Slashdot Mirror
Gamers Are Fitter (and Sadder) Than You Think
missb writes "According to NewScientist.com, online gamers are no 'couch potatoes'. US researchers quizzed players of the role-playing game EverQuest II, and found adult gamers to be in better physical condition than the average American. The downside, however, was the gamers reported more cases of depression and substance abuse than their compatriots."
And we know the results are accurate, because they're working with a demographic famous for honest and forthright self-disclosure.
IOW: DUH!
Caveat Utilitor
I'd be depressed too if my level 9 elf lost the holy mantle of protection in a battle against a level 15 ranger. I mean come on now....In real life I'd destroy him with my +20 sword.
MMORPG is a substance.
Not that I do either, but the fact of illegal substance use is not evidence of a problem itself, more an indicator that the person has little regard for this area of law, and may be disconnected from society/not buy into its values. This links up with depression and dissatisfaction.
i'm so high right now i can't even play WoW..
They could have at least picked a game that didn't suck.
In other news, the Panic Office reports that section 917 may have been hit. Activate the following procedure:
Sam! If you will let me be,
I will try them.
You will see.
The average gamer also engages in vigorous exercise once or twice a week, which the researchers say is more than most Americans.
This just in! Both chair throwing and jumping around like a monkey count as vigorous exercise.
In Soviet Russia meme tires of you!
Alegory:
/. post
- Faster than your average snail
- Larger than your average sand grain
- Truthier than your average Scientology book
- Funnier than your average
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
I need to get more diazepam for my next clan battle in counterstrike.
since when has an evercrack player ever gotten away long enough to score some drugs? Or have a way to pay for them? Most of the ones I know of can't stop long enough to make the walk out of the basement to go raid the medicine cabinet in the bathroom.
I am about to prove that the average Slashdotter is more healthy, and gets more sex than the general public.
Please reserve this thread for discussions of your physical fitness level and love life. I will start.
First, before work every morning, I run a marathon. On the weekends, I do triathlons(one each day). Ofcourse, I do this while carrying 12kg dumbbells in each hand (I drop to 8kg when swimming).
Each evening I pleasure three supermodels except during lent when I drop to one due to my highly religious beliefs.
Anyone else have any data to add to this research?
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Substances like soda and frosting.
When you pull the spin and silly connotations out of these terms, you realise that over-eating is a closer fit for "substance abuse" than, say, smoking a spliff once in a while. The logic people use when thinking about this stuff doesn't really do it for me.
They never WIN...
YAAAYYY!!! I'm level 8...
ooh... but I'm not level 9...
Games like that are a sharp contrast of what you have/haven't achieved until you top out the game... and then it's on to the next game.
A steady diet of WoW and Crystal Meth will trim the body good.
"I guess I'm gonna fade into Bolivian."
In related news, a Norwegian study shows that World of WarCraft players at level 60 are only half as depressed as those with level 30 characters.
Full Tilt
I think they're looking at this from the wrong perspective. You'd have to BE on drugs to play everquest 2. Its not that gaming is causing drug use.
...to play EverQuest for 50 hours straight. It's called EverCrack for a reason.
are they comfortable? do they not drink too much? have regular exercise at the gym?
so people suffer from depression and substance abuse when they spend most of their time indoors by themselves and most of their friends are virtual?
in what fashion is this news?
any doctor from the 50s could of predicted this given the symptoms/way of life of a hard core gamer. they'd of been horrified to learn that most of us sit in a chair for hours at a time hammering like poor possessed souls on little rows of buttons. as for junk food and long range commutes - who knows what they would of thought?
Their tendency to fitness caused them to abuse substances, and that caused them to attempt online games, and the subsequent grind cause them to become depressed. Ummm. The crowds they met online pressured them to start drug use, and they had to start running from the law. Ummm. Their drug abuse caused them to meet people who were into online games, and that caused... Darn. This correlation / causality stuff is hard.
-Loyal
I aim to misbehave.
... is a question people should ask themselves. Which is more worth: be fitter and an addict, or be slightly obese and not an addict with no depression problems.
I know what I would choose!
Study finds that Video game Addicts are prone to being addicted to other things, like drugs. News at eleven.
.. the results would be similar to that of a couch potato.
I record my sleeptalking
I don't doubt this for one second, from all the coughing and bong water bubbling I've heard over xbox live while playing GTA4.
- Aetheral Research -
The study also found a surprisingly large proportion of gamers to be female, who overall had much larger breasts and smaller waists than the average American female. Males in the study had penises ranging from 2 inches longer than average to "epic" sized. 90% of males in the scientific study had six pack abs.
Put all your money into video games, drugs and therapy and give our economy a boost!
--- What?
addictive personality -> substance abuse
(yes, i said abuse, not use, as no one NEEDS to use mind-altering drugs substances on a regular basis unless they are mentally unfit)
addictive personality -> online gaming
online gaming is nothing more than digital crack
now mod me into oblivion
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I bet if you performed a self-selected survey on any group you'd get slightly better than average results.
depression and substance abuse = better physical condition
I'd agree with this. I just cancelled all of my accounts.
I started mmo gaming to hide from a failing marriage, after marriage counseling failed. My wife started getting meaner and meaner, so I started gaming to bury myself in my office and hide from it.
We recently decided to get a divorce. I dropped all of my accounts, started working out again and I've never been more happy in my life. "Hardcore" gamers are usually either escaping from something, or addicted to gaming. Neither situation is conducive to happiness. I'd guess that the ones who are escaping from something are more often also abusing(caffiene, pot, beer, whatever).
I don't think gaming directly causes the unhappiness, it's caused by the circumstances surrounding the gaming. I started gaming *because* I was unhappy. Obsessive compulsive gamers tend to lose their jobs and families because of the gaming. My marriage was already on life support so it was sort of reversed.
Casual gaming is also pretty prevalent and that's perfectly healthy. I'd bet that they'd get much different results interviewing casual gamers.
I quit because now I have better stuff to do and the source of my pain is gone. I'm also looking better because I cook my own food out of fresh ingredients ;). I feel really bad for addicted people. They have to hit rock bottom to quit. I never had to do that. Well actually, it's probably more accurate to say I hit rock bottom before I started gaming.
-Viz
Don't kid yourself. It's the size of the regexp AND how you use it that counts.
because we all know how well players of MMORPG games, especially eq2, represent themselves as truthfully as possible.
they're all lying about their fitness. They're playing these sort of games because they're unhappy about their body image. So they create a new one in-game.
The study is bullshit, it is completely worthless. The researchers might have thought about that before investing the time and money.
This is like studying how many monkeys would fling poo if given the chance.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I attend a Uechi-ryu Karate club twice a week at my college. It keeps me in shape, and gets me pumped to blast a few baddies in Team Fortress 2.
I resent the implication that we gamers suffer from problems with depression. I mean, with the amount of Ecstasy I've downed over the past 24 hours I should be well past carefree until Sunday, at least!
Ninjas use italics.
The body mass index (BMI), or Quetelet index, is a statistical measurement which compares a person's weight and height. (Wiki - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Body_Mass_Index)
It is not a measurement of physical health, just a ratio which may or may not be indicative. Watch Pen and Tellers Bullshit for more on this.
But this is not news to me.
Most gamers I've met online are either hulking musclemen capable of deftly engaging multiple attackers with heavy broadswords, or extremely sexy, scantily clad women with ample busts and magical prowess.
Or dwarves.
The downside, however, was the gamers reported more cases of depression and substance abuse than their compatriots."
Quite true, I imagine the gamers have easier access to Workman's Elixir of Transcendence and Noxious Remedy.
http://xkcd.com/189/
"US researchers quizzed players of the role-playing game EverQuest II"
Of course they're sad, they're playing Everquest II!
Because if not, every male you speak to in an MMO is either 6'2", well muscled, former special forces soldier who is proficient in at least two forms of martial arts.
Unless they're pretending to be a girl for all the attention and free loot.
Coding with assembly is like playing with Legos. Coding an application in assembly is like building a car with Legos.
Many gamers are socially inept...
Gamers want GF/BF so they keep themselves trim...
Gamers dont get GF/BF so they get depressed/abuse substances.
QED
James (A Single Gamer)
http://www.reeb.freeserve.co.uk
Fitter, happier, more productive
Video games, particularly the role playing ones, are escapist. Who the hell wants to deal with their boring-ass and mediocre life. Perhaps to deal with their depression and dissatisfaction with life they are medicating themselves with fantasy and role based games.
Because I think they're pretty sad, alright!
The median age for EverQuest II is actually quite high, around 35 on the last public survey. So the body indexes posted are actually quite nice for that age range, compared to the 13 year old World of Warcraft gamers...
I'd be depressed if all I played was Everquest too.
... at least to the emotional part of it. Games tend to be an escape from the cruel real world. Sooner or later, as you get old enough, you find yourself not having as much free time to devote to your game of expertise. This happens especially once you're trying to get a career going. The passion to play is still there, but the motivation to continue to set World Records becomes increasingly unrealistic. You no longer feel that you can compete with today's younger gamers because they have more time to devote and you don't.
So yes, the "sadder" part applies even to those who are (or were) the best at a particular aspect of particular games.
---
Ha, my confirm-you're-not-a-script image is so relevant: "esteems"
It's only abuse if the drugs don't consent!
The enemies of Democracy are
Everquest 2 players have an average penis size over 24 inches long. More at 11.
US researchers quizzed players of the role-playing game EverQuest II, and found adult gamers to be in better physical condition than the average American
Isn't that kind of like saying "the average airplane is smaller than a Boeing 747"?
If you quote this signature there'll be 72 copies of Windows ME waiting for you in Heaven.
we play games whose goal is to not make you feel satisified when you occomplish a large goal. There is no end.
I would love to see an MMORPG that has an end.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is meaningless. However if they'd differentiated between substance use and substance abuse it would have been quite an interesting comparison.
I am fitter than most of my co workers and I game quite a bit, FPS only these days as RPG's are to addictive.
I can see why there would be more depression and substance abuse, after all they don't call it "Evercrack" for nothing, and video games are just another escape like drugs or alcohol for some people.
I think it stems from lack of control / feelings of powerlessness in real life and when they game (especially RPG'S) there is a feeling of control and power, escapism at its finest.
In either case I chose to only play quake style FPS (TF2, Quakewars, ETC) instead of RPG's, because in an RPG I wind up putting more effort into the game than I do my own "real life".
FPS I just shoot characters for a few hours and I am done no character to worry about.
"If any question why we died, Tell them because our fathers lied."
South Park has shown irrefutable evidence that long exposure to WoW causes obesity, acne, and the use of internet slang in real life. And we all know that South Park never lies.
responding to my posts has become an addictive personality disorder marker for him
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
has become a self-reflexive meme, especially on slashdot, used without thought
well guess what: finding a correlation is the first step in establishing causation, and it is entirely logical to conjecture a causative arrangement once a correlative conneciton has been established
so in the future, i would suggest that you, and anyone else reading this comment who loves vomiting "correlation is not causation" as a substitute for actual thought, to spell out exactly why you think there is no causative arrangement here, or in any other discussion
because i, and many others i think here on slashdot and elsewhere are pretty sick of the smarmy "correlation is not causation" kneejerk response
its nothing more than intellectual laziness at best, but most usually intellectual dishonesty
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
where all drugs were 100% legal, including meth, heroin, cocaine, etc., the use of these substances would still be seen as a mental health issue
because it is not mentally normal to need a foreign substance to support your brain chemistry
it may be harmless, yes, but look at any cigarette smoker and you pretty much have a compelling picture of the parasitism that is substance addiction
anyone who doesn't NEED drugs understands what i am talking about
and if you say you don't NEED a certain drug, and are right now formulating a rationalization against these words of mine, then congratulations: you are probably an addict. an addict needs a hard, reactive wall of rationalization to convince themselves to constantly need a foregin substance for their brain chemistry
in fact your words above "an indicator that the person has little regard for this area of law, and may be disconnected from society/not buy into its values" screams rationalization
using drugs has absolutely nothing to do with being countercultural. there are many people who buy all of a society's questionable values who become addicts (rush limbaugh) and there are plenty of counterculture icons who don't use drugs at all
or, put another way, when it comes to being counterculture and using drugs, correlation is not causation ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
"US researchers quizzed players of the role-playing game EverQuest II"
To conclude from a random quiz of a single game anything about a much broader community "gamers" is a far stretch.
Busy helping non technical users of OpenOffice.org - http://plan-b-for-openoffice.org/
for actually spelling out why you think correlation is not causation, rather than simply smugly and smarmily vomiting "correlation is not causation" without any thought and thinking that is sufficient
you are an intellectually honest person
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
what sport were you a div1 athlete in? ping pong?
You can't eat your chips AND cast all those spells. Also turning BMI into "fitness" is stupid!
...we suffer from depression more. Wouldn't you if you had to deal with the constant delays, vaporware, console wars, exclusives, etc???
Gaming is serious business and takes a toll on the senses. I routinely play with a box of Kleenex nearby.
Besides play games, pretty much all I do is work out, drink and smoke weed.
While everyone else is lying about their health, I'm going to be brutally honest:
1. I'm 300lbs
2. I imbibe a gallon or two of beer/liquor each week
3. Cocaine's a hell of a drug
4. Nethack, baby!
All that to say: there is absolutely no unique correlation between gaming habits and fitness. You could have any hobby/pastime in the world, if you overdo it, it can be bad for your health. If you knit 23 hours a day, you're (hopefully) gonne die. If you run marathons 23 hours a day, you're definitely gonna die.
Hell, if you jerk off 23 hours a day, you're gonna die (and be featured on CSI:Miami).
Someone needs to lay the fuck off of gamers. Just because a bunch of nutso kids in Columbine liked to play Doom, doesn't mean gamers should be treated as odd little lab rats.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
society takes a firm stance against child abuse
therefore, according to your logic on drugs, this makes people abuse children
uh... dude, you fail at logic here, hard
"I'm not trying to paint some sort of counterculture mystique here, just say it is possible to use some of these things without being or becoming an addict or an "abuser", and that if you do you probably don't fully buy into the values of the society you find yourself in as you are going directly against them."
this is two competely UNRELATED issues
1. addiction: marijuana should be legal. it isn't addictive, biochemically. end of story. but the legality of every drug should be considered on a case-by-case basis. something like heroin or methamphetamine: taking these drugs and not becoming an addict is like speeding 100 mph on the highway and not getting in an accident. theoretically possible, but just a matter of time until you are an addict. its biochemistry at work here, nothing about counterculture at all. the legal status of every drug must be considered separately, according to pharamacological fact. marijuana, according to pharmacological fact, clearly needs to be legalized. something like methamphetamine, meanwhile, examining nothing but pharmacological fact, should be completely illegal
2. countercultural values: HAVE NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE BIOCHEMISTRY OF ADDICTION. completely unrelated issue. stop trying to mix these issues together, you are simply failing hard
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's long, and it's lonely, but we can make this tail home. Don't mind those two squiggly deltas off to the side. They're not of our concern.
You like splinters in your crotch? -Jon Caldara
playing videogames, cracking your knuckles, smoking marijuana, hiring prostitutes to defecate on your feet: all harmless
occasionally, it is harmful. with something like heroin, or methamphetamine, or cocaine, it is clearly harmful, for strictly medical reasons, not because of retarded social conservative values
furthermore, you are flat out wrong above: no one smokes nicotine once a day because they clearly enjoy it. they do it because they are biochemically addicted
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just because *you* turned to gaming as a way to avoid real life issues, that doesn't mean its true for everyone else.
There are lots of people who spend a lot of time playing games and are not adversely affected by it I suspect. Some people play games because they like the intellectual challenge of an interactive experience and not just because they want to avoid real life.
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
"that's a strawman argument"
(smack's forehead)
people hurl "strawman" all the time when you are trying to establish an analogy or broaden the discussion. as if it is actually supposed to mean anything, as if it is a valid retort. saying "i don't wish to broaden the subject matter, i wish to focus on this narrow topic" or "i think your analogy is flawed and here's why..." are, meanwhile, valid and useful replies. parroting "strawman!" meanwhile means absolutely nothing
dear logic 101 flunkies:
we, here at slashdot and elsewhere on the wider web, are not very impressed when you puff out your chest and say:
1. "correlation is not causation"
2. "you can't prove a negative"
3. "that's a strawman argument"
we understand what these concepts mean. we understood those concepts long before we formulated the words you are responding to. the 3 statements above in no way dispel the points we made. you haven't in any way formulated a valid reply when you say one of these 3 things. at the very best, you've made a smarmy, thoughtless, smug, self-satisfied kneejerk effort that does not, in fact, say anything valuable whatsoever
please next, time, try to put a little intellectual effort in your reply, or don't bother replying at all. uttering one of the 3 phrases above simply prove you are intellectually lazy or intellectually dishonest
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I've end game raided EQ2 on shrooms. All i can say is that the colors are vibrant and i purposely sacrificed FPS for quality haha. I was a Fury (Healer/dps hybrid) and in the endgame you basically just heal so clicking ctrl+1 , ctrl+2, ctrl+3, run forward, take a left, rinse, repeat was quite simple.
These results can be explained away just by the fact that gamers are, on average, younger than the average American, and therefore, less obese, etc
Put another way, players of EQ2 are more likely to be on drugs. It all makes sense now.
Fred observes some kids playing with fireworks. The fireworks set fire to some dry grass, and the fire begins to grow towards some parkland. Fred goes over to the kids and admonishes them, telling them they are wrong for playing with fireworks when it is not New Years or the Fourth of July, then Fred storms off.
What is the point of this analogy?
The children violated social norms, BUT ITS NOT THE POINT, NOR AN EVEN VAGUELY IMPORTANT ISSUE
and yet you continue to conflate counterculture and drug use in your thinking
why?
my advice to you is to stop, think, and understand that one is an entirely different subject matter than the other
because comments of yours like "I'm saying that by taking illegal drugs a person does not fall in line with the particular subset of prevalent societal rules values concerned with use of illegal substances" is 100% accurate
but COMPLETELY POINTLESS
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
EQ2 is probably played by a good about of global gamers. Maybe it just means their couch potatoes are fitter than the average Americans.
its like you are highjacking the subject matter
so: absolute, 100% agreement with everything you said above
with the caveat that your observations about social values and drug use/ videogame playing are completely trivial and pointless!
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
But substance abuse does improve fitness. Perhaps it's hard to be overweight when you're a hardcore junkie
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
all i am saying is that you overly focus on societal values, when their influence is at best esoteric and minimal
societal values exert a force in this world, absolutely
but habituation and addiction are unrelated phenomena
so, when you want to get to the bottom of the motivations behind excessive drug use/ video game playing, you examine the phenomena of habituation and addiction
focusing on societal values in this context, meanwhile, is like a random tangential obscure footnote
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The most amazing finding from the study: There are actually still 7000 active EQ2 players.
If all I played was Everquest II then I'd be depressed, too.
I like basketball!!1!
the issue is scope of argument. an illustration:
person A assumes the scope of the issue at hand is narrow
person B assumes the scope is broad
person A makes a conjecture
person B refutes that conjecture, alluding to other concepts in play
person A yells "strawman" because he sees concepts being discussed outside of the assumed scope his comments were made in
plenty of times, both person A and person B have failed, because they didn't agree on the scope of the discussion at hand beforehand
however, plenty of subject matter are irreducibly complex. such that it is natural and superior to assume a broader scope. it is also more intellectually cautious and prudent to consider a broader scope, to look for more potential pitfalls in your thinking
such that the person assuming a tiny narrow scope is in fact committing a logical failure by not properly recognizing that complexity. and then they shout "strawman" because the scope is broader than they assume
no, wrong
someone who limits their scope of argument severely, in a subject matter that can be nothing but broad and complex, is demonstrating a fragility and dimness of mind, by not recognizing that the scope is wider than they see it to be. so in the illustration above, person A is especially heinous in topics that are incredibly broad and complex, where you HAVE to comment broadly to say anything of value
we both agree that one commits the strawman fallacy by going above and beyond the scope of someone's initial comments. but sometimes you HAVE to go into a wide scope of commentary to say anything of any interest or value, depending on the complexity of the subject matter
and then when you are faced with someone who shouts "strawman!" in return, you can do nothing but let your jaw fly open in dismay at the simpleton dancing before you, smugly convinced they have captured you in a logical error, when it is they who don't even properly understand the broadness and complexity of the issue they are involving themselves in
people who shout "strawman" a lot are, in short, nothing but dolts and cretins, because they assert painfully limited and simplistic limitations on their thoughts, and protest at any attempt at broadening the issue, as it most often needs to be broadened, to say anything valid
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
you just made my mind asplode
"We're discussing the article at hand which simply throws out the "abuse" line when in all likelihood they mean that more of them smoke a bit of pot."
okaaaaaaaaaay
so using the concept of video game "abuse" is just shorthand for accusing someone of being a pothead
**boom**
dude, can i have some of what you are smoking? ...and, yes right now i am accusing you of smoking pot!
because i can't imagine anything other than inebriation which would so firmly establish in your mind the connection beween the supposed issue of videogame "abuse" and "reefer madness"
actually, if you had said the crusade against supposed video game "abuse" is something like the hysteria on display in "reefer madness", i would agree with you
but no. you want to say that someone who is worried about supposed video game "abuse" is also implicitly accusing supposed videogame "abusers" of also being potheads
huh?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
You might come to the conclusion that the subject changes state when you test it, but is not the case.
I assume they also claim to have more than 0 girlfriends, which would be clear indication that the test is flawed since EQ2 and love life cannot both be true at the same time.
I think you underestimate just how much I just dont care.
and in return i will concede that there are plenty of propagandizers and propaganda victims who do in fact commit straw man fallacies heinously and maliciously or out of mind-washed blindness
but if they are mind-washed, your efforts are fruitless and you are wasting your time. better to say nothing and leave than say "strawman"
and if they are mind-washers, it is more useful to respond with something more than "strawman": actually illustrate the strawman misrepresentation they are making, and turn the propagandizer's mistruths against them
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
This is curious..
Let us not forget that Everquest II was the only MMORPG to offer a slash pizza command a few years ago that opened up a browser window for you to place an online Pizza Hut order.
Research (at the time) must have indicated that there was a market for such a command.
Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A, START
correlation is not causation
(sorry, i'm aiming for humor now ;-)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'm the AC who replied to you earlier in this thread, the one with years of experience as a substance abuse treament professional.
As someone who spent a great deal of time and energy learning about the ins and outs of substance use/abuse, I can say, unequivocally
YOU HAVE NO IDEA WHAT YOU'RE TALKING ABOUT.
To quote LongNoi "QZTR was right and won't leave me alone because I called him a moron when I was wrong" FYS
imagine a continuum running from water to sugar to caffeine to methamphetamine
sonmewhere within that continuum you begin to develop legal restrictions on what is ok to use and what is not
i mean we can argue about gun control law too. but if i say i am for gun control laws, that doesn't mean i want to control your thoughts as well. likewise, if i am against gun control laws, that also doesn't mean i want everyone to have free access to plutonium
see how complicated that is cretin? arguing about moderate limits has nothing to do with extreme examples of harmlessness or harmfulness
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I feel really low sometimes
I play games sometimes
I use illegal drugs sometimes
For me, the three usually occur at the same time - the primary is depression, the other two are an escape from that depression.
When I'm not feeling low I'm clever enough to look after my body.
It must be my problem that the latest TV phone-to-vote-for-something doesn't help me ignore how I feel - sorry for using my brain to decide I'm not going to be all I can be, I'm going to self-medicate until I forget about this bullshit that made me miserable in the first place.
Maybe I'm not so unusual ...
I would point out that people attracted to games will be more mentally active and less of a cognitive couch-potato that the average person. Mentally active people are more likely to have will power to get off the couch. Active mind leads to an active body, and vice versa.
Personally, between my mentally challenging job, rss feed overload and too much gaming, I find TV not only to be boring but I can't bloody sit still long enough to watch lowest common-denominator anyway. I could imagine if I was a fat sloth I would have a corresponding pattern in what mental activities I do.
A good session of hard core online gaming must spike your adrenaline, as well as dopamine and other enjoyable neurotransmitters. And judging by the way people behave the competition must get some testosterone going too.
People also don't tend to eat while playing games, it's kinda hard... er... although caffeine and sugar consumption must be a confounding factor here.
Eating [|mindless face stuffing] in front of TV is of a common filthy habit. (Is that a result of being exposed to junk food advertising - I often wonder if there is a direct psychological link between seeing food on TV and a corresponding increase in likelyhood of desiring a snack. Then I think, well duh of course, that's the idea)
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
methamphetamine is a drug
well, water is a drug too
therefore, methamphetamine should be thought of the same way as water!
zzz
pure stupidity
"Stop bandying about the alteration of brain chemistry like you're afraid of somebody contaminating or stealing your precious bodily fluids. LIFE alters brain chemistry.
And I note in your sig something about a horror movie? Guess what. Horror movies are a drug -- they alter brain chemistry! That's why people like them! YOU FUCKING DIRTY ADDICT YOU!"
this is like considering a rocket launcher the same as a slingshot, because they both shoot things
my god are you dense
imagine a continuum, from water, to sugar, to caffeine, to methamphetamine
you can't imagine any difference within that continuum, or perhaps a cut off point in what should be allowed/ not allowed?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
and each must be considered separately
to consider meth the same as coffee is just as stupid as considering alcohol magically good and pot magically bad
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
gamers reported more cases of depression and substance abuse than their compatriots
This is flawed, gamers just misunderstood the question about coke...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Damn, that study that interviewed 7k Everquest II players really says a lot about gamers, after all, every gamer plays PC, and all of them play Everquest.
The results suggest that adult gamers have an average body mass index of 25.2, compared to the overall American average of 28.
1/2 of gamers are skinny, and 1/2 are fat, but on average, they're just right!
Obviously the conclusion that must be reached is:
Substance abuse and depression leads to better physical condition! (than the average American).
Side effects may include gaming addiction...
Hey I'm in shape! (round is a shape)
I'm happy too! (although that might just be the anti-depressants kicking in)
Homonyms are fun!
You're driving your car, but they're riding their bikes there.
Drinking can make things interesting but if life's boring because you don't drink, I think it says quite a bit about your life.
but as long as you respect free will, you are going to have to make peace with the fact that someone somewhere will be victimized by their own ignorance
There's two definitions to "abuse":
1) Actually abusing substances -- ie, get carried away and do actual harm to your body, become addicted, etc.
2) Use them responsibly -- ie, merely THAT irks big-government politicans and religious types that they use "abuse" as a loaded, prejudicial hyperbole for anything that they disagree with for no rational reason.
I'll feel much better than you ever will, every day after I hit the bong, bitch.
i am not denying that there are assholes out there making strawman arguments
i am saying that there intellectually dishonest and intellectually lazy assholes out there who bark "strawman!" like pavlov's dogs everytime they hear an analogy or a broadening of the conversation... which are NOT strawman arguments
in fact, much as the boy who cried wolf, all those fools barking "strawman!" water down the identification of genuine strawman arguments that deserve to be pilloried
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
.... I can kill you with just my thumb....
Joe Investor
Before, you were an expert in constitutional law. Make up your fucking mind, Mr. Retardo.