As we all conducted our individual games, I found time to patrol the tables and monitor how people were adapting to the new games. I was pleasantly surprised to see that many of the parents and children were learning the games quickly and engrossing themselves in the nuances of each one. The little ones at my Balloon Lagoon tables were especially eager to play a second round, which I certainly allowed them to do. Another child had even taken it upon himself to start another group game of Ticket to Ride, which he had brought to teach others. Thus, the first round of gaming ended well as we all headed into a break, which was when I observed and realized an "inconvenient truth..."
The plan for the evening was to conduct a second round of gaming during which some of the young ones would teach their own favorite board games to the adults. However, as Round 2 was set to commence, it was painfully clear that almost all of the children no longer had any interest in playing board games. Some of them migrated to another room to play with Beyblades; a few boys went upstairs to pillow fight; and several other children seemed to wander around shooting Nerf guns. It was then that I grasped a basic notion: most kids have short attention spans. This wasn't an earth-shattering discovery, but what struck me was that while my sons were open to the idea of more board games, the other kids were not so eager, which led to the earth-shattering discovery:
Many people today have trouble with board games!
Why is that? I pondered the reasons for these children (and adults) not being eager to dive into another round of more profound strategic thinking and discovery. Maybe, it's because people are used to the audiovisual splendor and attention-sapping energy of video games; maybe, it's because board games take time to set up and play; maybe, it's because people are just too busy or distracted to play board games. It could even be because people are too "plugged into" their mobile devices and tablets to shut them off and actually touch tangible game elements. These reasons and others have swirled around in my head for some time after that game meeting, and I contend that all of the reasons I listed are acceptable ones.Yet, I have a better, more over-arching reason for why many kids (and even adults) cannot sit for an extended period of time and play a board game even though those same people can sit and play video or computer games for hours:
The "world" wants us to be plugged in and reliant on technology for entertainment, business, and our very livelihoods.
The "world" is corporations that want to sell us goods with built-in obsolescence so that we buy more in three to five years. The "world" is the entertainment industry (Hollywood, if you will) that wants us to buy its mind-numbing, non-life-affirming movies, its vapid, insipid popular music, and its haughtily amoral television shows. The "world" is video and computer game makers that only seek to satiate and enthrall while promoting sexuality, violence, and unimaginative, profane abuses of language. The "world" tells us we are not smart enough to think on our own, to conduct daily life without technology, and the "world" tells us that we must always be having its brand of "fun" or else life is awful. We are all being shaped by this "world" and the incursions and invasions this "world" has masterminded against our psyches are methodically reshaping us into thrill-seeking, attention-lacking, over-multi-tasked consumers sans a moral compass.
How do we stop the "world" from transforming us into lemmings? One way is through board games.
(To be continued)
