. Even after all of this time spent together, we never got bored. So much to the point where, most of the time, it’d result in us having a sleepover because we still wanted to do so much more. Days like these would happen on a regular basis in my childhood and I believe helped me become well rounded and happier as a person. If I would’ve spent my days by myself at home, playing videogames and watching TV, I would be a completely different person today. This leads me to Sonia Livingstone’s point about “moral panics” as she says “it seems that as each new medium is introduced, through a kind of ‘historical amnesia’ about previous panics, we come to accept, or incorporate, the medium that preceded it.” (Livingstone, 2002, p.5) New mediums have been coming out for years, from televisions to videogames to cell phones, but it seems that these have all been accepted by the public. I grew up watching shows for hours on end and playing videogames until my fingers hurt too much to move, but today I hardly watch any television and play videogames about once every week. Just because I used the mediums all the time, I didn’t become lazy or hypnotized by the messages spread through violence and other things seen on screens I watched. I believe it’s all about finding a way to use mediums without being isolated such as with friends or family. I don’t think there is any reason for any panic for the future generations because I know kids in my generation played tons of videogames, but didn’t turn out lazy or video game addicted teens.

Reference Livingstone, S. (2002). Young People and New Media. London: Sage. Ryan Pierce

Edited by Bo Peng