May 2009 Print


The Morality of Video Games

Jacques Delorme

“Classic Games and Video Games” (in the March 2009 issue of The Angelus) covered the basic principles governing the morality of games in general. Jacques Delorme applies these principles to commonly heard objections to video games in order to reach a conclusion.

We are going to consider the morality of video games principally in relation to young people, hence, in a family setting. Adults will be able to employ the following reflections themselves with the necessary adaptations.

For parents, several attitudes towards video games are possible. The first attitude is that, considered in themselves, video games are morally dangerous (like television, for example), and the surest thing is to banish them from the house, pure and simple.

The second attitude (which can, moreover, be added to the first) consists in deciding that children cannot do everything, and choosing to help them discover richer and more formative pastimes like reading, art, sports, travel, nature study, etc.

These two attitudes are excellent, praiseworthy, and, in our opinion, wiser. Video games being absolutely unnecessary to the formation of the child, and their usage being in fact very difficult to control (like television or the Internet), the simplest and most effective thing to do would be to afford them no room in the home. This radical solution ultimately seems to us the best and the most desirable, the most recommendable, the most in conformity with the spirit of faith and of Christian education rightly understood.

Nevertheless, video games are like movies: not being evil per se, a reasonable use in conformity with morality is at least speculatively possible. It is in this context that we shall offer some psychological and moral reflections apt to guide parents who judge it difficult or inopportune to banish all video games from education, while being firmly decided to keep their use within the limits of morality and Christian life. The parents who have opted for banishing these games from the home will find in our reflections themes for personal educative meditations as well as arguments apt to reinforce their decision.

We shall proceed in our exposition by formulating objections to the use of video games and addressing them. Of course, these will be considerations of a general nature that will have to be adapted to particular video games (which may come under several different objections).

Immorality

It is often said, “Most of the time, video games are immoral.” The objection is partly valid: a certain number of immoral video games exist. Obviously, bad video games or the circumstances [in which they are played] should be rejected straight off, as would be the case for any other form of game. There is no question of accepting obscene or blasphemous games; videos or not, such games cannot even be imagined in a Christian family.

Moreover, children should be prevented from playing video games (or non-video games, for that matter) instead of doing their duty of state–for example, instead of prayers or work; such conduct constitutes a fault. Only inherently decent video games (for example, a simulation of soccer) the child plays during playtime can be theoretically considered by a Christian family.

Stupidity

People often say, “Video games are stupid games.” This rather sweeping remark does not take account of reality. Undoubtedly, of the thousands of video games there are a certain number of completely idiotic ones (not to mention immoral games). But there are a good many other games which are not devoid of interest and intelligence. It should even be said that quite remarkable video games exist.

Even for those who have never frequented video games, it is clear that a game of electronic chess is as intelligent as a game of classic chess: the fact of its being played through the medium of a screen does not make it stupid. What’s more, a game of electronic chess opens possibilities that classic chess does not–for instance, the ability to replay for practice the moves made during great world chess championships. A good game of electronic chess, in effect, stores in memory thousands of historic matches, just as it can archive the games played by its owner.

Besides, there are a number of classic games that do not shine by their intelligence or their subtleties. It is not necessarily intelligence, after all, that is demanded of a game, but the ability to relax the mind. It often happens that we play some games that are a little silly but which make us laugh (with our family or friends), and which thus attain the very goal of games, which is relaxation.

Aggressiveness

People also say, “In video games, the colors are loud and the music aggressive.” First of all, this is not true of all games. The games for young children especially are often very pretty, with pastel colors, soft music, etc. One can find a number of games for adolescents and adults that are aesthetically acceptable, and even agreeable.

Now it is true that too many video games are aesthetically aggressive. Three reasons for this come to mind. First, the general ambiance of our society: the advertisements, the music in the supermarkets and public places are also aggressive. Then, the fact that the video game industry is a young industry that was started by technology enthusiasts, often very young and marginal, who naturally let their tastes show. But little by little as this industry has evolved, its taste has had a tendency to stabilize. Finally, a good part of video games are aimed at teenagers, especially boys, whose preference for green fruit over ripe is well known, as Louis Veuillot observed. Just as the clothes of teens are more colorful than those of adults, games for teens (either real or video) are logically noisier, faster, brighter, and, as a last resort, more aggressive.

Artificiality

They likewise say, “In video games, everything follows the rules of the game rather than real life. You have to use the vocabulary of the game instead of normal vocabulary; in short, the game departs from life, it is artificial.” This objection is hardly pertinent since it applies to most classic games. Listening to football fans talk or reading the chess match chronicles in the newspaper when one is not an expert oneself is to feel oneself a foreigner to the jargon and to very specific rules.

Here we touch on the paradox of games in general: it is a voluntary activity destined for leisure, yet it never stops becoming more complex, the great joy of the players being to make the rules more difficult so as to have the pleasure of beating them anyway.

Fatigue

It is also said, “Game screens are a source of visual fatigue and headaches for children.” In fact, scientific studies have never demonstrated a link between the normal use of a screen and (short-term) ocular fatigue, nor even a (long-term) deterioration of sight. These studies involve recent screens (less than ten years old) subject to rather rigorous technical specifications. On the other hand, it is clear that prolonged utilization of a video screen for any activity (professional work at a computer, Internet research, television, or video games) naturally leads to fatigue. Here, it is not the video game that is the cause, but its duration. This can be compared to a car trip: a short distance is not tiring, but a long trip can be wearing. It is not the car that is the cause, but the duration of its use.

It is therefore obvious that a prolonged use of video games is not good for children’s health. But this can be said of all their activities. I knew a child who loved to read. Were it up to him, he would have read eight to ten hours straight every day. Obviously, his parents chased him out of the house, forbidding him to take a book so that he would go run and play outside for recreation and fresh air. His parents thus spared him the misadventure that befell the young Gueranger, who, during his seminary vacation, read so much that he fell sick and had to give up all study for a year to recuperate.

Excitement

People also say, “Video games are exciting, and the children who play them can’t get to sleep.” It is clear that video games fall among exciting activities for three reasons: there is movement; this movement is often quite rapid; the images and sound effects (or music) are readily aggressive. Now, excitement is the opposite of sleep, into which we fall by a progressive cessation of activity and thought. Performing an exciting activity just before going to bed is the best way to take a long time falling asleep. The body calms down slowly. But in this, video games do not stand out from other exciting activities: going to bed just after a soccer match where the adrenaline is rushing is also a good way not to fall asleep. And the most common activity before bedtime today for most people, watching television, is a powerful insomniac since its description is very close to that of a video game (except that the spectator is passive). Thus it is the hour at which the child plays video games that is at issue here instead of the game itself.

Virtual Reality

People also say, “Video games make the child live in a purely virtual, imaginary world cutting him off from the real and preventing him from experiencing the reality of the world.” In itself, games (since it is question of an activity that purposely takes us out of the flux of normal life for relaxation) always have a dimension of virtuality and imagination. Taking care of a doll, playing with toy horses, or playing Monopoly is not “real” life.

Where the objection does hit home is for the troubling mixture of virtual and real in video games. When a child plays with dolls or toy soldiers, the child keeps in the back of its mind that it is just play. Video games, on the contrary, tend towards realism: the greater “the feeling of being there,” the better the video game. From this fact, the boundary between the real and the imaginary, between life and play, tends to dissolve. The phenomenon is even stronger in the latest versions of online games like “Second Life,” since the real life (virtually) intrudes in virtual reality. How can one help not feeling oneself to be in real life (although one is only playing) when you can browse in stores, newspapers, and political kiosks, etc., which are being managed by real enterprises or parties and which try to conduct real commerce or real politics, but within a world that is purely virtual? The games that are really videos are at the same time those that will have the strongest influence on a child’s psyche, which already does not distinguish as perfectly as an adult what is the fruit of its imagination from what is real.

There are certain advantages to this “virtuality”: notably because one can learn and try things without risk. A car-driving simulator enables the learner to acquire the basics of driving without fear of accidents. But, on the other hand, can it be said that someone who has only driven on a simulator really knows how to drive in reality a car made of matter?

The ever increasing number of things children (and adults) can do in their little cocoons in front of the screen without ever suffering real, physical consequences, without ever feeling the objective counter punch, opens the door to a “de-realizing” of the world of scarcely imaginable consequences. Even if it involves an extreme consequence, some murders committed by children have shown that they did not perceive the gravity of their action simply because they were used to seeing murders and deaths on television and in video games without it having any consequences (for them).

Addiction

The last objection we shall entertain is also, in our view, the strongest. It involves the powerful addiction that video-game use too often engenders. This is an easily observable phenomenon, which is also to be found with the twin brothers of video games, namely, television and the Internet: it is difficult to tear oneself away, and one can spend long hours at it without realizing it.

The virtual world, which increasingly offers the appearance of reality and which offers a quasi unlimited food for the senses and spirit, captivates and imprisons the player, especially when he is young, and keeps him from breaking away from this hypnosis. Even with the best will in the world, even with iron discipline, even with draconian surveillance, it is in fact very difficult if not impossible to confine the usage of video games within rational and Christian limits. Like television (and everyone who has one at home ought to recognize it honestly), video games tend to invade the children’s time, their interest, and their attention, and finally to obsess them more and more. It is principally for this reason that the solution of radically banning video games from the home seems to us to be the best and the wisest.

Summary

We recognize that video games are not immoral per se. We have shown that a number of objections against them are not well founded or else can be directed against classic games or else ought to admit of some nuances. But after conceding all of that, it remains that in practice within family life and education, it is in reality more or less impossible to make a good use of video games, to utilize them according to the principles of St. Thomas on the morality of games. In these conditions, since in most cases and for most children and families, video games will be harmful regardless of the precautions taken, it is morally wise and opportune to banish them definitively from a Christian home.

 

Translated from Fideliter (May-June 2007), pp.74-79.