Why Families Need Board Games, Part III: Isolation, Assimilation, and Resonance

In this article, I continue a bit on the necessity of personal contact in board games, but from a different, somewhat inverse angle: isolation. I'm sure that all people have faced and felt isolation at one point in their lives -- that unmistakable feeling of an invisible barrier having been erected, making the outside world fade away behind a translucent haze with voices muffled and hearts hidden. Sometimes, our ever-increasing fascination with the hyper-reality of computers and audiovisual technology has the odd side-effect of separating us from others, but isolation starts from within us. It isn't the "world" that isolates us as much as it is we who isolate ourselves, and it all starts with a preoccupying thought:

"Do I belong?"

That sense of wanting to belong is integral to humanity. It's a thought that occurs to anyone who moves to a new city, attends a new church, gets a new job, or even runs with a new group of acquaintances. As one struggles to assimilate, one has to fight the feelings of being an outsider. These are diametrically-opposed forces: assimilation and isolation. These are forces that people should recognize, and people should also recognize the factors that affect each force. I believe that the desire to assimilate to God-given as we are commanded to love our God and love our neighbor; in many ways, to assimilate to our neighbor is natural. However, in the face of absorbing technology without balance, isolation is more commonplace, but there are so many more factors to consider, specifically divergent ideologies. Differences of faith (or lack of it) are easy to identify and tend to, regrettably, cloister us, but even in groups of like beliefs there are differences that threaten to divide.

To combat isolation (and to borrow from Star Trek technobabble), we must achieve resonance when two or more parties resonate at the same frequency. When we begin to understand each other's faults, yet reach a mindset in which those faults don't matter, we adapt and accept each other. We start to establish common ground. Common ground doesn't have means we compromise our beliefs or acquiesce; it means that, despite the gulf that divides, ties of friendship and love can bind us.

Have you ever asked a new acquaintance family from whom you sense something negative? Maybe, they were friendly at first but then they started to act strangely... Distant, perhaps. We isolate ourselves, but we must resonate at all costs. It doesn't have to be hard to resonate; if people don't have common faith, common ideologies, or even common ways of driving or ironing clothes, they can at least sit at a table and play board games.

Why Families Need Board Games, Part II: Reinforcing Personal Contact

My wife told me an intriguing story. During her visit to the dentist, she overheard a young girl asking her father if she could play a game on his cellular phone. My wife described the girl as being "whiny," which seems to be the chosen tone of many children. At the same time, my youngest son devoured 11 chapters of a book. Upon first hearing this story, one may not find anything that intriguing, but to me this story reinforces the importance of disconnecting from the digital and connecting to others and with concrete objects in the "real." Indeed, personal contact is one way in which board games will save the world, but the strongest impediment might be games of another kind...

The most salient trend in gaming is how games become more and more intricate and engrossing for the player: games are now more complex, more visually appealing, and more portable than ever. Games look sharper and crisper, and set the challenge bar high enough with less cheese than in the past; with games like Plague or Bad Piggies, players benefit from engaging graphics, top-notch sound effects, and enough detail and complication to occupy even the most jaded gamer. Also, gone are the days of needing a Game Gear or Game Boy or even having to pay money for cartridges; just get a smartphone or a tablet, download a free game app, and one can play most games anywhere and only have to tolerate the periodic advertisement. People can play everything from first-person shooters to virtual board games; one of my gaming buddies even played Ticket to Ride for the first time... on an iPad! No longer do you need game realia (such as game pieces or dice), console, cartridges, or even opponents; the computer can provide an opponent or opponents anytime, anywhere.

Considering the convenience of computer games now, plugging into the digital world is somewhat more appealing than whipping out a game board or game books, and finding "experienced" players is easier now that computer intelligence and game programming can frustrate veteran players without the skulduggery inherent to old video games, such as spotty hit detection. However, people are now, more than ever, tempted to disconnect from others. Many video game and computer game players may now be less apt to challenge live opponents, let alone engage a human being in conversation. Sure, people that play online RPGs can connect with players through a chat window or by audiovisual communication, but it all happens in a world disjointed from reality. 

We are becoming more isolated and separated, but this is one trend that board games can restrict. By taking out a board, some pieces, and some cards, one is required to find human opponents. Once one finds human opponents, one has to communicate with these opponents, whether it be friendly conversation or playful, competitive banter. One has to move pieces, read rules, and manipulate realia to make the game happen. People's brains take back the role computers have stolen from our unsuspecting grasps; their brains make the "graphics" move, our eyes ingest and admire the game pieces, and our hands carry these items from game table to game table. Board games anchor people in reality, while stimulating conversations, compelling players to match wits with organic foes, and even driving us to go out and find those foes.

As the "world" pulls us farther and further apart, seducing us with a hyper-reality of bright colors and endless opponents whom we would never have to befriend, it creates the illusion of interconnection with social media sites like Facebook and Twitter and deceives us into believing in our self-reliance. We buy into the idea that we don't need other people; we just need a computer. Yet, people are alone in their offices, chatting with each other through screens. It all seems so (William) Gibsonesque a la Neuromancer, but we need to touch each other; we need to touch this world. So, next time, instead of playing Ticket to Ride on a tablet, or asking Daddy for his smartphone, take the board game with you. Play Yahtzee in the doctor's office or Fluxx on the train. Invite your friends or even ask friendly passengers around you to play. We need personal contact; the "world" cannot overwhelm us if we (dare I say) stick together.

Why Families Need Board Games, Part I

A few weeks ago, my wife, my sons, and I led a Board Game night for several families. To start the Board Game night, I presented 15 minutes of game information and etiquette for everyone, to which the adults politely listened while the children squirmed and squawked (note: PowerPoint presentations and children don't mix well). After my hastily-concluded presentation, my wife, my sons, and I led four different game sessions to introduce new games to the families there: my wife led a game of Dixit, my oldest son led a game of Carcassonne, my youngest son led a game of Fluxx (which is NOT a board game, but it didn't really matter), and I guided youngsters through a game of Balloon Lagoon.

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)