With parents' judicious guidance, children's exposure to digital games would not hinder academic and social development any more than playing in the garden would, argues Malcolm Zammit.

It was back in 1982. I had just come into contact with computer studies as a 12-year-old student at Stella Maris College, under the tutorship of the wiry-framed Brother Terence, a pioneer of computer studies in Malta.

I cannot possibly describe the excitement of walking into the school's computer lab. These were pre-internet days, but technological literacy was the key to the future, we were told. Indeed.

My appetite whet, I read about Sir Clive Sinclair's ZX Spectrum personal computer. I wanted one badly - just like I had wanted a dog and an electric guitar. I started building up the pressure on my parents.

Unlike the dismal failure of conviction in the case of the powered twanger and the canine companion, my wish was granted. Technological literacy was the key to the future, said my dad.

Paypal was not an option in those days when computers came without mice or monitors and had to be hooked up to a TV, and, if I remember correctly, we were also bound by Maltese law to pay a licence for computer equipment.

The Spectrum arrived via parcel post, after what seemed like an eternity of anticipation. I negotiated layers of packaging with excitement of an order of magnitude and intensity that was not surpassed until many years later when my daughter was born.

There it was, delivered into my hands, clean, radiant, full of promise, all 48 KB of RAM waiting to be stimulated into a life of possibilities.

From then on, for months and years on end, I sat there programming Basic and playing games - rudimentary games by today's standards, but aeons ahead of the Pong I had played years earlier with uncles and cousins huddled around grandma's black-and-white TV.

The Hobbit, Flight Simulator, and Hungry Horace stole the limelight from the Italian channels' Japanese cartoons that had, until then, taken over my time, imagination, and the household's only TV.

I was lucky my school and parents facilitated early exposure to computer technology. But there came a time when my father grew concerned that games were taking up precious time that would be much better employed focusing on accounting and economics. After all, that's what computers were made for, he insisted.

So I was repeatedly dissuaded from building Space Invader sprites and from spending days on end trying to design text-based adventure games. The budding game developer in me eventually gave in to the mounting pressure - that particular game was over.

Fast-forward to 2008, into an age permeated with digital technology (at least on my side of the world). My five-year-old was attending primary school in the UK, and in her first-ever manifestation of peer-pressure, came home demanding a Nintendo DS.

"Pardon?" I blinked, off guard.

"A Nintendo DS. A pink one. All my friends have one," she said.

Not quite sure how to respond, I switched on the TV to the kids' channel - her attention was diverted, and the day was saved.

However, just as I had done as a child fascinated by the potential of digital technology, she kept up the pressure, while I procrastinated uncomfortably for days. When the kids' TV diversion failed, it was tears.

There I was, following an uncannily similar thought process my father had followed some 24 years earlier.

True, I wasn't concerned about accounting or economics; it was negative media effects arguments that shaded my reasoning: she's too young to have a dedicated games console; isn't her Mac enough exposure to technology? she'll be playing all the time; communication will go down the drain; scholastic development will suffer; she'll go off books, become anti-social; we won't go to the park to fly our kites anymore.

At the same time, I was uncomfortable with this reasoning, which smacked of moral panic puritanism of the anti-radio, anti-film and anti-TV days.

Some time later, during a discussion with a good friend and colleague of mine, a tech-freak and father of two little children, the sensible road forward became suddenly, forcefully, clear. Technology is here to stay and it will carry on advancing.

Digital games are part of this technology. It is the same technology which is permeating and will permeate the lives of our kids at all levels of their lives - could I seriously deny my daughter the early opportunity to become accustomed to any of the gamut of tools and technologies she will need to function effectively at school, at work, at home, at a supermarket, at a bank?

Hindering her involvement with digital technology was analogous to favouring digital illiteracy.

Christine got her Nintendo DS - refurbished from eBay - plus a couple of carefully selected games. We set clear limits for the time spent playing, just as we'd done for TV, books, and playing in the garden.

Slowly but surely, through her interaction with digital games and other digital technology, she is getting to grips and internalising the experience, the functionality, the possibilities and limitations of the interface, the type of which will, as it develops, inevitably permeate the rest of her life, from her oven, to her car, to her augmented reality glasses and her cat's subcutaneous programmable chip.

And it's fantastic to see the sparkle in her eyes when she figures out how to clear that level which has been vexing her for days. And it's fantastic to see the same sparkle when we read the unexpected ending of our latest book, because yes, we still read. And we still communicate, and hear music together. Scholastically and socially, things are panning out more or less as one would expect.

Technology will inevitably play an increasingly important role in her life, whichever course she eventually chooses to take. Digital games are one way for her to become literate in, and to grow comfortable with, this technology.

They will help empower her as an active participant in her future. They have their time and their place.

My role is to guide judiciously, definitely not to hinder fearfully. And there will always be time for flying kites.

Have your say
If you wish to contribute an article or would like a particular subject to be tackled in the Education section, call Davinia Hamilton on 2559 4513, or e-mail dhamilton@timesofmalta.com.

Mr Zammit is Assistant Lecturer, Digital Media, at the Centre for Communication Technology (CCT) at the University of Malta, and part of the Digital Games Malta team.