I'd rather be playing video games

I, as the father of a tween girl, totally agree with LA Times Steven Johnson's opinion about Sen. Clinton's current hype against "Grand Theft Auto".

Kids have always played games. A hundred years ago they were playing stickball and kick the can; now they're playing 'World of Warcraft,' 'Halo 2' and 'Madden 2005.' And parents have to drag their kids away from the games to get them to do their algebra homework, but parents have been dragging kids away from whatever the kids were into since the dawn of civilization.

So any sensible investigation into video games must ask the 'compared to what' question. If the alternative to playing 'Halo 2' is reading 'The Portrait of a Lady,' then of course 'The Portrait of a Lady' is better for you. But it's not as though kids have been reading Henry James for 100 years and then suddenly dropped him for Pokemon.

Another key question: Of all the games that kids play, which ones require the most mental exertion? Parents can play this at home: Try a few rounds of Monopoly or Go Fish with your kids, and see who wins. I suspect most families will find that it's a relatively even match. Then sit down and try to play 'Halo 2' with the kids. You'll be lucky if you survive 10 minutes.

The great secret of today's video games that has been lost in the moral panic over 'Grand Theft Auto' is how difficult the games have become. That difficulty is not merely a question of hand-eye coordination; most of today's games force kids to learn complex rule systems, master challenging new interfaces, follow dozens of shifting variables in real time and prioritize between multiple objectives.

In short, precisely the sorts of skills that they're going to need in the digital workplace of tomorrow.

A lot of years ago, when my older brother was addicted to hear (as of today, classic) rock all day long, my mom always told him to stop doing that and find something less "mind destructive" to do. Later years, when I became addict to video games in my teen years, she repeated the same lecture to me.

My brother and I both graduated as Engineers, and we never "destroyed" our brains as my mom warned us.

That's why I encourage my daughter to keep playing the video games she like, of course, within the recommended ESRB rating for her age.

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