Saturday, October 24, 2009

Hide-and-Go-Text

I discovered my 8-year-old daughter and her friends playing a new game yesterday: Hide-and-Go-Text. It's a version of hide-and-go-seek, of course, but the players (both hiders and seekers) have a cell phone with text messaging. So the hider sends a text telling the seekers how long to count before seeking. Sometimes they provide clues during the seeking: hotter, colder, etc.
My immediate reaction was to feel REALLY old. But then I remembered it was my generation that invented the video game - an electronic interface between two or more people who want to play a game together but can't stand the intensity of actual face-to-face competition. Sometimes I think that our inability to deal directly with one another is being reflected so much by the technology we use. Even phone conversations have been replaced with texting. We hope to replace voice inflection with emoticons.
So, let's think of what other classic children's games could be adapted to work with new technology. Tag using Segways? Jump rope with avatars?

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