do video games kill imagination?

Miles was scheming this morning, desperate to get a Wii in our house.

I denied him yet again. Even told him that maybe we should cancel Christmas gifts altogether because his disappointment at not getting a Wii would be very depressing for his parents. (Avery very quickly made it clear that he would NOT be disappointed in anything!)

I told him that he need to be using his imagination. "What would you be doing or thinking if you weren't obsessing about a Wii," I asked him.

"I don't have an imagination anymore," he said.

"Why don't you go write a story about your imagination. Where did it go? How did you lose it? Your quest to find it...What has it been up to?"

"Okay."

He returned with this limerick:

I lost my imagination
I think it went on vacation
It didn't like me
I played too much Wii
And it's learning multiplication

He explained to me that if he still had his imagination, it would be learning plutification which requires imagination, but instead it's just learning math facts.

I think he's brilliant. But, of course, I'm his mom.