Value in Video Games (with Sarah Zylstra)

In the world today, there are more people that play video games than there are who say they're Christians. Is gaming causing a "boy crisis? Is there any good in playing video games? Would Jesus play video games?

To help us on this episode, we spoke with Sarah Eekhoff Zylstra, senior writer and faith-and-work editor for The Gospel Coalition. She is also the coauthor of Gospelbound: Living with Resolute Hope in an Anxious Age and editor of Social Sanity in an Insta World. She believes that social media should come with a warning label and she recently wrote something that caught our attention, saying, "Let’s play video games under the lordship of Christ and before the face of God." Episode 19 of WWJT.

Check out her original piece on "Gaming Alone" here.

• 0:00 - Intro to Sarah Zystra
• 4:30 - The similarities between social media and gaming
• 6:46 - The Gaming Gender Gap
• 10:18 - How Gaming Is Getting Worse And Better
• 14:50 - Shouldn't We Panic?
• 17:49 - How To Know If You're Addicted?
• 20:03 - A Theology of Play
• 24:21 - Parenting & Video Games
• 29:00 - Parenting, Getting Immersed, and Learning
• 32:14 - A Christian Kind of Video Game?
• 38:42 - Would Jesus Play Video Games?
• 41:05 - Why did Sarah leave Social Media?

Notes & links:

• Listen to TGC's Recorded podcast episode on Gaming Alone. You can find the statistics that Sarah referenced here.
• TGC's Recorded podcast episode on Social Media.
• Statistica Gaming Gender Gap.
• The Rise of Chess.
• FaithTech's "Missional Tech Trends" brief on Video Games.
• John Dyer's People of the Screen.