This past semester I took a class on Nonverbal Communication, and aside from it being a thoroughly fascinating and enjoyable course, one of the more unique projects was to be part of an adopt-a-grandparent program at a local nursing home. The project aside, one of the most interesting aspects of my experience was learning how everything in the nursing home was designed to promote a safe and familiar atmosphere for the residents. To that end, the lobby of the nursing home had been designed to look like Main Street in a small town. This is not a technique unique to this nursing home because I have seen similar designs and layouts in other nursing homes, and this method of comfort and nostalgia is apparently very helpful.
My question, then, is quite simple…”what about me?” Allow me to elaborate, when I get older I won’t be so much concerned for myself, give me a high powered electric wheelchair and some Depends and I’ll be fine, but rather my question is about my generation, and even the prior generation. Are we really going to identify with Main Street? What will our nursing home lobbies look like? This brings me to the central theme of today’s post, and that is, what role will video games play in the nursing homes of the future?
It’s worth noting that some video games, especially those on the Nintendo Wii, are already being used as an aide in physical therapy. The Journal News out of New York says that: “The Wii, which requires players to use physical gestures, such as arm waving to control movement on a video screen, is finding a place in nursing homes, assisted-living facilities and even rehabilitation hospitals nationwide” (full text). This has the potential to be very beneficial to the industry, and as game systems evolve there is the prospect of more healthy computer-mediated activity. No doubt Nintendo is already trying to capitalize on this concept given their current line of advertising, and maybe rightly so they should.
The use of video games as a life and health improvement aide, while important, does not really get at the heart of my question. I am more interested, as I said before, in how video games as well as their culture will thrive as we age. I think that from watching, The King of Kong (which is an achievement for not only video game culture, but documentary filmmaking as well) , and seeing ads for things like Gametap that allow you to play games from the days of yore, there can be seen a desire to hold on to these games and the memories we associate with them.
It may seem silly to think that people want to retain memories of artificially simulated and computer generated games, but if someone has had a particularly eventful run through the Molten Core, or been part of an exciting LAN party, they may want to hold on to that. It’s partly the nostalgia factor, but also from what I understand of things like the Main Street idea, its not so much trying to actively get people to remember, but rather to use these designs to activate memories of a more comfortable time. In that respect video games will undoubtedly become a necessity in elder care.
The obvious question of what about all the violent content of more than a few games, does raise some concerns. There is the of course the idea that we as a society are becoming more desensitized to some violence, and even that video games serve an important cathartic function. Gabe, of Penny Arcade! fame, in an interview with his grandfather, raises questions of how video games (in particular WWII games) are viewed by older generations. The interview, while not entirely pertinent to my thesis does have merit in debating issues of the elderly and their relation to violence in modern video games. The theories may change as those of us who actually played the violent games age, but question of how video games, violent or not will be continue to be incorporated into our lives, remains the same.
Will we be seeing nursing homes with an original Playstation in every room, or will we be shuffling down the corridors, cane in one hand DS in the other? Will there be sitting rooms with arcade classics lining the walls?
Maybe it will all go by the wayside, and our 8-bit memories will merely fade away.
