I’m not talking about any kind of scientific therapeutic method here. I’m just talking about getting a little self-help out of something that is mostly considered to be bad for you and your mental health, or at the very best, neutral. Video games get a lot of bad publicity, mostly for being detrimental to children for various reasons (promoting violence, taking away from active outdoor play or reading, etc.). The only credit I can think of that is given to video games is the promotion of hand-eye coordination, which honestly isn’t much of an endorsement considering all of the other negatives associated with them and all of the alternatives to video games that develop the same skills without the accompanying negativity. I’m also speaking from my own personal experience and observations, which, while not invalid, are certainly questionable. But think about it before you dismiss me as an idiot.
Self-esteem can be a fragile thing, and people are constantly looking for ways to support it, sometimes to the extreme – such as trying to completely eliminate competition in school so no one feels bad about losing at something. It is also a very necessary thing, central to our self-identity, and having low self-esteem can be the cause of all sorts of social problems and lead to a need for therapy later in life. So I think that any way you can find to boost your OWN self-esteem is a good thing, because so much of our self-esteem depends on the opinions of others.
I’ll admit, I’m not a “gamer” myself. There aren’t many games that I can sit down in front of and not look like a complete moron; my three-year-old son could probably beat me at most of them. Most of the games I enjoy playing are of the Guitar Hero, Dance Dance Revolution, Sims variety. Games that my husband, a pretty hard-core gamer, makes fun of and uses as insults to players who aren’t good at a particular game (example: “maybe you should go play Guitar hero, because you suck at this). But that’s not really the point, because there are a couple of games that I’m pretty good at, regardless of the game genre.
The point is the little happy feeling that everyone gets inside when they’re doing something that they’re good at, and that video games are good for something. If you need something to make you feel good about yourself, being good at a video game may not mean much in real life, and may not mean much to other people, but it’s still effective. I may feel stupid sitting down to a first-person shooter (or any kind of shooter, to be honest), but if you sit me in front of that fake drum set for Rock Band or put me on a DDR dance mat, I feel pretty cool. For me, an ego boost is right there in my living room on my TV, and I don’t need anyone else to validate it for me. I can play all by my lonesome and still feel a little cooler when I’m done. It’s just as effective as being good at something useful for getting a self-esteem boost. A skill is a skill, whether real-life or virtual.
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