Sunday 29 April 2012

The games people play..

I'm a Dinosaur Mum. Till date i had never ever played Angry Birds! Six year old Honeybunch (with help from Hub) downloaded it on the iphone a long time ago. That was her third level TP (TP as in Time Pass - the first two being TV and laptop respectively).

Yesterday, she was once again playing Angry Birds when i asked her for my phone. She handed me the phone, leaving the game mid way. One peek at the game and i was hooked. I played a few sling shots. Boy, was i pathetic!! I overshot all the time. Sometimes the birds went in the reverse..oh dear shame!! I was quickly turning into an Angry Mom. Honeybunch came back to watch my lousy play. "Mamma, that's not how you play. Let me show you." She proceeded to teach me.

A few minutes later, armed with the tutorial, i resumed play. I got some cool shots that gave me a high score. And with that free time was never the same! All day, even if i had 5 minutes free, it was Angry Birds time.

I even got into arguments with Honerbunch over iphone timeshare. She wanted to play iceAge and me..you guessed it.. Angry Birds. I managed to wrangle the phone away from her and continued with Angry Birds. I kept at it with superb shots making good scores. Every time i destroyed the well set domino like structures, the scores rocked. And I was filled with glee. I played and played, wanting to reach higher levels. Every crash, collapse and collision added thousands to the score. I gloated.

And then out of nowhere came this thought. Wasn't Angry Birds all about destruction? Weren't most games about destruction? Lovely, happy, chirpy birds were used in a sling shot to destroy cool structures. No wonder the birds were angry! And the fact that these birds were being used to blast fattened squeaky pigs probably warrants an intervention from PETA!

Anyways, I wondered some more. Do such games have any effect on kids at all? Is there a research that details the effect of these destructive "games" on fresh, fertile, innocent minds?  Do kids dismiss these games as just that and nothing more? Or is there a seed rooting in the subconscious that destruction is good? As usual, too many questions and no answers. Must browse those psychoanalyst sites that have an answer to everything. Until then, Angry Birds anyone?

On an aside, I have scanned findings that say such games improve the hand eye co-ordination in players. Given the amount of time Honeybunch (and most kids) spend on these phone games, i sure hope that research is right!

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