A pop culture topic that interests me is our culture’s fascination with the Nintendo® Wii, and some of the absurd stories in the news related to people using the system. This past Christmas we picked up the system for a ‘family gift’. I should have been suspicious when my husband and son set up the system in the basement by moving ALL of our furniture at least 12 feet away from the television. No gaming system should take up that much space. I had heard the stories about people throwing their controllers through their TV sets while playing, but didn’t really take it to heart until I watched my husband trying to play baseball. He has since been forbidden to play without putting on the wrist strap.In general though, the game seemed harmless. We can bowl, play tennis, do yoga, and even workout with a personal trainer without leaving the basement. It’s exercising without going to the gym.
With that being said, I did a little research and found that there are consequences to the gaming system. Websites like ITProPortal.com caution about a phenomenon called the ‘Wii Knee” (okay, that one is just funny!) where osteopaths have suggested that an increase in sprains, fractures, and injuries is due to parents trying to outdo their children on the system. Author Desire Athow (2008) of ITProPortal refers you to various websites like Wiidamage, Wiinjury, or Wiihaveaproblem, to see documented damages the Wii has caused to the human body and various household objects.
Wiihaveaproblem is a blog that highlights carnage from the Wii system perpetrated by the drunk and sober alike. Their site not only showcases pictures of broken television sets, lamps, and windows, but also highlights damage to humans in the form of black eyes, cuts and bruises by swinging remote controls. There are also some unfortunate stories of pets getting in the way of overzealous players swinging their remote.
It seems that the other sites suggested by Athow (2008) are more of the same; otherwise sane people doing insane things in the midst of a heated tennis match or boxing round. While some of the stories are definitely comical, others are tragic. I’ve now asked the kids not to play without using the wrist straps, and to keep our pets out of the room when they’re gaming. They hate that I research this type of information on the web, but we’ve already had a minor casualty of bowling; a lamp in the basement, and I certainly don’t want to be the next subject of a YouTube video because we did something foolish while playing something as simple as a video game!
References
Athow, D. (2008, December 22). Doctors Warn About Wii Knee Injury Phenomenon Retrieved January 25, 2009 from http://www.itproportal.com/articles/2008/12/22/doctors-warn-about-wii-knee-injury-phenomenon/
Wiihaveaproblem (2009). Woman Kills Dog Retrieved January 25, 2009 from http://wiihaveaproblem.com/
Images
Wii Menu (2007) Fair Use Images. Retrieved January 25, 2009 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wiimen.png
I did not know that the Wii had so many problems, I'm really thinking about getting a Wii for my family soon. The stories were a bit comical. It seems as though players competing with one another are taking the games a little too seriously. I still think the game is very cool, especially how you can work out on them, pull up any games for your kids on the Wii channel and surf the web. You have to be careful with any game. Only thing that concerns me is that kids won’t go outside as much anymore. Will this also have affects on obesity on our kids?
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