Digital Literacy Narrative
When I was young, I liked to play with Barbies, dress up as a princess and enjoyed having real makeup put on me for my dance recitals. I also liked to run around and rough house with my older brother because it was fun to do. I didn’t care if I got a few cuts and bruises in the process, I just wanted to spend time with my brother. Another boy-ish activity I liked to do was play video games with my brother and my cousins.
Back in the day, my grandmother had this old Super Nintendo system that had two controllers and a duffle bag full of old game cartridges we could play with. I remember the Aladdin game; it would take forever for us to beat the lava level. I also remember playing Street Fighter 2. My cousins would win, but I never minded. I was having too much fun with everyone to care how good I was. I loved those days where my cousins, my brother, and I would spend hours playing game after game on that old system. Those moments were some of the few times that we would spend together as a family.
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However, as I got older, I began to notice a weird and frustrating trend; whenever we were playing a game that I was not very good at, then I wouldn’t get the chance to play it. If I didn’t beat the beginning level of Aladdin, then I wouldn’t get another turn until the next game. If I lost against my brother in Street Fighter, then I wouldn’t see another match in the game. It never had anything to do with being a girl, mind you. I just wasn’t good at the games, so my cousins and brother decided that they should play instead. At first, I thought it made sense because we needed to beat this level and I had died so many times that it just made sense. Eventually it got to the point where I would only die once and they would take the controller from me. Now I’m not talking about gently asking to play or have a turn; I’m talking about forcibly taking the controller from my hands. I was not happy.
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More than not happy, I felt inadequate. I felt like I couldn’t get involved with my family without being criticized for what I was doing. There was not a whole lot that my cousins, my brother, and I liked to do together, and even when we did do things together the boys would go do one thing and the girls would play another game. We separated ourselves in any activity other than video games; they allowed us all to come together and work towards the same goal. If you’re being told that you’re not good at something and if you’re being told that you cannot join in, you’re no doubt going to feel some level of inadequacy.
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So I began this unofficial quest to make myself better at video games. Not just the games that my cousins, brother and I were playing, any game that peaked my interest. I would play adventure games and role playing games because they allowed me to place myself in the shoes of the characters that I was playing. I would also play some games similar to Call of Duty in order to diversify my repertoire. This constant gaming led to several hours spent in front of a TV screen with a controller in hand and a determined look in my eyes.
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Unfortunately, this also led to me isolating myself many times from my family. My mother especially can attest to all the hours that I used to spend playing video games up in our play room, although it was never a big concern for her. "For you it was a balance. Every child is different, and you definitely needed alone time and you needed downtime, and that's the way you got it." She also wasn't too concerned because I did other activities. "You were still involved in sporting, karate, and clubs, so that's the way I looked at it."
This isolation also led to a small bit of distancing from my cousins and my brother. I thought they had lost their interest in video games while I hadn’t. They were not up to playing together on the console as much. I began to separate myself from then because I felt like I could not relate to them at all. I had developed this deep love for video games and the worlds that they created while they had moved on to sports and other such hobbies. I felt like I could no longer connect with my family.
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Playing video games has not always been about loneliness and isolation. While there are some games that you play by yourself, there are plenty of games that you play with friends as well. In high school I began to play more and more with friends in order to solve puzzles and defeat the bad guys. These times brought me back to the games I would play with my cousins and brother and made me feel good. See when you play with someone towards a similar goal, then you are much more likely to work together to reach that goal (or argue over how to reach the goal, but that’s another story). When you play against someone, you are testing your own skill and allowing your abilities to grow as a player and as a person. Today I play many of these cooperative, or co-op, games with friends on and off my college campus. It not only builds our skills but it also builds our bond as friends.
I also began to try and open up conversation about video games to my family as well. I knew that they may have trouble relating with me on a personal level, but I figured I would at least make some sort of an effort. It turned out that one of my cousins was actually familiar with a few of the games that I played and he could have some conversation with me about it. I even took him along with me to a video gaming convention last year, which was a surprise for me considering that I had figured I would never connect with my family that way anymore. Even if another family member does not understand what I am talking about, they are willing to listen to me explain it and talk about it. I began to rebuild a connection with my family from here
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In a way, I feel like I’m building up my own personal avatar in the real world. If I were to look at myself as a game avatar, I would have very little strength but a lot of agility. I may not have the best stamina in the game but my charisma skill would be unmatched. I would have gathered many useful items over the years and would have made many great allies and even a few enemies along the way. I’m still working on improving my avatar even today, but in the end I will be able to survive this difficult game known as life.
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