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Do video games rot your brain? – Joie, 10, Texas

June 26, 2025 melissamayer

Dear Joie,

After answering science questions all day, I like to play Mario. It’s relaxing to smash Goombas and zoom down pipes.

I asked my friend Dene Grigar if that’s wrecking my brain. She leads the Digital Technology and Culture program at Washington State University Vancouver.

She told me that sometimes people dismiss new things by calling them harmful.

That often happens with new technology or media. People reacted that way to railroads, telephones, cameras and television. People even freaked out about books. For a long time, books were hard to come by, and regular people couldn’t read. When that changed, folks worried about … » More …

Who invented games? – Kinzie, 6, Ohio

February 17, 2023 melissamayer

This column first published February 17, 2023. It was updated to include Ice Age rondelles and republished December 18, 2023.

Dear Kinzie,

Board games, video games, a long piece of yarn… I love them all. I took a break from batting around a catnip-filled mouse toy to talk about your question with my friend, Washington State University professor Jordan Clapper, who told me the answer is a mystery.

“That's almost impossible to know—for some really fun reasons,” Clapper said. “Every culture has games. It even extends beyond being human. If you've ever seen a dog or a cat play, they're playing a game. “

The earliest board game we’ve found is more than 4,600 years old. Archaeologist Leonard Woolley dug it up in a tomb from Sumer (modern-day Iraq). That tomb was in the Royal Cemetery of Ur, so he named it the Royal Game of Ur.