Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the
renewing of your mind.
Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good,
pleasing and perfect will. (Romans 12:1-2)
A lot of my friends are well aware that I like board games. Of course, for many of them, their ideas of board games are Monopoly, Candy Land, Life, Risk, Clue, or even the venerable games of Backgammon, Checkers, or Chess. Most of these games are often associated with very occasional family nights during which the clan collectively push game pieces around a board, laugh at each, and then roll their eyes when (at least in the case of Monopoly) they realize that they’ve been playing for over two hours… with no end in sight. For most of my friends and other non-board gaming folks, board games represent the odd night’s fun that is not had again for years, perhaps because the board games they played with unengaging, interminable, overly simplistic, thinly thematic, or some other reason that may be connected more with the time during which the game was played than with the actual game, such as how a game was soured with an argument that ensued over an obscure rule.
This reluctance of people to dive into a board game may be borne from numerous personal reasons (like the aforementioned traumatic episode), but I find that people’s reticence to experience a board game or any other kind of game played on a table top is associated primarily with one thing: they do not know what a board game is. If one were to go back several hundred years, board games were largely restricted to games that have proven to be timeless, abstract games such as the ubiquitous Chess, Backgammon, and Checkers, as well as Asian favorites Go, Shogi, which is somewhat similar to Chess, and Mancala. Even before these games, the Egyptians had Senet, the rules for which can only be deduced from whatever records exist. Fast-forward to the 20th century and we see the rise of some of the modern “classics,” like Monopoly, Yahtzee, Clue, Risk. Add to that proliferation of board games the almost innumerable card games that use a “standard” four-suit deck of 52 cards, such as Poker, Blackjack, Bridge, Gin Rummy, Hearts, Spades, Cribbage, and others, and you have a considerable catalog of what have been called collectively, “table top games.”
Wow! Now that I think about it, there are actually a lot of time-honored games out there that many people enjoy. There are millions of Poker enthusiasts out there, Chess is hugely popular, and people still play all of those classic games. I cannot imagine there being a house in the United States that does not have a copy of Monopoly (actually, I’m sure there are many houses out there without Monopoly, but there are certainly more houses with it!). Yet, there are many people who would much rather not spend an evening playing board games with their family or friends. They rather watch TV, play a computer game, or even just hang out and talk. Some families play sports together, and some even spend family time reading books to each other.
Yet, I play board games. I encourage my family and friends to play board games. I even coerce my family and friends to play board games; this is a joke, of course, but I have had to do some earnest negotiation to convince people to try out a board game of which they have never heard.
Ah, electronics! Personally, I have very little to hold against electronics because most electronic items have facilitated our lives immeasurably. Whether it be the laptop that enables work-swamped parents to complete job assignments in the family office or the cell phone that allows family members to keep in touch with each other with text messages and brief phone calls, electronics are useful and sometimes essential. Furthermore, I must admit that video games and movies can be fun, viable ways to connect with loved ones; I can recall numerous instances of my sons and me quoting a movie or reminiscing about a round of Super Mario World. Furthermore, fifty years ago, we marveled at the special effects work of Ray Harryhausen or Rick Baker and how tangible, practical special effects added enthralling hyper-realism to any movie or TV show; now, our expectations are almost sky-high as we feel real disappointment when effects fall short.
There isn’t much inherently wrong with watching a TV show or movie, playing a video game, or browsing the Internet. There is also much to praise about the convenience of electronics, particular the aforementioned, screen-laden items; smart phones, tablets, and laptops have make work and school more mobile than ever, and computers have made it possible to create glorious and convincing spectacles in movies and TV. Because of the wonders of electronics, especially the power of multithreaded, super-fast computing, most of us are entranced by the shining, glittering, digital, electric boogaloo of our devices.
If you stop and consider it, it’s rather comical that wherever you go, you can see people on laptops, people on tablet computers, people on cell phones, and people watching television. Out of the corner of your eye, you can catch people staring at screens, pressing virtual digitized buttons on a surface sensitive to touch, and glaring at interactive, highly responsive media. Their faces are buried in their screen; at least, that’s what we notice when we pull our noses up from our screen. What is funnier is that unlike what the Mac operating system application “Face Time” suggests, there isn’t much face time to be had among people. What was once isolated to the family living room (or, if you go further back in time, the movie theater) is now ubiquitous and all-engrossing.
Nowadays, when people think of the concept of interacting with others, they almost always include something electronic, such as a television (for watching movies), a video game console, a tablet or cell phone, or a computer either as a laptop or a desktop system. Yet, the gerund “interacting” is used loosely here because we are not really interacting as much as engaging in a kind of parallel entertainment. Much like when we were toddlers, we play alongside each other with new-fangled toys, but we do not engage each other. This is not by our design, though, but the design of those who define entertainment nowadays; it is in the design of the purveyors of visual media.
Visual media is everywhere. Visual media has us entranced with its movies, its video games, and its Internet-based content. It has our attention, transforming what “entertainment” is. Conversely, by its absence, visual media reminds us of how bored we are. We are the watchers, the video game players, the net surfers, and there has never been a time in human history like now when we can get most information instantaneously, play a video game that we haven’t played in decades, and watch TV shows that were done long ago. As I mentioned earlier, there isn’t much inherently wrong with watching a TV show or movie, playing a video game, or browsing the Internet, but more and more we go, by default, to visual media for entertainment, which at the very least satiates the hungry, addicted mind, but also threatens to indoctrinate the mind into worldviews that we might never willingly convey to children.
It doesn’t have to be that way. What if, instead of a screen, children talked to their parents and siblings? What if they turned off the TV and laptop and sat around a table with their families? What if they did all of this willingly and enthusiastically? The answer to all of these questions is that it would be wonderful, but how could it be done? They need an incentive, and the incentive is games: board games and card games.
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