By Refraction

NEUSTAETER: Unplug and Play — an opinion from the original Nintendo generation

Jan 27, 2019 | 6:00 AM

I’M NOT AT ALL ANTI-VIDEO GAMES. While I may not be pro-star anything in the gaming world, I’ve still logged my fair share of time with a controller in my hand and have spent many all-nighters eating snacks face-first and hands free so that we didn’t have to hit pause.

My family got our very first Nintendo when I was in Grade 3. After all of the other presents had been opened my parents played the ol’, “What’s that last present behind the couch?” trick and, sure enough, there was the deeply coveted Nintendo Entertainment System that my brothers and I had been longing for but never really expected to get.

The world of gaming opened up to us in the comfort of our home for the first time that day.

It was a status symbol; we had entered the club of game system owners! It was the future; an arcade in our very own home!

And it was the gateway to many sibling rivalries and brawls over who had the longest turn, who should be compensated how because of their age, who should get to be Mario (i.e. Player 1) and what exactly constituted “no fair!”

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But whatever scrapping took place, in the end we all knew how to unlock every secret of the original Super Mario Bros, could flip and stack blocks at an almost alarming rate in Tetris, could peg off the birds in Duck Hunt like pros (remember the dog that would laugh at you? Man, he pissed me off.), and had every note of their theme music memorized.

By the time I was in high school I had mastered Mario Cart’s Rainbow Road, my handicap in Goldeneye was an even 0 (no more +10), Mega Man was no match and we had officially become the first gaming generation.

But we still spent more time being kicked out of the house to create our own wireless fun, read books with paper pages, play sports on teams and board or card games more than we sat in front of the TV, and when we went outside there were no handheld digital devices to tag along.

Fast forward a couple decades and PUBG, Minecraft and Fortnite are now dominating every basement rec room, computers that fit in our pockets and on our wrists are basically staples for North American survival and many kids have never experienced life without hours of recreational screen use a day.

This week is Unplug and Play Week (organized by Literacy in Kamloops [LINK] and many other organizations) and while I’m happy that we’re becoming aware and being proactive about how the correlation between kids and screens is impacting development and family life, it’s also incredibly sad that it’s even necessary.

It may be hard to find a great balance with screens in our homes in 2019, but because the intellectual, emotional and physical needs of children have not changed even if technology has, we need to put the effort into making sure we find it. Kids need to run their growing bodies, play games with rules that they invent themselves, wear through the bottom of their sneakers, get dirty, learn to work on a team, develop a love for music and so many other things that don’t come through the messaging of a screen.

In our house, just like yours, we have many screens — and that really is absolutely fine.

On any given day the voice of my son’s friends will echo through the computer with a cheery, “Hi Mama K!” as I enter the room and into their Fortnite world, Netflix will be playing while someone takes a bath and research for homework is done from our fingertips.

Not only are screens entertaining and useful, they also aren’t going anywhere so we have to guard against allowing them to consume our families . Sometimes they need to be put away, turned off and set aside.

I’m as guilty as any other parent of letting my kids overindulge in screen time, but Unplug and Play is a great reminder for one week a year that, no matter how much we enjoy and benefit from it, recreational digital input is having a very real impact on our kids and on our families. Anxiety and depression are rising in children, declined cognitive development trends with increased screen time for kids, physical literacy is having to be taught because it is not experienced, children aren’t getting adequate sleep, etc.

But Unplug and Play Week only happens once a year, it’s important that we manage our children’s screen time during the other 51 weeks of the year as well.

Sure, let them play Fortnite with their pals for a while, but then take them outside and school them in a round of Bump, pull out the Monopoly board and fight like a real family, hike somewhere that doesn’t get cell signal and remind them that there’s more to life than what’s behind a screen.

But don’t forget to kick their butts in a game of old school Tetris sometimes too, just to remind them that we’re the original gaming generation and we’re still in charge.

• Discussion Question for the comments section: What do you do to keep your kids screen time healthy?

Editor’s Note: This opinion piece reflects the views of its author, and does not necessarily represent the views of CFJC Today or the Jim Pattison Broadcast Group.