Video games, like rock music, have been blamed for all sorts of ills in society. Although the debate is ongoing, we’ve heard little that is new in quite some time. Marla Jo Fisher, in her article, Video games were invented by the devil, adds a tiny new twist to the debate. In the end, however, her attempt to call for an end to video gaming fails. My goal in this essay is to refute Fisher. In what follows, I will show that Fisher commits several informal fallacies and that her anti-video games arguments amount to little more than statements of personal preference.

Let’s get going. I don’t believe that Fisher is kidding when she says:

I truly believe that video games were created by Satan to turn otherwise normal children into his drooling, glassy-eyed stooges. After my son plays them at his friends’ houses, he comes home irritable and testy for the rest of the day. Even though his skin is normally mocha-colored, after a day spent in a darkened room with a controller in his hand, he comes home with a sickly pallor.

Really? We’re still blaming things on the Devil? Have you ever noticed that, as science progresses, there is less room for demons, ghosts, spirits, sprites, fairies, and the like–in its explanations of psychological disorders? It is Fisher’s mere ignorance to claim that her son is being manipulated by Satan. In the face of such ignorance, why not simply say, “I don’t know why my boy is failing at life?” Why jump to the conclusion that the Devil is doing it? I think the problem is simply that the boy needs a bit more discipline.

I find it hard to believe that Satan would choose to do his work through video games. Aren’t there more effective ways of corrupting the youth? (I don’t believe in Satan, for the record.) I’m sure Fisher has a retort–something along the lines of “Satan works in subtle ways.” As to why Fisher’s omnipotent and omnibenevolent God hasn’t vanquished the Devil, I’m very puzzled. (You might try the old “soul-builder” response, but I don’t buy it. For my more philosophically-minded objectors, I’d like to see an argument that God would be a consequentialist about ethics.)

The bottom line is that there are far more plausible explanations of her child’s behaviors.

Fisher adds:

My anti-video game attitude was only reinforced recently, when I read a story in the Boston Herald about a mom who was so frustrated by her son’s obsessive video gaming that she finally called 911. Apparently, her 14-year-old had become so fixated on “Grand Theft Auto” that he refused to stop playing it. The trouble in her house started after she woke up at 2 a.m. and found her son playing the game on his bedroom computer.

Well, this passage above involves multiples mistakes. Fisher starts by appealing to a shocking case: the supposed extreme nature of the satanic grip on the boy. (This is a standard move in anti-drug arguments, as well.) Then she commits a hasty generalization and a slippery slope fallacy. The general argument involves generalizing from an inadequate sample size (1 boy) and applies it to the rest of the demographic. That is, she thinks that the rest of avid gamers are prone to being corrupted by the Devil like this boy. Next, she also thinks that video gaming is going to take this group of devil-worshippers to disaster. Nothing in what she has said supports drawing such a conclusion. And surely this is the implicit conclusion she wants you to draw.

Why didn’t the 911 mom simply take away the console? What were the options: let the kid play video games to death or call in the cops? False dilemma. Fisher and the 911 are not reasoning the right way about this situation.

Let’s return to the kind of disaster Fisher is talking about:

This mom unplugged her son’s computer when he refused to get off, which led to a fight, which led to a visit from the cops. It took two Boston cops to convince the kid to turn off his video game and go to bed…

Oh, no. Looks like the Devil’s work to me.  All sarcasm aside, this doesn’t sound like a very bad universe to me. The cops convinced him to go to bed? You mean, they didn’t have to call in the SWAT team, the Ghostbusters (to deal with the demons possessing this boy’s body), Master Chief and the Dog Whisperer?

What’s next?

I see kids walking around, oblivious to the world, with those hand-held video games everywhere I go. On one horrible afternoon that scarred me for life, I even saw a kid walking out of the public library playing a Nintendo DS.

I hate to break it to you, but most people are oblivious. I can be, too. I’m not saying that that’s how humans should be–but video games are not the only cause of this oblivion. Hell, the current recession causes most people to be oblivious. They tend to zone out. People madly in love can be oblivious.

And the “scarred me for life” bit? This sounds sarcastic, almost like something you’d expect Fisher’s opponents to say. If a person walks out of a library sending a text message, is that as bad? Fisher is simply stating what she finds to be repugnant. I don’t like sushi. So what?  Fisher wants these kids to be focused on her favorite hobbies. That becomes evident later.

Then we get another slippery slope fallacy: Fisher then claims that video games will impede scientific progress:

Here’s my question: When do kids ever think these days? When do they ever have brains free from electronics long enough to ponder the universe? To think of things that might someday lead them to a cure for cancer? If Sir Isaac Newton had been playing a DS, I’m sure he never would have noticed the apple falling from the tree, so he never would have formulated the theory of gravity.

Don’t get me started on the school system. I don’t know when kids think. However, proponents of video games will claim that video games do involve problem solving, strategy, and reflexes, and they surely do strengthen some cognitive processes. I’m not saying that kids should just play video games. But we should not pretend like there are no benefits to them. Check out 12 ways video games actually benefit real life

The bit about Newton is probably the most absurd in Fisher’s piece. The story about Newton and the apple has long been considered by his biographers to be false.  That aside, it is almost trivially true that, had Newton been doing something else, he wouldn’t have been doing what he did. Had Newton been run over by an ox cart as a child, he wouldn’t have discovered gravity. If KISS went back in time to recruit teen-aged Newton to be their drummer to rock out the 17th century, Newton wouldn’t have discovered gravity. If Newton had been a crack addict, he probably wouldn’t have discovered gravity.

If you weren’t reading this tirade now, you wouldn’t be reading it. Get the picture? There’s simply nothing special about a Nintendo DS in Fisher’s argument.

Next, Fisher makes an appeal to snobbery, which is what your standard commercial for a luxury car does:

I was too weird for most of the other kids to play with, so I spent most of my time reading obsessively, which of course only made me more of a dweeb. The difference is, in all that reading, I was actually learning stuff about the world, in a way that kids today never will. I was also learning to think creatively, spell and build my vocabulary to the point that I was able to get a job as a professional writer, where people pay me to ride on fire engines, go on ride-alongs with cops and insult the makers of video games.

1. One could argue that reading “obsessively” leads to stunted social development. Most obsessions hinder something. If you drum too much and neglect your homework, you will fail. If you lift weights too much and neglect your work, you will get fired.

2. Fisher is proud of her education–fine. But with the new technology that we have, the kids could claim that they are learning in ways that Fisher never did. Fisher is simply promoting the Golden Era myth. Humans like to pretend like their heyday was better than the current trends; but this urge arises out of being out of touch with the current generation. Once again, check out: 12 ways video games actually benefit real life .

Some kids playing video games play too much. That’s true. But for any human activity, you can find some set of humans going too far with it. Some kids play video games responsibly. Fisher needs to understand that. Some will go on to be doctors, lawyers, engineers–everything that Fisher probably esteems.

In the end, an individual parent’s problems with video games should not merit such a broad condemnation of them–especially on the weak grounds that Fisher gives. There are far better arguments against video games out there, and they’ve already been given.

I’m not saying that there aren’t drawbacks to video games. Some heinous crimes have been committed as a result of video games–but think of all the crimes committed in the name of love. The main ideas here are that 1. video games should be enjoyed in moderation, and 2. as Richard Fumerton says, “What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.” Many of the things that are said against video games can be said about almost any human activity.

I surely have fallen prey to bad habits with video games, but I don’t let them ruin my life. I also have positive experiences with them; they allow me to stay in touch with my friends and family as we play together online. As long as we can maintain a balanced perspective on our video games, we can stay healthy.