We had been spending too much time in front of the tubes (this house has four, including a home theater) so I decided it was time to do something interactive as a family. You know, something that would put us together to enjoy one another's company, give us time to talk, and force us to have some fun.
So, what could that be on a Saturday night? We had suggested board games, but to our high tech X-box/PS2/Playstation sophisticated son, that sounded about as fun as a root canal. We love going to the movies, but that's just another screen and doesn't allow the interaction that I judged was missing. A nice long walk - like to Nebraska - would have been good for the constitution, but that wasn't in the cards. So, what could we do?
We discussed our options, and bowling seemed like the only one everyone would tolerate. I hadn't been bowling in a decade, and if I recall correctly my last score was my age, but if the family wanted to bowl, bowl we would! So we drove a half hour to the only bowling place we knew about in south Denver - as advertized on tv, of course - and plopped down our $39 for an hour and shoes. And guess what?
Sixty lanes of pizzaz, flashing lights, and MTV rock videos playing along with digital cartoon scoring glaring at you on 90 television screens.
Video overload and bowling almost alone.
Now, digital scoring is pretty cool, if not sinister. You punch in your names and start the game. It takes all the thinking, math, and human work out of bowling. It records your pins, adds the strikes and spars for you, and shows you cartoons of bowling pins laughing at you every time you miss. The sinister part of the machine doing this for you is, it takes just a little of the give-and-take, conversation, laughter, and arguments out of the experience.
As we laced up our rental shoes, I scanned the 30 lanes on my side of the megalobowlous and noticed something. The place was packed with young adults. We were possibly one of three families with a kid under 13. Mostly young adults and older teens, and a few older adults with chicken wings and pitchers of beer trying to be young. I noticed something else. The people who were rolling were concentrating on their pins, but almost every other head in the place was tilted up toward the 90 screens. Between every two lane scoring screens was another screen, playing the hip-hop and rock video music that was bouncing in the background of this sensory overload.
If I recall bowling in the last millenium, it involved talk, laughter, public victory and defeat, and a focus on each person in the foursome for an equal fourth of the time. It involved turning and returning in triumph when you made a good shot to the adulation, cheers and curses of your companions. When people would make a good shot, it involved bodily celebration, dance and high fives. (I was told by my son that high-fives are no longer socially approved.) If the shot was bad, the return was equally as dramatic. One turned in agony and expression to the jeers, jest, and jokes after the gutter met your ball. And between the moment the ball left your grip and the predestined encounter with the pins, it involved the best part of bowling: watching the futile body movements and antics of your friends as they psychically attempted to coax a deaf, mindless sphere to the left or the right. Everyone was the star of the show every four minutes. Everyone was the center of attention. Watching the people watch the ball was half the game and most of the fun.
In this digital day, you don't have to watch the people you are with. Bowling in this world involves entering the impressive place, plopping down your money, doing your own individual thing, and watching the multiple tubes rather than your companions.
Like a little child who does something good and turns to look in
the eyes of an approving parent, only to find the
parent watching his sister, everyone in this bowling-almost-alone
video world turns and walks back just a little poorer in their victory or defeat.
I may not be bowling again for another decade. Hopefully my score will continue to keep up with my age. We'll have to find something else as a family that is a little more interactive and doesn't cost me as much as my first car payment. Maybe we can bribe our kids into pop corn and board games. But as student of cultural trends and always one wishing to learn from an experience - especially and expensive one - I must admit that I did learn a valuable something last night.
"Watch me!" is the cry of every child. If you think of it, it's the cry of every adolescent and adult, too. Parents will have to work harder and harder as the omnipresent digital
world seaps into every crack and corner of family time if they want to
grow adults who value people more than images.
Heads up.
It used to be a shout you'd make to warn someone.
Heads up.
