British tabloid and glorified comic book The Daily Mail loves to attack videogames, probably because Grand Theft Auto IV has more journalistic integrity than the average Mail writer. The latest in its long line of attempts to make Britain fear technology is a doozy, with The Fail claiming that Britain’s youth has become a race of “screenagers” — videogame and TV addicts that pour ten hours of their daily life into electronic entertainment.
“Youngsters have turned into ‘screenagers’ who spend nearly ten hours a day glued to TVs, computers, phones and videogames,” states The Fail, which I refuse to link on principle. “Much of the time they are texting, playing games consoles, surfing the Internet, scrolling through their iPods or staring at screens during school lessons.”
I often wonder what makes a so-called “real” journalist write these things. I’ve read and watched roughly eight billion reports on how teenagers are TV/game addicts over the past ten years, none of them saying anything of value or substance. I’m guessing this time around, some bright-eyed journalist came up with the term “screenager” in the shower one morning, then pulled a story out of his arse just for an excuse to use it.
Either that, or the stupid hack’s just been listening to too much Muse.
