Life of a gamer

Growing up in Kinshasa was interesting in many ways for me. I had a very loving family and awesome friends, especially when I was a kid in high school. It is in high school that for the first time I got introduce to video games; Mortal Kombat was the game! Of course not a game console bought by my dad, my dad firmly believed that video game made kids dumb and anti-social. So a bunch of friends invited me after school once to join them at a small play station that was ran by a kid on the block. For a period of approximately a month I became so addicted to Mortal Kombat; and for those who are familiar with that game it was all about mastering the skills of "fatality", "babality" and "perfect finish". One day, our driver came as usual after class to pick my brothers and I to go back home and I was missing from the usual pick up spot. What happened is that I got so immersed in the game that I forgot about the driver or anything else, the only thing that mattered was beating my opponents and expressing my inner anger through "Liu Kang." God what a day that was!

Anti-social, disconnected from the community, self-centered are probably the negative consequences in the life of a gamer as pointed out by Debbie Jones. It is as if my dad had read this article by Debbie Jones who pinpointed my erratic behavior at that moment. Video games indeed like professor Debbie Jones points out can lessen the ability of a player to be social and caring for others. However, the APA also found out that video games have many benefits, such as making the player more cognitive, motivated and task-oriented. As a matter of fact in my short-lived life of a gamer I realized that I was more focussed on accomplishing task with haste. My dad finally gave in to our nagging and bought us a Playstation II gaming console, not because he realized that we were able to accomplish task easily, but just because we did what every kids in the world do -- cry till the adult can't stand it!