GAME TIME!
We are ever more a "game-playing" nation since the arrival of the computer with it's tremendous fund of real time-killers.
Some of our old games demanded mental agility and I see that element as being totally absent in so many of the newer games.They are, far too often, diversions rather than something to take the place of our established games.
We need a new term in our English language which would encompass the ever-widening range of what people call "games" now running on TV, erupting in a corroding cloud of noise and color in arcade settings of every description. Not only does TV have extended power over family life but it is doing so at all age levels. The rapid invasion of personal player units has added a reculsive element to family living rooms from which it has been free for many generations.
We are going to be forced to examine this phase of our current living patterns before too many years pass, but right now we are trying not to think of potential damage from excessive attention to these ever-growing abberations concerning our idea of what constitutes fun. For a time, such :games: were not considered to be addictive.
Think about that new word we need...a new term which will emcompss the growing group of now being called "games" alonmg with the traditional world of authentic games. We have made use of twisted meaning of the word in speaking of "spam" It currtently means unwanted commercial messages interlarded with TV and computer information. Most young people, and many older ones, do not know that it orignally demanded a capital "S" because it was the name of a widely know and used meat product made by Hormel,I think. It is still on the market and I am among those who still eat and enjoy it. I was sent to Europe during World War II and did not meet up with it, but those who were shipped to the Pacific area were, it seem, inundated,with rations containing and, probably,imitatations thereof. You know what familarity does. Many Vets came state-side as dedicated Spam haters.
The term has now gone generic as "spam"and we now also have "spim" as well, which is the same type of unwanted advertising junk turning up in Instant Message formats.
C[mon!. Help me find a word that describes the "non-game" games which are ruining legitiate games demanding skill, intellgence and physical actions beyond the mere touching of buttons.
A.L.M. March 16,2004 [c435wds]
