I question why we need power fantasies in the first place. Is it so important to feed our egos at the cost of even computer-generated “beings?” What does it do to the brain, particularly the developing brain, to have the power to enslave and destroy entire civilizations on a whim?

Last summer, during a solo road trip through Canada, I was one of the first people to pass the scene of a double homicide. The bodies were still there by the side of the road. At the time I’d no idea what had happened (except for the obvious — the people had been murdered) but in subsequent weeks I watched the story unfold. Two teenage boys had gone on a killing spree. They killed another man and then themselves before all was said and done.

One of the boy’s fathers said in an interview that they were into war games; and investigations turned up photographs of Nazi paraphernalia that they’d downloaded and sent to others in the online community via Steam.

Not all people who play war games become violent. But the gaming “community” does not connect people to one another any more than social media does. It just connects us to computer screens and a growing sense of unreality.