Computer games make people lose interest in books

The rock'n'roll generation's era lasted from Heartbreak Hotel to the death of Steve Jobs (an ex-counterculture dropout whose whole ethos was informed by rock'n'roll, and a love of Dylan and the Beatles, among others). Music was important to us, it was how we defined ourselves and it was what made us different to our parents, who felt alienated by its loudness, nihilism, hedonism and anti-authoritarian stance.


But now all that has come to an end. My kids can't annoy me by playing loud music – I'm more likely to annoy them by saying that it's all been done before, and isn't really any different to the stuff I was listening to when I was their age. Modern music is one huge buffet from which modern kids can pick and choose any bits they like from the past 50 years. Everything is accessible and nothing is fresh. Music just isn't that important any more – or so it seems.

Instead my kids are part of the digital generation, born to the bip-bip-bip of Space Invaders and 80s electro-pop. Their world revolves around the microchip. If you buy a new computer, you can take it out of its box, plug it in and instantly you are sitting there, like Captain Kirk, at the helm of an enormously powerful machine that can take you anywhere in the universe. A modern computer can be your office, your communications device, your reference library, you can listen to music on it, you can make music on it … and, of course, you can play games.


To my kids, computer games are the most important thing in the world. In the same way that we might have waited for the new Rolling Stones album or the latest Clash single, my kids now wait expectantly for the new Fifa simulation, or the latest Gears Of War, and the amount of time they put into playing these games is terrifying to someone of my generation.


That's the important part, though. That is how they've rebelled. It is the thing they do that I did not do when I was their age. I do play a lot of games, but gaming has not completely taken over my life.
For my boys, games are more important than TV, films, music and books. Because, of course, games incorporate all of those elements so comprehensively and so seductively.


OK, I must stop now and confess that I have no daughters. Maybe girls are different? I know games aren't such a big part of their world (although the biggest selling and most popular games of all time, such as The Sims and FarmVille, are those that appeal to girls more than boys). And speaking purely subjectively, my wife is obsessed by Angry Birds and Tiny Wings. Games are not going to go away, they are simply going to become more immersive, more beguiling and more time-devouring. They are taking over. So I was delighted when they asked me to be a judge for the new GameCity prize.