My gaming memories...
I was born in 1983 but I am a girl and an only child. My first opportunity to own a console was around 1988, when my next door neighbors would've sold their Atari 2600 to my family for $5 but my father absolutely refused it even if it were free or if I had used my allowance (which happened to be $5 a week). I wasn't allowed to have anything resembling video games until I was fifteen, after my parents' divorce. By then I already had my own PC and personal dial-up account but all my gaming had been limited to DOS games like Quake 1 or Descent or simple windows games like Space Cadet Pinball and Dope Wars. I did have an NES emulator but my PC's were not adequate for emulating SNES and up until some time after the PS2 was out.
When I was fifteen I briefly owned a physical NES but it broke approximately 15 minutes after it was set up, and then I got a brand new second generation small form factor SNES with Zelda, Mario All Stars, Mario Kart, Road Runner Death Valley Rally or something like that, and I freaking loved the first three but about 2 months later I had to give it to my "cousin" as custody of me had changed.
When I moved in with my mom the summer before I turned 16 (1999, not long after the theatrical release of The Matrix if you want a major pop-culture peg to remember the time with) -- her boyfriend at the time bought me an original Playstation console (although they'd been out quite a while, I managed to get one of the last models distributed with a serial port and I was easily able to use "backups/imports" with a "gameshark" type device). I had Rayman and the very girly Game of Life. I had some crash bandicoot game as well but didn't enjoy it at all and gave it away. I didn't play my playstation very much, at first, I spent a lot more time on the internet and usually only played the console w/company. Anyhow, I guess I'm describing a lot more than I need to. I loved my SNES even though I pretty much got the very last "new" boxed SNES that target ever sold in that area and only had it for 2 months, I adored my Playstation and when I got older and had a job I bought myself a PSOne+LCD bundle and my father modded it for me for my 19th birthday (since he has about 30 years more experience than me w/a soldering iron). The first "Current" console I ever got was a Dreamcast, and if I thought FF8/FF9/Chrono Cross were mind blowing, Shenmue was a decapitation. Although I continued to collect games after that, my interest in the home-consoles dwindled to almost nothing. Several months ago a man stole my slim PS2, and that is the last console I owned. I only have one friend who insists I'm missing out and he was even going to get me an XBOX 360 for my birthday in September, but it doesn't matter. I don't think I'll do anything but handheld and PC gaming for the rest of my life.
Wasted youth..
As far as the younger generations go, the richer media becomes, the stupider people-in-general become because they rely less on their own brains. When I was a freshman in High School I was the only kid that I knew that didn't have a video game console in the entire home or a tv in my own room. I was not allowed to keep my computer in my bedroom because I was allowed to use the internet. Our household had only one cell phone and it was used only for business by my mother.
Now, when I talk, even to my (25-30 year old) peer group, nobody seems to enjoy reading. For students, unless it's covered in a documentary or a Sparknotes, it's almost irrelevant now. That attitude is why I have always hated teenagers, before, during, and after my own teenage years. But it's to the point where it's pretty much not even their fault anymore for being the undisciplined, inattentive, multitasking, entitled, emotionally-charged consumer group they are nowadays. Children (including teenagers before voting/taxpaying age) are not only bombarded with mixed media that generally involves visual imagery they are given a lot more credibility for the individual nature of their "self" to accept or reject anything they see. Living in a society where material desire is promoted as a motivating virtue rather than a self-defeating sin and growing up with technology that oftentimes their parents are only beginning to truly adapt to-- as far as I can tell it's already a disaster. Schools have been having a hard time catching up (to multimedia) and in parts of the US the "test preparation curriculum" result of basing funding on performance is causing a lot of problems for students and teachers alike.
I guess my point of all that which has little to do with video games directly, is that, kids aren't stupid because they are idiots as individuals, it's because first world countries breed them to be that way, intentionally or not. Unfortunately most kids don't get the opportunity to be blessed with the wisdom to know how stupid they and their peers usually are because they're so combative about the value of their own intellect and self.
That all said I don't think highly of my own intellect either but I do prize the opportunity to try to improve it every day with or without the internet.
I was born in 1983 but I am a girl and an only child. My first opportunity to own a console was around 1988, when my next door neighbors would've sold their Atari 2600 to my family for $5 but my father absolutely refused it even if it were free or if I had used my allowance (which happened to be $5 a week). I wasn't allowed to have anything resembling video games until I was fifteen, after my parents' divorce. By then I already had my own PC and personal dial-up account but all my gaming had been limited to DOS games like Quake 1 or Descent or simple windows games like Space Cadet Pinball and Dope Wars. I did have an NES emulator but my PC's were not adequate for emulating SNES and up until some time after the PS2 was out.
When I was fifteen I briefly owned a physical NES but it broke approximately 15 minutes after it was set up, and then I got a brand new second generation small form factor SNES with Zelda, Mario All Stars, Mario Kart, Road Runner Death Valley Rally or something like that, and I freaking loved the first three but about 2 months later I had to give it to my "cousin" as custody of me had changed.
When I moved in with my mom the summer before I turned 16 (1999, not long after the theatrical release of The Matrix if you want a major pop-culture peg to remember the time with) -- her boyfriend at the time bought me an original Playstation console (although they'd been out quite a while, I managed to get one of the last models distributed with a serial port and I was easily able to use "backups/imports" with a "gameshark" type device). I had Rayman and the very girly Game of Life. I had some crash bandicoot game as well but didn't enjoy it at all and gave it away. I didn't play my playstation very much, at first, I spent a lot more time on the internet and usually only played the console w/company. Anyhow, I guess I'm describing a lot more than I need to. I loved my SNES even though I pretty much got the very last "new" boxed SNES that target ever sold in that area and only had it for 2 months, I adored my Playstation and when I got older and had a job I bought myself a PSOne+LCD bundle and my father modded it for me for my 19th birthday (since he has about 30 years more experience than me w/a soldering iron). The first "Current" console I ever got was a Dreamcast, and if I thought FF8/FF9/Chrono Cross were mind blowing, Shenmue was a decapitation. Although I continued to collect games after that, my interest in the home-consoles dwindled to almost nothing. Several months ago a man stole my slim PS2, and that is the last console I owned. I only have one friend who insists I'm missing out and he was even going to get me an XBOX 360 for my birthday in September, but it doesn't matter. I don't think I'll do anything but handheld and PC gaming for the rest of my life.
Wasted youth..
As far as the younger generations go, the richer media becomes, the stupider people-in-general become because they rely less on their own brains. When I was a freshman in High School I was the only kid that I knew that didn't have a video game console in the entire home or a tv in my own room. I was not allowed to keep my computer in my bedroom because I was allowed to use the internet. Our household had only one cell phone and it was used only for business by my mother.
Now, when I talk, even to my (25-30 year old) peer group, nobody seems to enjoy reading. For students, unless it's covered in a documentary or a Sparknotes, it's almost irrelevant now. That attitude is why I have always hated teenagers, before, during, and after my own teenage years. But it's to the point where it's pretty much not even their fault anymore for being the undisciplined, inattentive, multitasking, entitled, emotionally-charged consumer group they are nowadays. Children (including teenagers before voting/taxpaying age) are not only bombarded with mixed media that generally involves visual imagery they are given a lot more credibility for the individual nature of their "self" to accept or reject anything they see. Living in a society where material desire is promoted as a motivating virtue rather than a self-defeating sin and growing up with technology that oftentimes their parents are only beginning to truly adapt to-- as far as I can tell it's already a disaster. Schools have been having a hard time catching up (to multimedia) and in parts of the US the "test preparation curriculum" result of basing funding on performance is causing a lot of problems for students and teachers alike.
I guess my point of all that which has little to do with video games directly, is that, kids aren't stupid because they are idiots as individuals, it's because first world countries breed them to be that way, intentionally or not. Unfortunately most kids don't get the opportunity to be blessed with the wisdom to know how stupid they and their peers usually are because they're so combative about the value of their own intellect and self.
That all said I don't think highly of my own intellect either but I do prize the opportunity to try to improve it every day with or without the internet.
