Another Sign The Apocalypse Is Upon Us

Source: Decline of the Empire

Some stories write themselves, especially those telling us The News is Not Good. Winda Benedetti’s Ready to play? 91 percent of kids are gamers (courtesy of msnbc.msn.com) is one of them.

While the average age of today’s video game player is 37 years old (no really), new research shows that the youngest generation is as game savvy as they get.

According to a new report from market research company The NPD Group, 91 percent of kids in the U.S. between the ages of two and 17 are gamers.

The NPD Group also points out that, while the population growth of kids in that age range since 2009 increased 1.54 percent in the U.S., the gaming population of that age group has grown a whopping 12.68 percent.

And the survey of more than 4,000 young people found that the fastest growth has been among the toddler set — children ages two to five. The NPD researchers say the number of those youngest gamers has increased by 17 percent when compared to 2009.

The other segments driving this growth: girls and teens ages 15 to17.

That gaming space alien shown above—sorry! I meant cute human toddler—is Winda’s son Oz, as in The Wizard of Oz, as in Toto, I’ve a feeling we’re not in Kansas anymore, as in Fantasy World, as in Disney Land, as in there are no longer any Brick & Mortar bookstores to browse in anymore.

So what’s turning all these kiddies into gamers? Smartphones and tablets have played a large part in it, according to the NPD.

Since 2009, gaming on mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets among kids has increased by 8 percent to 38 percent, while gaming on traditional portable gaming devices (think Nintendo DS and PlayStation PSP) grew from 38 percent to 45 percent.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs! Or should I say Saint Steve? After two days of listening to paeans to your unprecedented Greatness, your astonishing Tech Savvy, your uncompromising Committment to Excellence, I knew your life had not been lived in vain. And let’s not forget that no one would be able to afford your iShit if it weren’t manufactured by not-quite-slave laborers in China! Some of them prefer to commit suicide rather than drop dead working for Foxconn to assemble iPods. But I digress.

No doubt Little Oz will “grow up”—I am using that term very loosely—to be the perfect Corporate Citizen, a consumer par excellence, and isn’t that a good thing? Is the economy not booming? Is energy not free? Are human rights not expanding? Is the Earth itself not thriving? Is this not a Brave New World? Are we not going boldly forward where no man has gone before? You bet we are!

And as the inexorable Progress of the Human Species moves ever-forward to its inevitable conclusion, Little Oz—he will be Big Oz before you know it, don’t the years just fly by?—will be there to see it, his glassy-eyed stare fixated on his PlayStation 17, oblivious to the astonishing events taking place just outside his window.

And yet, sometimes I have my doubts about the coming Paradise on Earth, as does Marketplace’s Kai Ryssdal, who thinks this story is another sign the apocalypse is upon us. But whenever I am plagued by doubts, whenever I am on the thin edge of utter despair, I remember that the aptly named Homo sapiens—my species!—is the Greatest Species That Ever Was And Ever Will Be. And those doubts disappear.

Where’s my Xbox 360 Pro?

Bonus Video — an old favorite

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