IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2014 - 8

LETTER TO THE EDITOR

Pondering Effects of Video Games
on Children
I recently came across your Editorial titled:
"We've Got to do Better" [1] and felt compelled
to write to you. Your inquiries in regards to the
problems with gaming forced me to take a step
back and rethink what I have been doing. You
see, lately I have been teaching myself how to
program games.
I am a father of four beautiful children and,
being the only breadwinner in the household, I
felt that the best way to generate an extra income
would be to create games since gaming appears
to be the biggest money maker when it comes to
application development, especially in regards
to App sales on mobile phones and iPads.
BuT... after reading your article on Internet addiction and hearing your thoughts on the problems of the gaming industry on the Katherine Albrecht Show between January 7th and January 13th this year, I pondered on how
the games are sucking our children's minds out of reality into a virtual one. I stepped back and took notice to
something... I asked myself that question you have in your article [1, p. 7]- "where are my children now?" Well,
all four of them are gaming... two on computers, the other two on a Wiiu console, and my wife on a Facebook
game. In fact, every evening at this time they are at the same place, playing video games.
My stomach dropped as I had come to the realization that I had unwittingly allowed a virtual world to steal
my family as it had stolen me so many years earlier. And here I am now, trying to make a profit by sucking the
minds of so many others away from reality into a fake world... and for what? A dollar or two per person? In reality what I would be taking from these people isn't their money, but their time, their participation in reality, their
relationships, hopes, and dreams.
Every person is allotted only so much time in this world, and I'd be telling people that for a few dollars I can
take countless hours from your lifespan and nullify any difference you could have made in this world. I would
put your mind into a non-thinking trance as the days go by.
Well, no more. I can no longer close a blind eye in the pursuit of a profit in exchange for people's souls. So I
will be dropping my endeavor to produce games.
Thank you for waking me up.
God Bless,
-Jim Fifth
[1] K. Albrecht and K. Michael, "We've got to do better," IEEE Technology & Society Mag., vol. 33, Spr. 2014.
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MTS.2014.2322914
Date of publication: 4 June 2014

8

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IEEE TECHNOLOGY AND SOCIETY MAGAZINE

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SuMMEr 2014

"Reality." © eRan FowleR. Used with peRmission.

Dear Drs. Albrecht and Michael,



Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Technology and Society Magazine - Summer 2014

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