JULIANNA (HOST): Coming up, many of today's most popular video games take place in dangerous post apocalyptic landscapes. But are these games enough to prepare our kids for the post apocalyptic future we'll all soon face?
LAURALEE: There are studies that show that these games are quite effective in teaching our kids skills they'll need after the apocalypse like finding shotgun ammo and leading squads of elite supersoldiers.
TED: But these aren't the advanced skills they're going to need! They're going to need the more practical skills like how to build a shelter out of abandoned cars or ... or finding water by collecting the morning dew in human skulls.
DAVID: Or how you deal with depression when the sun is blocked out for 500 years by a cloud of radioactive dust?
TED: Exactly! Now that's the kid of knowledge these kids will need when their world's been turned into a brutal hellscape!
ROGER: These games don't need to be an accurate depiction of a postapocalyptic landscape, they just need to teach the basic skills which they do. 72% of kids said they know how to find items to barter in weapon shops, and how to use medicine packs to heal zombie bites with these video games!
LAURALEE: The game Fallout 3 has taught my son Charlie that it's easier to kill cyborgs with grenades than with a machine gun!
TED: The games make it all seem deceptively simple. A kid's not going to be able to kill a six foot long irradiated beetle just by pressing a few buttons! He's going to have to get down there with an axe, and hack, and hack, and hack.
ROGER: David, our kids are going to have the rest of their lives to get actual experience and to learn how to desperately fight for survival!
LAURALEE: What's important is that we teach our kids the fundamentals now, that they can be successful in whatever nightmare scenario they find themselves in.
ROGER: If they survive that long...
TED: The other flaw with these games is that most of these kids will become mutants themselves once the apocalypse hits.
ROGER: It's a huge problem!
LAURALEE: It's just a chance we'll have to take. Playing video games all day alone and friendless is simply the best way that we have to prepare our children for a life of solitude in a barren wasteland.
ALL: (mutters of agreement)