It’s been a week. I got covid, we got slammed with a blizzard, and we’re getting our house ready to sell.
(Yes, we are moving. But more on that in the next Life in Practice post…)
It’s been a week and our usual practice of off-screen time and daily writing practice went to hell. I was in survival mode and wasn’t about to be lesson planning for kids who don’t really want or need the lessons anyway.
What we did do over the last week was install two video games that we all love and played the snot out of them.
(Astroneer and Davigo for those gamers who may be interested.)
You know what? This beautiful thing happened.
We all connected.
In the middle of the sickness and the stress and the mountains of snow, we hunkered down together and spent some really good quality time gaming together and I had forgotten how much fun that can be.
I’ve been on a slamming-screens kick for a few months because the isolation that can accompany video games and mindless social media scrolling has been having a negative effect on me and other members of my family.
But it’s not really the screens that I’m slamming on. It’s that isolation. It’s the disconnection from the people around us. It’s the false sense of community that can exist online. Don’t get me wrong - real community exists there too - but there’s also a false sense of relationship we get from watching people online without actually connecting with them.
I have no scientific evidence to back this up, but it feels like when we follow folks on Instagram or watch too many videos from the same YouTuber, there’s a sense of comraderie that feel from being connected to that person even though we’ve never met them and they don’t know that we exist. I’ve felt it happen and it’s kind of icky. I think it’s part of the problem that we are facing as a society when we replace in-person time with doom scrolling time: a problem that seems to be contributing to increased isolation and hyper individualism.
It was important for me to be reminded this week that my frustration with screens and online activities isn’t directed at the screens themselves, but with that sense of isolation and hyper individualism that we’re facing as a society.
So this week, instead of spending our usual time off screens together, we just spent time together… but on screens. And it was pretty magical.
I sometimes forget how much fun gaming is - and how educational! It’s probably the easiest way to learn new concepts because it’s rooted in super alluring practical application. The stories are compelling. The worlds are creative. The gameplay is engaging. It’s the perfect recipe for natural learning to happen.
Am I going back on everything I’ve said recently about slow work? Heck no, that’s still important. But connecting with the kids doing something that they love is just as important as bringing them into my world to share something that I love with them. We need both, and that’s okay.
As such we’ve decided to turn “off screen time” as it’s come to be known into “do shit together time”. Sometimes it will be offline (we played some Pokemon and Tacocat this afternoon) and sometimes, when there are dragons to be slayed or planets to be explored or robots to be built, it will be online.
The most important part is that it will be together.
I don’t have much more to say today - I blame the covid for the short post - but I do have some games to share if you’re looking to include some co-op gaming together. Here are some of our favourite co-op and two player games for PC and VR:
Among Us
Astroneer
Bloons TD 6
Davigo
FPS Chess
Gigabash
Goat Simulator 3
Havocado
Incredibox
Minecraft
Perfect Heist 2
Portal 2
Raft
Rec Room
Rubber Bandits
Starcraft 2
Stick Fight
Super Fancy Pants Adventure
Total Accurate Battle Simulator
Trine 4
The Two of Us
Untitled Goose Game
Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War
Wobbly Life
Have other games that your family loves to play together? Drop ‘em in the comments!