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The Social Impact of Gaming
"The Bart, The" writes "The Economist weekly is carrying a well considered special report on the current debate regarding morality and gaming." From the article: "Like rock and roll in the 1950s, games have been accepted by the young and largely rejected by the old. Once the young are old, and the old are dead, games will be regarded as just another medium and the debate will have moved on. Critics of gaming do not just have the facts against them; they have history against them, too."
End of discussion.
"Filthy" novels, pre-code movies, comic books, Rock 'n' Roll, TV, video games... It's just a long line of easy "moral" targets for politicians to act like they're solving something instead of dealing with the actual problems.
And it works, generation after generation.
What society accepts is based on the majority of the population. If the majority of the youth accept something, it stands to reason that society will as well once they grow up and take over the positions of power.
either that or they just dont go outside anymore...
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
The advantage to gaming's participatory nature is that kids and parents can play games together. PLaying games with my stepsons has actually helped to make our bond stronger. It is, after all, something that you can do for either long or short periods of time, is fun, and is shared.
At the end of the day I think that that is gaming's greatest boon.
If brevity is the soul of wit, then how does one explain Twitter?
Im not sure that the older generation rejects gaming.....Its just that they dont feel the need to become involved - and dont want to spend the time and effort learning about such new fangled things, hence a lack of interest - not rejection
It's a problem that I think comes up every 20-40 years: something new that changes society, and those too old to "get it".
10 years ago listening to rap music and heavy metal would get you into jail because you'd go kill people. Crime rates drop.
20 years ago playing Dungeons and Dragons would turn you into a Satan worshipper, you'd kill your parents and commit suicide. Amazingly, 99.9% of all players survived, and those who did kill themselves were in the statistical group who would have anyway.
20 years before, watching Elvis dance would turn you into a sexual deviant. Somehow, those same parents who watched Elvis's hips were able to complain about Britney Spears and her kinderslut outfits.
Reading comic books would turn you into a criminal, since it was the preferred activity of juvenile delinquents. (Or, at least the three that were studied.)
20 years before, and listening to rock and roll in general would cause kids to become pregnant just by being in the room, boys would go on rape sprees, and society would enter total decay.
20 years before that, and Glenn Miller was dangerous.
Keep going back, and every era will have something new that the older generation didn't get. The question with gaming is:
Will it follow the model of comic books, where a heavy handed fist comes down to regulate it into "kid safe"-ness, until decades later where it starts to spring again (mainly thanks to an underground movement and the explosion of interest in manga and anime)? Or will it follow rock and roll, and already be so entrenched that the Jack Thompsons and Hilary Clintons and Leibermans of the world will rage, and ten years later people will wonder what the big deal about was?
My bet is on the latter - but only if people take the time to educate each other on it. I've sat down with people who came to my office to ask me about the whole Grand Theft Auto games (they know I used to run a web site, now turned into a wiki), and I've explained the rating system, the arguments, what "Hot Coffee" is all about. And 99% of the time, they go "Oh, ok, that makes sense." The 1% of the time they're just looking to steal some of my Triscuits.
Write to your congressman. We should, in the same fashion as those who set up a web site to protest the broadcast flag, set up a similiar Political Action Committee who's whole goal is to educate politicians on the issue and send them notices when they go for "hearings" and "new laws".
If we don't, then I can see an age where the gaming industry is regulated like the comic book industry was. And that would be a huge blow to what could be a fascinating new artistic medium.
Of course, this is just my opinion - I could be wrong.
52 Weeks, 52 Religions with John Hummel
I'd like to agree with you, but I just can't. When I was 6 and 7 (better than 40 years ago) we'd play outside all day from morning until the street light came on. Our moms never looked for us, or wondered if we were safe, if someone had kidnapped or killed us. Adam (and John) Walsh changed that for everybody. I seriously doubt that you tell your kids to go outside and play until it gets dark.
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
These kids now have an alternate form of entertainment and something to do with their free time other than join a gang or wander the streets causing or looking for trouble.
Another aspect is that some games can serve as a stress release valve for people. If I'm feeling really stressed out to the point that I almost want to choke someone I can pop in my copy of GTA and take it out some virtual people or property. I honestly believe that I've become a less violent person after playing through the GTA games because I had a virtual world where I could release my anger and agression that wouldn't result in any harm to real people.
For every stupid person who comits a crime and blames GTA or some video game, just think of how many crimes that same video game might have prevented.
On one hand you have violent crime going "down". On the other, you have money going "up". But what does this money represent? Money spent on violent games, or all games? Are violent games going for a higher or lower price relative to other games? Are violent games now 1%, 10%, 50% or 90% of the game market? Or look at the other side: prison sentences for violent crimes were increased in the 90s, so there are fewer repeat offenders on the streets. There are way too many variables to draw any meaning from that statement.
And that's only if you could: this is mere correlation, not causality. This is in no way evidence of video games causing (or not causing) violence. It's just two unrelated charts pasted together invalidly in an attempt to swing the reader's viewpoint to that of the author.
John
Age is just a number. Heck, I'm 38, almost 39, and I still am an MMO junkie. If it's a PC RPG, I've probably played it, and most of the FPS, as well.
I know a few folks in their 60's that play MMOs.
My father is over 75. He helped design the original hardware and software for the AWACS aircraft. He played a major role in the setting up and turning on of the first dedicated network on the Eastern side of the US. He's seriously old-school computers, the kind of guy that had a subscription to IEEE and actually read the damned thing.
Now, he plays computer games. Not the first person shooters, or other games that take more reflex speed than he can muster up, but the simplier games, like cards, Myst, and the like.
And, since he hasn't had to really do jack didly squat in the last 6 years, technically, he now calls me and asks his only kid without a college degree, what the best firewall is, etc.
He's comfortable with computers, so computer games don't intimidate him.
Now if I could just teach my mother that not everything her retirement buddies think is a funny joke needs to be forwarded on to me...
Games waste time. Games are fun.
When you get to the point in your life where your time is more valuable than the entertainment/social value you get from the game, you stop playing. That's why young people play games and old people do not: the older you get the less time you have to waste.
However, a number of the same folks who listened to the Beatles in the '60s railed against Marilyn Manson in the '90s. Games as a medium may be more accepted in the future, but, if history is any indication, scapegoating will never die.
concrete5: a cms made for marketing, but strong enough for geeks.
The world is passing through troublous times. The young people of today think of nothing but themselves. They have no reverence for parents or old age. They are impatient of all restraint. They talk as if they knew everything, and what passes for wisdom with us is foolishness with them. As for the girls, they are forward, immodest and unladylike in speech, behavior and dress. Peter the Hermit, A.D. 1274
The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers. -- Socrates
Some things never change...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
"How about watching "Bowling for Columbine" and think about it for a little while?"
I watched it, and then I thought how stupid Michael Moore was for naming his movie after an alleged event that did not happen (that the boys bowled before the event happened).
That and the fact that the boys wanted to blow up the school with explosives, but Moore chose to focus upon the impact of guns in our society. Had he focused on what actually impacted the two boys into their violent behavior - being picked on for years by their peers - and not on their love of games like Doom, he would've had a decent movie. Instead, he used the tragedy as a platform to rail against guns, the NRA, and Heston.
Video games did not cause Adolph Hitler nor the followers of the Nazi Party. Video games did not create Stalin. And video games did not cause the Trail of Tears. Some people are good, some people are bad. Blaming video games for criminal behavior is the new version of blaming inexcusable human behavior on Satan instead of fessing up to personal responsibility.
The two boys were ultimately responsible for their actions, but it was how they were treated by their peers that influenced them, not video games. Guns were the tools of choice they used for their terror. Although homemade explosives could've been far more effective a tool than their firearms.
"Right now, somewhere in this world, Scott Baio is plowing a woman he doesn't love," - Peter Griffin, *Family Guy*
Nope, sorry, doesn't work like that. The hippies haven't made dope legal. The punks haven't reduced the state's stranglehold.
What gets made law is whatever benefits the lawmakers financially or increases their power. Politicians at that level have no ideals beyond selfishness, nor can they achieve that level without ridding themselves of such ideals.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
What do you mean Gaming isn't benificial? Have you looked at a video game's complexity today as compared to a game like monopoly?
Modern video games require the player to learn highly complex control sets, multi button combo commands, mission prioritization, teamwork (sometimes), and all sorts of other things that are applicable to the real world. (ever need to learn how to use a new peice of software in a few days for a job? Video games make that easier because you're used to learning new complex systems)
Furthermore, we have multiple studies proving that video games increases visual accuity, reaction time and hand eye coordination.
Just because spending hours killing aliens in a video game isn't constructive, doesn't mean that the skills you learn to do it cannot be used elsewhere in a constructive manner.
As a society, we will accept anything that we consider not detrimental to society at large. If video games make people happy, it's benificial to the society, is it not? Video games also provide many people, myself included with much needed outlets for destructive energy.
When given the choice between fantasy violence and real violence, perhaps not everyone will choose the fantasy, but it's better to have the option there for those who, without the option of fantasy violence, would opt for the real thing.
You missed the point of the movie. Guns were the tool used to kill. Americans kill more people, per capita, than any other western society. Why? Moore argued that it is a cultural issue that Americans live in a culture of fear and too many think they are in the "wild west".
Canada has just as many guns per capita as the USA, but a much lower murder rate. In Canada guns are rarely thought of as a tool of defense against other people. Generally guns are for hunting and target practise - not protecting the homestead.
I find it amusing that you would take issue with the title of the film in this conversation, when the issue of the kids bowling was specifically chosen to ridicule the placing of blame at the feet of videogame and music companies. IIRC the narration was something like "People had been blaming DOOM and Marylin Manson for the killings, so why not bowling?" Whether or not they bowled is not important to the message of the film, or that scene. I also wonder where you were during the extended period of the movie where he discredited the idea that more guns means more violence, or during the scene where he discussed high school alienation with Matt Stone (a columbine graduate). This sounds like a comment from someone who didn't see the movie, and just assumed it was a standard rant against guns.
I came here for a good argument
You're overly cycnical. We will always have the worst government that we accept. The hippies accepted dope, but they also accepted a governement that made dope illegal. Anything annoying that our government gets away with, they manage because it's Not Evil Enough(TM) for people to really care.
We no longer accept a government that descriminates based on skin color, for example. We didn't round up all the muslims in America and stick them concentration camps for the duration of the War on Terror, an action which clear would have been acceptable a few generations ago.
All of the Evil our govewrnment routinely avoids isn't exactly newsworthy, but you don't have to look back very far to see the government doing things they'd never even try today. And not because the poloticians have suddenly grown ideals beyond selfishness, but becuase the line they don't dare cross has moved. And that line moves because a new generation, with a different sense of acceptability, has taken over.
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
Michael Moore was actually only bringing up the video game angle to dismiss it, and the people who use it as a boogeyman, and actually is more on the side of most of the people who post here....slightly offtopic, but he was trying to understand a bigger problem here in America, and he seemed to realize that all the boogeymen(video games, rock, drugs, etc) were getting in the way of our understanding of why we feel the need to shoot each other so often. I guess people think it's bad to think about these things, but unless they will weigh in substantially and not quibble about small details(ignore the big question and focus on bowling? WTF?) they should all just STFU. At least someone is discussing it. And yes, I realize that was a runon sentence, no grammar nazis, please.
You are actually agreeing with what Michael Moore presents. Moore doesn't think guns, video games, violent media are to blame for Columbine any more than bowling did. Sure it has been shown that Klebold and Harris were not bowling but the effect is still in place. Saying Doom makes kids go homicidal is about as reasonable as suggesting bowling will do the same. Seeking to blame things irrationally is woven into our culture as a double whammy.
A theme in "Bowling for Columbine" is that people seeking answers are going to lash out at things they liked and gravitated towards. Violent games, guns, anti-social behavior, etc. What Moore tries to do is say its all BS. Along the way he shows some people doing and saying some odd if not funny things. Both kids like playing Doom/Quake so these things are coruptive and evil and we should stop impressionable youth from playing such things. Both kids like explosives and weapondry which is corruptive and evil and we should stop other kids from playing with such things. But wait, they both may be pretty good bowlers. Why is no one up in arms about how corruptive and destructive bowling is on impressionable youth? The truth is that Klebold and Harris liked to many things yet only a sliver is deemed destructive and evil and must be done away with to "save the kids" by a select few "leaders". Its all BS and Moore wants you to decide for yourself what the problem is instead of going along with the status quo which wants to blame the usual suspects: guns, games, media...
The real problem in the US is a high level of mistrust which permiates the entire culture all the way through highschool where it manifests itself into harsh cliques. A combination of events made a "perfect storm" of opportunity, motive, and culture which resulted in Klebold and Harris to take out their frustrations on the school. To read anything more into it is of dubious value.
There are way too many variables to draw any meaning from that statement.
However, you can make the following statement: "Either videogames reduce youth violence or the effect of videogames on youth violence is small in comparison to other social and demographic factors"
Since neither possibility supports regulation of videogames, the conclusion is clear.