Video games are a waste of time.

I’m on my school basketball team. I went to my friend’s house before a game and played an hour’s worth of video games. During the basketball game, I noticed I wasn’t playing to my full potential. Afterward, I had a horrible headache and felt like I was going to vomit.

That may just be me, but I know that video games and television decrease athletic ability. Some people say video games will increase hand-eye coordination. If that were true, then why not get an Xbox for a week and then get rid of it? I think the video-gamers don’t care about coordination. It’s just their excuse for playing video games.

People who have to have virtual fun instead of actually doing something play games about war and think they could go out on a battlefield and stand a fighting chance. I think not.

I’ve met lots of people, but the ones who are video-gamers are the least interesting. The only thing they ever talk about is video games. They mostly play shooter games, so they’re even talking about shooting stuff and things like that. I even have a teacher who has an Xbox in his room. He’s always talking about video games, too.

All in all, I’m proud not to have any video-game consoles. The only real electronic device I have is an Mp3 player.

— Kelly Biswell is a 12-year-old Santa Barbara Charter School student.