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."

Comments

So does Slashdot have the same issue?

[xmas2003]

Carrying the analogy a bit further, my guess is that (currently) the Slashdot crowd tends to be a younger generation and most of the "old-farts" reject it - try to explain it to your parents or grandparents. So in the next few decades, will the younger crowd accept Slashdot ... or will the average age of /. readers just continue to increase?

Disclaimer: I'm an "old-fart" - had my 40th birthday two years ago ... ;-)

Does this mean civilization will ...

[Bryansix]

Does this mean civilization will eventually accept all sorts of things it rejected before? I agree that many critics of Gaming do not have the facts on thier side. However the way the argument goes about history and the youth accepting things makes me wonder. Will society inevitably accept things which are not benificial simply because the youth accept it?

Re:Does this mean civilization will ...

[Prospero's Grue]

Those are two separate questions. Will civilisation accept things it rejected before? Absolutely, it's done all the time. Particularly in terms of culture; rock music, divorce, racial integration, etc. These are all things that were going to trigger society's collapse - and they didn't.

Prior to that, it was jazz music, extra-marital sex, alcohol, and so on.

Now it's rap, games, and homosexuality. It's the same story over and over and over again. Trust me, your kids and grandkids aren't likely to see what the big deal is.

That's not to say there's a unidirectional element here. Things can happen to turn a society more conservative (usually some calamity). The depression, Second World War, and Cold Wor accomplished an interesting trifecta of pushing back on the more liberal attitudes that had started to emerge about sex, women, alcohol/drugs, and culture in the 20s in North America. 9/11 effectively brought religion back into the field, reversing a rather secular trend.

In the early 70s you had women wearing jeans studying engineering in Afghanistan. The country became ravaged by war and poverty, and...well...you know how that turned out.

I'm using very recent examples here, you can study this stuff WAY back.

I think the overal direction is that when society feels threatened, less will be tolerated, and there will be more conservative pressures. When the society thrives and is prosperous, though, it becomes more liberal.

Your second question; will society accept things that are not beneficial because youth do? Part of that depends on what you consider "not beneficial" (ie. harmful). If you still hold that rock is harmful, then the answer is yes.

If you have (sorry to say it) less of an agenda to push, then the answer is no, not really. Drugs never became culturally acceptable just because the youth accepted them. Drugs can be harmful, and so were rejected. Some drugs that were not so obviously detrimental (ie. marijuana) are still the subject of debate.

You'd never know it to look at them, but people can be remarkably sane, given enough opportunity.

I finally have an identity!

[plover]

Heh! The media has finally given me a name: "Digital Native". I kind of like it. Lot better than "Baby Boomer" or "Gen X'er", especially since I was kind of between the two.

Youth violence at an all time low

[MacFury]

The funny thing is, youth violence is at record lows with violent video game sales at record highs.

The correlation that the "think of the children" groups talk about is that...it just runs the opposite way.

Re:Youth violence at an all time low

[shawb]

But the author did at least say that it is just a correlation. He said that it is possible that violent crime could have swung farther down if it wasn't for video games. What it does show is that video games have not caused the massive epidemic of violence that the media is crowing about. Although, school shootings are indeed up. But that's probably related more to monkey-see monkey-do crimes with the sensationalism of the columbine shootings than anything else, although I am not a sociologist and this is just my relatively uninformed opinion.

Re:Youth violence at an all time low

[Anonymous Coward]

I would argue that the statistics used in the articles were quite appropriate for what the author was atttempting to point out.

Of course, it's possible that crime would have fallen by even more over the period had America not taken up video games; still, video gaming has clearly not turned America into a more violent place than it was.

If the casual reader had drawn a distinction between games with explicitly violent content and other games (such as sport games, puzzle games etc... ) and even violent games that offer the player a chance to investigate the moral implications of their actions (such as Black & White), the author was using the table to segue into that discussion and define distinction. Central to making that point is that there is no credible connection between playing video games and societal violence.

I do agree that there is only a correlative relationship between game sales and violent crime. However, the point of using the statistics was not to support the arguement that playing video games has reduced crime. I am fairly certain that was never the author's argument either. Instead it is used to undermine and show the absurdity of the assertion that playing video games is a Bad Thing (TM).

but...

[TrippTDF]

...games don't have that same rebelious feeling about them that rock music has. You can devote your life to rock and roll and there is a glamour to it. The same cannot be said for video games.

John Carmack will never, ever be regaurded the same way that John Lennon is.

Games, while becoming more acceptable socially, are never going to be regaurded as "cool" like rock.

But...

[pickyouupatnine]

You don't have to dislike games in order to be a critic of their impact on society :P. .. Kids to tend to stay in a lot more than they used to, and I blame it on TV and Games ... on visual media that requires their complete attention - unlike music, which you can listen to and do something else at the same time (though some may disagree)... :) And I'm quite sure I'll be shouting at my kids with regards to playing too many computer games or the type of games that they pick to play. I personally blame it on the consumer. No one's forcing people to buy such games. What they do hush hush... well we used to watch porn in middle school - all hush hush so our parents wouldn't find out. All the same with mature rated games.

Happens all the time.

[Mr. Underbridge]

Carrying the analogy a bit further, my guess is that (currently) the Slashdot crowd tends to be a younger generation and most of the "old-farts" reject it - try to explain it to your parents or grandparents. So in the next few decades, will the younger crowd accept Slashdot ... or will the average age of /. readers just continue to increase?

As a gross generalization, slashdot has people belonging to two crowds that frequently overlap: 1) technically proficient (relatively), and 2) young, very "liberal", and occasionally anarchist.

I predict that a lot of the slashdot crowd is against things like corporations, money, etc because they're still in college and don't have money or employment. I predict that, like the 60's flower children who turned into the 80's "Me generation," as soon as the money's there, their tune will change. They will become more conservative, it happens with every batch of college kids. Remember, the "old people" we're talking about being conservative used to march in peace rallys, throw rocks at cops, burn bras, etc. Now they fight the first amendment. It's almost ironic if it weren't sad.

As far as technology, some will keep up with the "new thing," some won't.

Regardless, the next gen of young people won't espouse slashdot, because they'll make/find their own thing. I predict that slashdot's membership will grow older, and much of it will move on.

Social Evolution

[ZeroExistenZ]

Isn't this like how our generation was labelled X, yet we got some leftover values of the more conservative (not in a political sense) previous generation by reflection, parenting, education and what a certain society considers acceptable. (peer influence; you always adjust to your environment or get in an isolated position. Not all are as determined to remain the isolated position or just don't realize they're flocking as it's a normal process)

Yet, limits are constantly pushed. Remember the 'Rock and Roll' in the 50s,'60s,... It has affected how our society looks, as that yought has grown to be now the 'controlers of this society' (being parents, politicians, artists, idols, lawyers, directors, writers, as anyone else who is part of a society)

It seems that each generations' concept of which is considered normal, acceptable its limits are being pushed and people get numbed down for what previously was.

Now I do wonder wherever this is a good thing, as I see the kids these day walking around and idealizing the whole ghetto culture, reflecting of f the media which tries to profit and does so with drawing people to them with "shock value" and probes how far it can go. (turns out.. each time you can go a bit further once people are used to it)

Yet, each generations' conceptions of what is acceptable will be challenged when they grow older and look behind who's going to follow them up.

40 or under? Of course!

[rworne]

In America, for example, half of the population plays computer or video games. However most players are under 40--according to Nielsen, a market-research firm, 76% of them--while most critics of gaming are over 40. An entire generation that began gaming as children has kept playing.

This rings true for me. I'll be 39 this year, and what makes that significant dates all the way back to high school. During my last year or so in HS in 1983/1984, computers were finally introduced to the students (Radio Shack Model III's, Atari 800's and a couple of Apple II's).

If I were a year older and went to school a year earlier I never would have been exposed to computers. The school at that time had them readily available to play with and my folks would never buy such an expensive "toy". I would have went on through life doing something else.

So I can easily see why the "over 40" crowd would not understand. That group would have had to wait until college for an opportunity to see a computer and probably only would if they were in the appropriate majors.

Those couple years were also the years that brought out the home computer revolution. The people who used them extensively were the kids at the time and they used them for games. Those kids would be 40 or under now.

Re:An observation

[symbolic]

I'd be more worried about what kinds of people a kid might come into contact with while playing the game. I joined a clan while playing Lineage 2- one of the members was 12 or 13- seemed like a nice kid. Several others (much older) acted like complete dipshits most of the time, setting an oh-so-wonderful example for any younger members. Over time, I began to notice this kid picking up the same kinds of behavior. It was unfortunate, to say the least, and is a strong indication that parents need to keep a close eye not only on what kinds of games their kids are playing, but who they're playing them with. The internet and Teamspeak make it possible for all kinds of nasty combinations- and oddly, I've never heard this mentioned in the news.

Re:Latest in the series of manufactured menaces

[Anonymous Coward]

I started playing the NES when I was maybe 7 or 8 years old, and I can't recall ever thinking that eating mushrooms will make me grow bigger.

I don't know where this "kids can't tell between reality and fantasy" thing has come from, but I'm not seeing any evidence to support it.

Re:time out

[Milican]

Nobody buys a game and plays it for 2 hours. Buying a game is a big time commitment. I watch maybe one movie every other week. So I spend 12 * 4 = 48-hours a year watching movies. When I buy a new game I play it way more than 48-hours total. In fact, I would guess that I use up 48-hours worth of entertainment time in the first 3-months. I even played Battlefield 2 for 7 - 8 hours last Saturday. (DOH!)

That leads to a big productivity time drain. Now, the argument could be said that that time substitutes other equally unproductive time, but for me thats not the case.

JOhn

Re:Active v Passive

[utuk99]

I can't play an instrument worth a damn, but I can create a good Neverwinter Nights campaign. I have tried, so saying anyone can learn to play music and even create original music is just wrong. It devalues the musicians in a way piracy never could.

I guess programming takes the ability to think logically though, and that seems to be in really short supply these days. Gaming probably helps though.