Boys lost in digital wastelands: Healthy fantasy worlds may be exactly what males need
In a world of disappearing challenges, millions of boys in America and across the world are losing themselves in the digital landscapes of video games and social media, to satisfy the longing for adventure in the heart of every boy.
This July, the video game production mogul EA Sports released their newest game, College Football 25. In its first week, Sports Business Journal reports that the game already had five million players and had raked in over $500M in sales. That’s just one video game released this summer in its first week. Fortnite, another massively popular video game, is played by over 120 million players per month.
It’s not difficult to understand what attracts boys to these digital worlds: it’s a chance to escape into a fantasy world. In these worlds, they can explore, face challenges, and overcome them with practice and determination. They are able to compete, sometimes with people they know, often with strangers. Here they are recognized for their achievements with badges and rewards. These things appeal to a boy, emotionally, psychologically and physically. In a culture that tells boys to sit still, eliminates competition by not keeping score and giving everyone a trophy, and protects them from every danger and challenge in life, boys are desperately looking for a world in which they can thrive.
The instinct to escape into fantastical worlds is not the problem. The problem lies with the fantasy worlds into which they are escaping. In fact, healthy fantasy worlds may be exactly what boys need right now. C.S. Lewis, author of the acclaimed Chronicles of Narnia, in his essay “On Three Ways of Writing for Children,” argues that adventures in fairyland:
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“ ... stirs and troubles him (to his lifelong enrichment) with the dim sense of something beyond his reach and, far from dulling or emptying the actual world, gives it a new dimension of depth. He does not despise real woods because he has read of enchanted woods: the reading makes all real woods a little enchanted.”
It is healthy, perhaps even necessary, for a boy to engage his imagination and encounter the wonders and dangers that await in a good fantasy. These adventures do not suck the color and excitement out of real-world adventures. Rather, they equip him to set out on real adventures and to know how to make the most of them.
Bryan Davis, a bestselling children’s fantasy author, and Mark Hancock recently published an adventure novel for boys titled Flight of the Falcon. The book begins with a boy who is struggling to find his place without a dad. Peculiar things begin to happen, but a man believes in him. Through that connection, he finds a tribe, he finds inspiration, and as he is guided, grounded and appreciated, he comes to understand who he is and whose he is. He is provided an identity and is welcomed into a band of brothers.
The book is aimed at those boys lost in the digital wastelands, longing for something more. It is for a generation of boys hungry for challenge but lost in the virtual worlds of YouTube and video games. For boys struggling for purpose and identity in this complicated world. For the plethora of boys who desperately need a male role model. For the boys searching for a man to step up to guide them, listen to their passions, fuel their dreams, believe in their abilities and from whom they can draw strength to overcome the challenges boys face.
These are the messages boys are looking for. Right now, boys are finding real-world challenges, adventure, brotherhood and meaning in Trail Life USA Troops across the country. Trail Life, whose mission is to “guide generations of courageous young men to honor God, lead with integrity, serve others and experience outdoor adventure” is providing a space in which boys can be boys. In Trail Life Troops, boys find healthy competition, an awards program that challenges them and rewards them for their efforts and stimulating adventures in the outdoors that prove to boys that they can accomplish hard things and have fun doing them.
There’s nothing wrong with your son wanting to spend time in a fantasy world. The fabricated landscapes in which young people find themselves are not always a distraction from the real world. Healthy fantasy only serves to enrich one’s experience of this real world, full of trouble and challenges waiting to be met. What boys need is a fantasy world in which they can explore and be built up into the kind of godly men this world needs.
Matthew Gidney taught English at Covenant College and the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga. He currently serves as the communications and compliance coordinator for Trail Life USA. He lives in Travelers Rest, South Carolina with his wife and 3 children.
