The Ottawa Citizen: Many families have made room for video games in their homes alongside the bookshelves and magazines, so it should come as no great shock that the Ottawa Public Library has done the same. Public libraries are, after all, a community’s living room.
While it might be tempting to view the introduction of video games within the sacred precincts of a library as worrisome, even a blow for reading, that interpretation is short-sighted.
Video Games and Libraries
What happened to reading?
Why are we now babysitting teens and encouraging them to play more mind numbing & dumbing games? In this day & age of library cut backs & closures, why are we spending money on games that become obsolete within 2-6 months time?
I am grateful I work in a community where the average family income is $100,000K+ and the kids all buy the newest version of the hottest new mind-numbing video game as soon as it comes out… Leaving our library as a place for literacy.
Yes, I am old school!
Anyone who has played
Anyone who has played Xenogears knows that it contains more text than some novels, and covers subjects such as theology, philosophy, quantum mechanics, nanotechnology, sociology, and psychology, among others.
The view that books are intrinsically mind-expanding and video games are intrinsically mind-numbing is one that over-generalizes and fails to take into account that video games are capable of transmitting culture just like books.