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Game Changer

Do video games have a negative impact on teens? Grant senior Cameron Hilman shows how he’s navigated the world of gaming and developed a new perspective.

By Callie Quinn-Ward and Tess Waxman | Photos by Finn Hawley-Blue

 

Cameron Hilman remembers being 11 years old and staying up until 4 a.m., the blue glow of a computer screen lighting up his face. His fingers used to dance across the keyboard as he constructed virtual houses in the video game, Minecraft.

He’d get messages from an in-game chat server and converse with online friends – some located in Europe, others in Asia.

Today, Hilman, a Grant senior, acknowledges that he spent the majority of his childhood at the computer. He was homeschooled through an online public school and became consumed with video games.

Adolescent involvement with video games has become a topic of debate in recent years. Researchers say the surge in popularity of violent games and the exponential increase in the amount of time teenagers spend in front of computer screens can be linked to diminished social skills and higher levels of aggressive behavior.

“There were several different types of research studies that all point to the same answer,” says Sherry Hamby of the American Psychological Association’s task force on violent media. “More violent video games played associated with more aggressive behavior…It’s really important for schools and parents to…limit screen time in terms of other students and adolescents and (make sure) even younger children are getting enough physical exercise and learning social skills.”

Gamers, as they are called, and their supporters say the research is inconclusive and that the on-screen violence doesn’t translate to real life.

Hilman can see both sides – although he had a middle school experience that leaned toward addiction. He says now he’s able to successfully balance the numerous aspects of his life.

He believes arguments against extensive video game use hold some validity, but it depends on the person. “I didn’t see it as harmful. I saw it as the same growth that I would have normally gained but it was just different,” he says.

Through video games, Hillman says he’s formed relationships with other gamers and argues that online conversations can hold the same weight as in-person connections. He even points to gaming as something that’s served as a springboard for his involvement in choir, cross-country, track, volunteering and school clubs.

 

 

 

 

 

 

“In the same way that we played with toys, we played with video games and it was just kind of like something that happened in our house,” he says.

The youngest of eight children, Hilman was born on Aug.7, 1998. As a toddler, his oldest brother, Rylan, introduced him to video games and it quickly became something they bonded over.

He remembers playing hours of Super Smash Bros., a popular game where fictional Nintendo characters battle each other onscreen. Because their dad, Harlan Hilman, works with computers, the kids’ technology craze seemed normal.

“I was never really worried about it,” says their father. “Minecraft takes creativity, and (Cameron) was building stuff, so I figured as long as there’s a balance…I didn’t have any concerns.”

The family was very tight-knit, made closer by the fact that Hilman’s mother, Tammy Hilman, homeschooled the oldest children. “I really liked my kids and I didn’t want to (say) ‘You take them for 8 hours a day,’” she says. “I  thought this was something I could do.”

But when the family moved to Northeast Portland, she enrolled them in public schools, specifically Sabin and Beaumont. Hilman’s oldest brother had a difficult transition.

She pulled them all out and gave homeschooling another shot. When Connections Academy, an online K-12 public school, became available, the Hilmans were one of the pioneering families.

From kindergarten through the start of ninth grade, Hilman, who describes himself as a naturally shy person, participated in Connections Academy as a student. Every day for five hours, he logged onto his computer, read through material and completed coursework. Social interaction was limited to his church.

But the family changed churches several times. The Hilmans followed a pastor to a smaller church. Due to financial reasons, the new congregation dissolved a few years later, tearing apart their close-knit community. Cameron Hilman became even more introverted as a result.

“We had a shared meal every Sunday. It was a really nice community,” says Tammy Hilman. “There’s a shakeup when you’re moving in a direction with a group of people and then all of a sudden the plug got pulled.”

The family didn’t associate with a church for the next six months. Hilman spent more time with video games as a way to connect without the pressures of in-person conversations. He started playing Minecraft and got to know the game – and a core group of players – well.

Hilman spent hours a day at the computer. His involvement in Minecraft soon moved past simply playing the video game. He learned how it was made and how to manipulate it, memorizing Wiki pages and building basic processors with the materials.

“Having this place where like I know these people are similar to me even if like this guy’s in Austria and this girl’s in Australia,” he says.”They’re fun to talk to and they just became my friends.”

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In the 1970s, the first commercially successful video game, Pong – based on table tennis – was introduced. It was simple but addictive, and players congregated in bars just to play. Its creators later adapted the game to a home console to increase accessibility. The videogame industry has never looked back.

Grant technology specialist Luke Wisher has seen this progression first-hand. He remembers playing simple computer games in the 1990s. Now, he owns an Oculus Rift, a gaming virtual reality headset and keeps close tabs on the latest technology. “To be completely immersed in a game is so much better than staring at whatever kind of monitor you have,” he says.

But the advancements in gaming have come at a price. Violence has emerged in the industry. Halo and Call of Duty, in which players shoot enemies or targets in highly realistic and violent settings, have surged in popularity.

When it was discovered that the two shooters in the 1999 Columbine massacre at a high school in Colorado had obsessively played violent video games, researchers began studying the link between gaming and aggression. Many parents worried over their children’s gaming obsessions.

“Playing violent videogames tended to be associated with more aggressive behavior, more aggressive thoughts and less sensitivity to the effects of violence on people who are victimized,” says Dr. Gordon Nagayama Hall, a member of the APA task force and a professor of psychology at the University of Oregon. “I think anyone who is involved in any kind of repeated playing of these games will be affected.”

Hamby adds: “Exposure to violent video games not only increases aggressive behavior, it also decreases a lot of positive things. One of those positive things it really decreases is empathy.”

In some cases, she says, “playing video games can lead to issues, to depersonalization and a distorted sense of reality.”

But Hilman says there’s another side to it all. “I believe that the experience that I had affected me positively and that I came out as a better person,” he says. “But looking at other aspects of games, the misogyny and like anger and stuff that goes into some communities is…bad and it’s very unfortunate. But video games can’t be generalized as just one thing.”

Though he didn’t struggle with violence, the games consumed him in another way. “Minecraft basically became what I did for I think three years,” he says. “It was just me in my room. And so I decided that I was gonna go to public school.” He approached his parents with an idea: he wanted to attend Grant.

“I was terrified,” says Tammy Hilman. “It was a big unknown…I just had to accept that he’s grown up. He’s making his own decisions.”

Harlan Hilman knew something in his son’s life needed to change. “I knew he was no longer applying himself in the homeschool stuff,” his dad recalls. “He was no longer interested in the homeschool process.”

His older sister, Courtney Hilman, wondered why her brother wanted such a drastic change. “I thought he was crazy,” she says. “I could not wrap my head around wanting to go to the public school…I liked being home.”

But Hilman insisted and his parents agreed to let him do it. Video games had given him skills to branch out. Hilman used the skills he’d learned to communicate with people who were thousands of miles away to talk to people who were in the same room.

When Hilman arrived at Grant halfway through his freshman year, it was his first time in a traditional school environment. “I was kind of like a new kid nobody knew,” he recalls. “The first day was hard because I was self-conscious about my writing skills because I had done everything on the computer and I couldn’t keep up with the class at that speed.”

But the next day he brought a laptop to take notes and began to ease into high school life. “I felt surprisingly comfortable just being at school and talking to people,” says Hilman. He joined three clubs his first year.

Some of his classmates didn’t know what to make of him. “I thought he was the nerd that brought the computer to class everyday to take notes,” recalls his friend, Sydney Parno. “He was really quiet in class at first. After he warmed up a bit, he started participating a lot more. I learned that he wasn’t just a nerd with a computer and he was actually pretty cool.”

[aesop_parallax img=”http://grantmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/3.jpg” parallaxbg=”on” caption=”After a stint of excessive gaming in middle school, Cameron Hilman has learned to balance school, extracurriculars and videogames successfully. ” captionposition=”bottom-left” lightbox=”off” floater=”on” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up”]

 

Virginia Warfield, his freshman English teacher, remembers wondering how Hilman would fit in. “I was worried that he would be overwhelmed by a lot of big personalities in class,” she remembers thinking. “But the class that he came into, they were actually great, like really welcoming, and he was able to just sort of fit in and be himself.”

Slowly, he reached out and began to make connections, often through a common interest of gaming. “I realized that I have so much in common with all these people,” he says now. “Like even though I lived …what seemed to me a completely different life, I had so much in common with them that I started to become friends with like anybody.”

Tammy Hilman says: “He used to be quite shy and reserved but I think he realized that if you can talk to someone across the world, you can talk to someone face to face.”

As Hilman became more and more invested in school – joining cross-country, track and choir, gaming became a smaller part of his life. It was a natural transition, and he didn’t struggle balancing his new life. “He’s become quite the socialite,” says his mom.

At the beginning of his senior year, Hilman started a Super Smash Bros. Club at Grant. He found himself lugging a monitor and gaming controllers to school each day. The club has become a place to play games and meet new people. “You can just walk in and if you know anything about Smash, like if you know how to pick up a controller and you’re willing to play, then you’re part of us,” says Jasmine Callon, a Grant junior and club member.

[aesop_content color=”#ffffff” background=”#333333″ width=”1000″ columns=”1″ position=”none” img=”http://grantmagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/A-Index.jpg” imgrepeat=”no-repeat” floaterposition=”left” floaterdirection=”up”]Many students at Grant hold gamers in a stereotypical light. However, the members of Smash club represent a variety of backgrounds, interests, and goals.

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“I’m a very social person, so when it comes to either playing games or hanging out with people, it kind of falls to hanging out with people because I would rather do that than sit alone,” Hilman says now. “But playing Smash Bros. can be both and that’s kind of what drew me to it.”

Today, Hilman’s busy schedule has forced him to hold back from the club and he goes when he can.

But he says gaming has not only provided him with a welcoming community, it’s helped him discover his passion. He plans to study mechanical engineering after high school. He credits this interest to Minecraft.

“I was studying all this engineering (in Minecraft) and…I liked being presented with tools which were like levers and red stone and blocks and (being) able to create a solution out of it,” he says. “That idea of creating something given tools is what engineering is. So I was sitting in the career fair lecture about engineering and it hit me that this is what makes me happy.”

Wisher has researched the game’s use in a classroom setting. “There’s actually a third-party plug in that you can buy for Minecraft that teachers use and you can…do virtual field trips and build and have like signs and stuff and have information that kids get to wander around in this template that you’ve created.”

Next year, Hilman plans to attend college in Japan, with a limited knowledge of the language and no family or friends there to support him. “I do see it as the jump between homeschooling and Grant, just another jump like that,” he says. “I like throwing myself into places where I get to meet a lot of people, and I feel like going to Japan is the ultimate form of that.”

“I’m seeing a lot more confidence. He’s just a lot more sure of himself and willing to try new things,” says Tammy Hilman. “He’s willing to do just about anything.”

In the coming years, Hilman hopes to keep gaming, but keep it in perspective. He doesn’t want it to take control of his life again.

“I’m not gonna let it phase out the way I use video games now,” he says, “I just use it as a relaxation thing every now and then, and I plan to continue that because it’s a social thing. But it’s also like (if) I have some free time I’m gonna just play a couple matches of Smash Bros, just relax for a bit and that’s how I intend to keep it.”◊