In a good percentage of the twentieth century, a youth’s common pastime was spent playing catch, or running downs on a field that was only imagined as professional, or walking down to the local pond or lake for a dip. There were games of tag, cops and robbers (cliché I know, but still played), and anything else physically active to assuage the pent-up energy of youth. In the last few decades, however, all of that began to change.

The last few decades of the twentieth century were an age of personal technological revolution. The once slow and bulky goliaths known as computers were beginning to get smaller and faster. The world of simple entertainment could be easily attained.

For Personal Computer (P.C.) gaming, I can still recall the old Apple computer (pre-Apple crash), and games that consisted of nothing more than low-resolution pixels the size of bricks moving from one side the screen to the other at a low rate of speed (you had a lot of time to line up your paddle in old Pong — that is, if you could get it there). This entertainment was fun for a short period of time, but needless to say, it got boring. The allure of the outdoors still held its luster.

Then came games like the popular Police Quest and (the less popular) Space Quest, which worked off the same principles, but had a slightly higher resolution (smaller blocks of color) and moved considerably faster.

For those of us who are console gamers, the one that started it all was the Atari. Sure the Magnavox Odyssey was technically the first, but the real one that introduced console gaming was Atari’s Pong. Every kid in the United States wanted one. The Atari had games that are still emblazoned in the halls of fame even today. But, like its computer counterpart, it suffered from similar drawbacks. At first it was pricy, but as time carried on, it became more affordable, especially compared to the price of a personal computer in the dawn of its time. This, and the fact that you could easily just hook a console up to the television by going through a little converter box, caused console gaming to explode, leaving its cousin in the dust for some time.

The drawbacks of the Atari were beginning to see their last days when the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) came out in the United States, and games like Super Mario Bros. became available. The console world evolved even more with the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES), or Super Nintendo for short, and Sega Genesis. Over a short span of just three decades, since the Magnavox Odyssey, consoles have leapt ahead from large blocky pixels that moved at a rate that made the tortoise feel fast, to extremely high resolutions and seamless movement.

Computer gaming managed to stay afloat in the 1990s with iconic games like Half-life and Starcraft and Warcraft. In recent years, however, with the aid of improving technology for computers, P.C. gaming has taken a stride forward with the much-anticipated release of new chapters in the legacies of the old titles, with graphics that would make any console gamer drool. Titles such as Half-life 2 and World of Warcraft appeal to the loyal gamers of the originals, as well as dazzle new gamers with their breakthrough technologies that heighten the gameplay experience. This new age of P.C. games has recruited such a massive audience base around the world that it has revitalized the P.C. gaming community.

Regardless of the method of conveyance for the games, all gamers face a sad truth. In the early years of the twenty-first century, with newer games with better technologies coming out seemingly every week, more and more people, especially the young, are becoming addicted to gaming. Usually the introduction is made by a friend, at which point the game or games are played for extended periods of time. This is the starter dose, the hook. Then the urge to play arises even when the friend is not available. Why not just get it? a little voice in your head says coolly. It will only be this one game. But after time, meaning countless hours and days of your life you will never get back, the game gets boring. When you know where everything is and you have done it all a hundred times, the game cannot even be stood to play again, not once more. The urge, however, remains. And before you know it, you are off browsing the gaming isle at your local Best Buy once a week. Before long, you have forgotten your family members’ names, grown hair in places you did not know existed, and the last time you showered it was winter.

Although its humor is sometimes questionable, the points “South Park,” the animated television show, make are valid — especially in their World of Warcraft episode. For those not acquainted with new-age pop comedy animations (can it be considered pop?), the episode to which I refer deals with the main characters, a group of grade school friends with the vocabulary of forty-year-olds, start playing the hit game, World of Warcraft. The kids in the show soon cease going to school, playing outside, going to the bathroom in the actual bathroom, and even bathing; which lead to them all growing heavily obese, having major dermatological issues, and effectively becoming brain dead.

Even though it is poking fun at extreme stereotypes, it makes a valid point. There has been a radical shift in the way the youth of the U.S. play. Most of the physical exercise obtained by physical play has been replaced by the solitary motion of button-clicking (and the occasional yell at noobs in the microphone). Instead of scoring runs and running from the pretend cop, kids are fighting elves and orcs in epic battles, all without moving except to scratch that itch on their bums.

One thing that is a pro, and an extreme one at that, is that people who game are using their imaginations — a thing that many gamer enthusiasts say is worth the lack of physical activity. Whereas the older generations are obsessed with sports and the physical might, one could argue that the newer generations are obsessed with using their cognitive might. The argument has always been which is better.

The gap between these two divides is beginning to close, though, with systems like the Nintendo Wii, which offer physical exertion while playing video games. Using new technology, the Wii forces the gamer to actually move the controller when playing games like tennis, baseball, and golf. A game about boxing builds up quite the sweat when you actually have to land the punches and dodge those of your opponents yourself. The system even has out an addition called the Wii Fit, which is all about physical workouts. It even uses a pad that you stand on to measure where in your feet your weight is placed, making sure you are exercising correctly. A game being an exercise with such a mass market appeal is revolutionary.

Hopefully with systems like the Wii popping up, bridging the gap between video gamer and work-out buff, the next generation will not have to choose which to obsess over — they can do both in perfect harmony. Only a gamer with a gym membership could have dreamed that one up.