Thanks for your comments. Your research idea sounds interesting. I’d love to hear more about it. In my opinion, video games would be worth studying with regard to the notion of plot, for lots of reasons, including that their plots are often not linear, but have exponential possibilities. I wonder if young people who play video games with non-linear plots will actually be better thinkers and problem-solvers because of their experiences with gaming. Anyway, I’d be interested to hear more about your research, if you go forward with it.

In answer to your question, my son was 18 when he played Bioshock. I have, when he was younger, said ‘no’ to certain video games (the Grand Theft Auto series being the one that comes to mind, although I’m sure he played it at friends’ houses). But by the time he reached about 16, it seemed to me that he probably needed to be making those decisions himself. Still, I paid attention to his choices and occasionally questioned them.

I know this is an old post, but I have a question for you. How old was your son when you let him play Bioshock? The game is quite violent and includes some minor sexual references. Some teenagers could handle that, of course, but some couldn’t—and certainly some parents would not approve.

I ask because I’m considering writing a research proposal to study whether students who don’t enjoy studying traditional novels in school would benefit from instead analyzing the plot of a game like Bioshock. I’m trying to decide whether the game’s content is too extreme at the moment.

Just today, I saw a Harvard Business Publishing post by David Armano at bit.ly/39K0OV which outlined six social media trends that he thinks are upon us. The very first one indicated that people would become more judicious about their social networking and start paring down their friends lists on various sites.

While Armano’s comments had more to do with the ability to just keep up with all the quasi-connections that tend to grow on multiple sites, this trend seems to fit in with what you are discussing. If someone feels a need to cut back on the number of connections, you have just given them a guide for making the decisions about who makes the cut and who doesn’t.

A old saying goes “Surround yourself with positive people” continues to be widely quoted and I believe that is because it’s true.

Of course, this does beg the question you raised of whether we detach from all those homeless, wretched, ill, and undesirable people . . . or whether we continue to serve “the least of these”.

Great questions to grapple with, especially in these times.

John