To Game or Not to Game: When Gaming on the Go is a No-No

Nothing can kill a conversation quite like your cell phone blaring off in mid-sentence, but gamers face an additional mood-killing obstacle. For gamers, nothing can kill a mood or get you into trouble quite like pulling out a portable gaming device. There are right times and wrong times to game on the go, and sometimes those wrong times land you in bad times.

For students new and old, gaming in the middle of class couldn’t be more inappropriate. Whether it’s in a college class of 500 people being lectured by a lone professor with a microphone or just a high school class where “45” seems like a huge number of students, gaming while you should be learning should be avoided at all costs. Why? Well, I could take the high-and-mighty “you’re there for a purpose” route for high school students, and college students get the added “you’re wasting money by not listening”, but I have rather decided to stake my claim firmly in “get caught and it’s your ass” territory.

Now more than ever, the easiest way for a professor to stop your impromptu gaming session is to throw you out of the class. A college teacher of mine who operates on a “point system” for grading has even specifically outlined a point-deduction system which, as you may well guess, includes a five point deduction for getting caught dipping into the cookie jar of gaming bliss. If you’re a high school student, most teachers will physically take your precious handheld console from you, forcing you to get it back at the end of the class after a stern lecture and a sterner warning. Some high schools even make you pay a fine to get your gizmo back.

Gaming in elevators should also be avoided for a variety of reasons. The first and most simple reason is that an elevator, by its very design, is supposed to get you to wherever it is you’re going in the least amount of time possible. You just won’t have the time to game before it’s time to step off to your floor. Sometimes, however, repeated stops on an elevator when you yourself have a job working at the highest floor can give you a few minutes to spare. Even then, gaming on elevators should be avoided because they can break your concentration. Go into the workforce focused and relaxed, not PO’d that you couldn’t sneak in a quick game for more than 30 seconds.

The best (and grossest) I’ve saved for last: gamers really shouldn’t game while dropping a load. Taking a crap can be hard enough on the body; do we really need to overexert the mind as well? Also, doesn’t it say something about our bodies if we have enough free time while on the toilet to get in some gaming? If your marathon gaming coincides with your marathon crap-a-thon, you probably need to see some type of doctor.

“To game or not to game” can be a very pressing issue in some instances, but in these three I stress the second option rather than the first. Gaming can be a blissful interruption from the mundane, but never let it interfere with something you really should be concentrating on instead.