A Global Community

Last night, I was doing something fairly normal. Emily had been bugging me for a few days to play Kingdom Hearts so she could watch and try to read some of the dialogue. While I was trying to beat a boss battle, something horrible happened in Paris.

Once I got online, while Emily was getting her pj's on. I started reading about it. My Facebook feed was filled with pictures of the Eiffel Tower, words of comfort in French and the Twitter hashtag for people in Paris to use to find somewhere safe to go.

It reminded me of a day many years ago. I was in my last year of college, and I was playing a video game because I didn't have class until later. One of my roommates came to my door to tell me that a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center.

Even though I don't live in France, last night made me feel a little like it was 9/11 all over again. I thought it might just be me because I've been feeling anxious and out of sorts this week. But when I posted my feelings on Facebook, several friends said that they felt the same.

Thanks to the internet, I have friends all over the world. Granted most of them live in the US, but spread out. I do have friends across the pond and in other countries. My friends, even though I only know most of them via the internet, are very important to me. In one group, a friend posted that she loved us all. The feeling was quite mutual, for I love my friends very much even if I've never met them in person.

We are becoming a global community thanks to the internet. We can share our sorrow for the lives lost in Paris, and huddle around the computer to get information. But we can also use this internet to comfort one another in times of tragedy. We share our joys as well.

I'll have more to say about the goodness that can come from social media later. But I'm very happy to be part of a global community. It has allowed me to become friends with some awesome people I would never have met without the internet.

Videos Games Don't Cause Violence!

One of my biggest pet peeves is when someone blames a tragedy on video games. When I was in college, Columbine happened. There was a lot of talk about how violent video games were a large part of why Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold committed this heinous act of violence. I was broadcasting major at the time and I spoke at length in my classes how video games were not to blame.

I’m an avid video gamer and I like games that can be a little on the violent side. My husband, who wouldn't hurt a fly, loves the first person shooter games. We've both been gamers since we were kids, like a lot of people in our generation. Since Columbine, every time that there is a shooting someone in the media tries to blame it on videos games which I think is ridiculous. Especially since neither of us has felt the urge to go shoot up anywhere despite hundreds of hours shooting things in video games.

More and more people play video games now than they did in the late 90’s, so if video games were to blame, there should be a lot more of these violent attacks. The blame should be put squarely on the shoulders of the person responsible – the person who did the shooting.

Banning videos games or monitoring who buys them isn't going to do anything. Now I do think parents should be active in their kids’ lives and make sure they are monitoring what kinds of games they play. Emily is nearly five and she’s already a big games. But she plays things like Kinect Disneyland Adventures or the Toy Story 3 game. We also limit her time that she can play video games because she’s like her parents and could sit playing all day.

The tragedy a few days ago was horrific and it made me very sad for the loss of life. I know that videos games didn’t play any part because it sounds like the shooter, despite playing video games, was a very disturbed person. Fox News used this opportunity to call for a registry to track video game purchases since they think that playing video games are so obviously the problem.

So I will repeat the rant that I’ve said for nearly 15 years. Video games don’t cause violence, people do!