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UK Government Ads Link Games With "Early Death"
An anonymous reader writes "The UK government, backed by a bunch of charities that raise funds for research into cancer, heart disease and diabetes, has launched an advertising campaign that links the 'inactive' or passive gaming lifestyle with death and illness. It's part of a bigger 'Change4Life' campaign that has also linked playing games with making children obese. The new ads show a young child playing a PlayStation game, with the caption 'Risk an early DEATH, just do nothing.' To say this has annoyed the UK games industry would be a grave understatement. Trade association ELSPA has already called an urgent meeting with authorities to have the ads pulled, and trade magazine MCV has complained to the country's Advertising Standards Authority as well. As MCV Associate Editor Tim Ingham says in an impassioned opinion piece, 'Change4Life's advertising campaign makes a mockery of everything the industry has achieved in the last decade.'"
A sedentary lifestyle can be linked to obesity, which in turn *can* be linked to death and illness. The summary is a little too... angry....
Still, it's partially correct. Instead of arguing that "GAMES ARE BAD AAAWR", the advert could have simply advocated a balanced lifestyle. There's nothing inherently bad about gaming, so long as you remember to exercise. Indeed, some games and game systems (Wii?) can even *encourage* exercise.
Nowadays kids have fun playing games like Wii-Sports. With the new generation of controllers, games that require physical activity to be controlled will start to appear.
Get them some of those games and let them invite their friends to play. They will sweat their asses trying to beat each other. Also never forget to promote real sports too (even if you have to drag them to the playground).
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Your first post may be your last if you play vgs.
Modding me -1 troll doesn't make me wrong.
I woke up this morning and brushed my teeth. Simultaneously, three people were killed in an auto accident five miles from my house.
I'm sure the police will be here any time now...
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
I am sure a large portion of obese people have played video games. I am sure a large portion of people with cancer, heart disease and diabetes have played video games. I am sure a lot of people who have died have played video games. Therefore the reason for obesity, illness and death *must* be video games, right? Or not.
I wonder what kind of world we would live in if people in power didn't tell us how to live our lives. I for one welcome our anti-communist, anti-gay, anti-video games, anti-war, anti-god, pro-god, pro-war, anti-drug, pro-school, pro-prison, pro-nationalism, pro-globalism overlords.
Last I checked, video games weren't exactly a great way to exercise (no, not even Wii Fit... I own it, I know), and inadequate exercise is still considered to be a risk factor for obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions. I love videogames, and I'm not about to cut back my playing in order to exercise more, but I simply can't in good conscience argue that it wouldn't be a good idea (and I'm not even at risk for obesity... my BMI is actually below the average range). I would even say that it is absolutely valid for a public health agency to advocate substituting physical activities for video games, board games, reading, and other non-physical activites for purely health related reasons.
I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.
Try not to take me more seriously than I take myself.
I've been playing video games all my life and I'm as healt
Really? Lazy people that don't go out and play games EXCESSIVELY tend to turn fat or wither. And i'm sure the effects of high BMI or no muscle mass can be proven to decrease life expectancy.
/. probably do. It is over the top and exaggerating but its not complete lies. Sort of like smoking kills. The cigarettes aren't sticks of dynamite, they are deadly and so forth but the ads seem excessive at times. Though I guess cigarettes even in moderation are terrible for you while a weekend of gaming wont have any lasting effects... Anyways...
That said I think the ad campaign is offensive but probably not to the degree many people on
ALL THINGS IN MODERATION.
Ya um I know this guy who ran all the time and died. So, um ya, running shoes causes people to die.
Oh ya, and, I know this b***h that yells all the time and when she yelled once, she died. So being a b***h all the time causes people to die.
An' my bro' -- he's always playin' games all the time and pokin' me and yellin' at his friends and vids all the time, and he aint dead. So, this is sh*t! When's he goin' to die?
I don't know about the UK but in the US studies show the average American spends six hours per day watching television, this is 42 hrs per week. The average amount of time gamers spend gaming (this was a targeted poll of the gaming community, and did not factor in those that do not play games.) said that the average gamer spends 25 hrs per week playing video games, sounds like the real killer is television, not that the media would ever want us to know that.
They're making a bold statement here:
"Playing Videogames produces sedentarism which in turn produces illness"
It's not the videogames that make a people sedentary. It's the other way around: sedentary people like to play videogames.
If videogames didn't exist, those people would just watch tv and still wither and die.
So they're condemning kids sitting around indoors playing video games all the time instead of going outside, running around, and being kids. Fine, I can deal with that. What I can't deal with, is that the UK government has become such a nanny-state that they keep preventing and even outlawing all sorts of activities "because someone might get hurt". So I ask you all: What the fuck are the kids supposed to do??!?
MEMO TO UK GOVERNMENT: Make up your damned minds, do you want kids to go out and play or DON'T YOU??!?
Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
At least they're not blaming cigarettes. Clichés grow old fast. Too bad these anti- organizations don't base their propaganda on honesty, science or logic.
My father is the same, so i figure this is just how it goes and i'll have to watch my weight all my life.
as far as telling kids to get off their ass and doing something, never has a better message been sent. i hope they stick to their guns.
If you mod me down, I will become more powerful than you can imagine....
I've always thought that unless you are a person who always just watches someone else play (hmm, maybe Korea has lots of these with their televised Starcraft tournaments), you are ACTIVELY participating. Broadcast TV = passive couch potato, gaming = Active.
This just came to mind when way back in the early 90's there was big hype about "interactive TV" and how viewers could soon decide what happens on the screen (well, in the end it boiled down to being able to vote people off the island), and us gamer-nerds were like "Bah, we have participated in deciding what happens on the screen for last 10 years...". Especially when you had stuff like Ultima-series to show for it.
As the saying goes "There are Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics."
A long life spent having no fun is no life at all.
PK: 09F911029D74E35BD84156C5635688C0
If computer gaming is dangerous, just imagine how dangerous the life of a politician must be: sitting around all day in meetings, eating bad food, often smoking, etc.
I think we need to outlaw politics and throw into jail anybody who tries to spread it.
These "causationisnotcorrelation" tags are flat-out the dumbest part of Slashdot these days.
Take this particular news story: There are no specific claims of any sort that I can see in any of the article links on either side. There aren't any specific correlations being asserted or presented between anything and anything else that I can tell, just a bunch of bitching on both sides. The "correlationisnotcausation" whine-fest is completely beside the point, like a mass hallucination.
For future reference, first you must have (a) Specific characteristics being discussed. Then (b) Claims of correlations between them. Then (c) Specifically referenced research that backs up those correlation claims. Only then is it any use to start arguing about "correlationisnotcausation" (and usually not even then).
The "correlationisnotcausation" tagging is just plain vandalism. I don't think the taggers involved even read the summaries anymore, they just tag everything in sight "correlationisnotcausation", like they're autistic graffiti artists.
We know where leadership by an anti-intellectual "strongman" who scapegoats minorities and likes boisterous rallies goes
...to avoid passive gaming: "Yes, you can play that game, but you have to sit on this gymnastics ball or in that rocking chair."
Result: I play a lot of games. (~4 hours per day) Also, I'm not fat. I may not be running any marathons, but I doubt I'll be overwhelmed by obesity or heart disease.
Cancer though... I'm sure staring at a CRT for the first ten years of my life messed something up. :P
Indeed, singling out games like the ad does only risks getting the wrong message across ("games are bad" instead of "a sedentary lifestyle is bad"). They should balance it out by making an ad showing a girl reading a book under the same "Risk an early DEATH, just do nothing" caption.
It's easier for the Government to crack down on Games than it is to face up to the Tobacco Lobby: Consider when Tony Blair was UK PM he was caught with a donation from Formula One motor Racing boss Bernie Ecklestone, generously given after Blair changed his mind and decided to allow tobacco sponsorship of the Formula One Grand Prix after all.
Tobacco is the #1 cause of preventable death in Europe. The World Health Organisation said there have been 40 million tobacco-related deaths since 1999. So how does the British Government Respond? ATTACK GAMES! At least they're consistent with that brilliant Iraq/Afganistan Strategy...
http://www.ashaust.org.au/mediareleases/081104.htm
Hey they's funny because I seem to keep losing weight since I started playing FPS games that make me sweat my ass off and my heart pound and also playing DDR. Must be some other explanation cuz everyone knows, gaming is teh evilz!
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
There's a book -- non fiction -- called "Malaria dreams." In one part of the book the author/protagonist is crossing lake Chad, or rather the dried up lake bed of what was formerly lake Chad, in Africa. In this crossing of this flat, unending, barren terrain, he comes across a group of heavy metallers, pushing a roofless Citroen (you can't make this stuff up). They have hacked the roof off the gas-starved Citroen in order to make it lighter, and thus easier to push. They are part of a band, the name of which is "Early Death."
Why don't they say the same things about reading books and sitting in classroom at school? You're still sitting on your ass not moving much.
Diet is a much more reliable indicator of obesity. Yes, going outside and climbing trees or whatever it is that kids do these days will help burn fat, but burning fat away is notoriously slow compared to gaining weight, and unreliable at that because exercise tends to increase the munch instinct. And statistically, according to an employee my insurance agency, the years you'll live longer will be outweighed by the amount of exercise you do. At a factor of three or so. So you'll have to make sure that whatever exercise it is you're doing is a lot of fun. And too much exercise has been linked with neurological and joint issues. So if you don't like exercising, don't do it, íf your diet is varied and healthy you'll burn up any excess energy just running about the house, cycling to school, the supermarket, friends and such. Maybe you won't maximize your lifespan, but I think you will come a lot closer to maximising total happiness which at least to me is a much more pressing concern. And if you're really worried about your kids not getting enough exercise, maybe they'll like DDR or Wii Fit. Or you could, you know, take them to the woods on a Saturday and have some family time together. Just a thought.
It's called conscription. Hooray for government! That'll save lives!
oh, wait...
Task Mangler
hop to it, Nintendo! Clearly the Wii is *not* a target of these ads as the Wii is probably the top-most incentive to get -some- exercise in since.. well I'm not sure -what- in the last 20 years (probably before, but I'm not that old) has inspired people to exercise, despite countless 'government' campaigns to try and achieve exactly that.
Actually, I suppose there was that short-lived Dance Dance Revolution fad...
Assuming you fill your snack stash with healthier food, and get maybe an hour of exercise a week, I don't see how games could be anything but just about the safest possible hobby.
Athletics? All sorts of wear and tear on your body. Many sports carry the risk of head injury. Even golf can destroy your joints and you might get hit by a flying golf ball.
Going to bars and trying to get laid? Don't get me started on all the risks there.
Driving sports cars? Skydiving? Riding motorcycles? Rock climbing? Hiking? Hunting? Fishing in a small boat?
Every single one of those activities is not particularly risky...but they are all significantly more dangerous than sitting on your couch or a chair and playing a video game.
As long as you avoid serious obesity (a small amount of paunch is not correlated with an increased risk of death) and occasionally get a tiny amount of exercise, it's probably about the safest hobby in existence.
The same thing goes for reading.
It's about time.....
It's the same as the government-mandated warning on cigarettes and chewing tobacco.
Sitting in front of the TV or computer than, say, going outside and playing a game of catch, will almost certainly result in a loss of muscle, increase in fat, and increased health problems resulting from increased caloric intake and decreased activity, unless your diet consists of nothing but lettuce and water.
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
http://xkcd.com/552/
Sure if your recreation/hobbies are sedentry (video games, reading slashdot, watching TV etc) AND your job is a sedentry one (sitting at a desk all day, and you drive to work or take the bus, then you are probably not getting enough exercise.
On the other hand if your job involves a lot of moving aroung, lifting, carrying etc, and you walk or cycle to work, then it may not matter that you relax in a couch afterward.
Iá surprised no one has mentioned world of warcraft yet?
Am I the only one to notice that the tag attached to the story right now is actually "Causation Is Not Correlation" - which is complete and utter gibberish (as opposed to "Correlation Is Not Causation" which is at least an actual phrase)?
How is it possible for misspelled or just plain wrong tags like this to get to the front page?
-- Language is a virus from outer space.
I am, and always have been a gamer. As early as 14 my brother and I have been known for pulling 18 hour shifts ( overlap our time at raids and duel box the rest ) on MMO's, well recently we have been raising kids actually, but in the last 12 years we have raided almost every major dungeon in mainstream MMO's, played a hundred MUD's and beaten most every game on any console.
We also both have sate championship wins in TKD, businesses, families, our health and my brother has served in 8 countries (he's still a better gamer then me).
How much did they spend to figure out if you sit in front of a Tv all day you will get fat? No shit really?!?
I think this study is nothing more then what we Americans have seen in the past decade from the anti-smoking campaigns. Its amounts to nothing more then FUD sponsored by big money.
As for those that this study points to, get up, go outside and walk a block...EVERYDAY. Trust me it wont kill you.
Yes, a sedentary lifestyle can damage your health. The government are quick to point this out when you sit down to play a computer game but they don't seem to give a crap that you've got to sit down in front of a PC for 8 or 9 hours a day just to make ends meet.
If we can put a man on the moon, why can't we shoot people for Apollo-related non-sequiturs?
These tags are quite honestly silly and I think I'm going to start tagging articles with these tags as causationisnotcausation from now on, for all the sense it makes.
My heart rate regularly gets up over 120 beats/min after I made it to "medium" level. Thats better than a brisk walk for exercise!
I tried it. I started a game of Killzone 2, I did nothing and I died.
Well, the British fail, once again. For one, a recent study of gamers shows they were actually in better shape, on average, than their peers. This is a trend not limited to gaming in England. From warrant-less searches, to using closed circuit cameras to watch your every move, the government is following the words of Orwell in becoming a true Big Brother. V for Vendetta doesn't seem too far-fetched, does it?
where are these ads. i live in the UK and have never seen any.
In other news the education level in the UK reaches a new low, but I'm sure you could tell by this summary already.
You just got troll'd!
At least this time they have a plausible mechanism to link video games and bad things happening to people. Most are like "gamers do bad things so games are bad" without further thought as to why that correlation exists or if it's even more significant a correlation than non-gamers doing bad things.
Granted, though, this effect really has nothing to do with video games. For video games to be worse than other sedentary activities you'd need to show a great deal more information.
Interestingly, this comes as more and more video games are requiring physical activity beyond agile fingers. So this problem, as it relates to video games, is being mitigated by some of the most popular video games on the market now. I'd be interested to see studies comparing the lifespans of gamers relative to other sedentary activities, though I'm not sure these active games have been out long enough to have a significant effect on the numbers.
Another thing to consider is the mental and social aspects of some games. Sure some games are just silly games you zone out and mash buttons, and those are fine, but many require some real strategy and quick thinking that can't simply be taken from a strategy guide or walkthrough. The rise of cooperative and competetive online play adds additional strategic thought practice and social engagement needed to be succesful. The potential risks of being more sedentary need to be weighed against the potential advantages of the more intelligent and social games before deciding games are overall bad.
Still, I'd call this better than most "video games are bad" articles. Not that improving on those would be all that much of a challenge.
What do you think the arguments of the UK government are based on? What evidence to you think they will present for their claims? They will trot out correlation studies like the dead horse they are, to be beaten in front of the media once again. This is always the case when they need any flimsy excuse to demonise video games.
"Correlationisnotcausation" is the point. These ads would never have been aired without people accepting the validity of dubious and misleading correlation studies. Correlation is not and never will be causation, and in case you have doubts about this, I'll trot this link out again about Saturn's correlation with the S&P 500.
Correlation studies and other misapplications of statistics are behind this claim, and the injustice it represents. It's right to point that out.
May the Maths Be with you!
Drugs actually do lead to death and millions of dollars worth of advertising hasn't stopped kids from doing them. I'm not talking about drug enforcement, just simply kids starting to use. Think D.A.R.E. or a similar, keep-kids-off-drugs type of program. Obviously the youth of the world doesn't heed the lessons the government supplies, yet our methods haven't changed.
Governments, or any large body of people, have no idea what individual's need or want and they never will. People, including children, will keep on doing what they want to do regardless of how unhealthy the government says it is. They should be spending that money on parks, sport complexes, school sport programs, community centers, etc. so that there is an actual reason to get outside and active instead of zealously condemning lifestyle choices. But I guess talking is what politicians do best, and creating change doesn't bode well for reelection. No surprise here.
One final thought: I wish governments would stop trying to save us from ourselves and just do their jobs.
Why worry? Sure, a sedentary lifestyle (games, books, criminal-masterminding, etc) will get you dead, but if you choose your game wisely and play well, you'll have plenty of extra lives.
Actually, I've recently decided to promote responsible and healthy transportation options by pushing the "wouldn't it be wonderful if a third of those other cars weren't [on the road | taking up parking | spewing smog]?" By the same token, I rather like the fact that while there are way too many people in the world, many of them really truly don't contribute much to overcrowding.
"The biggest problem with communication is the illusion that it has taken place."
it has happened before. hardliner, backward mentality groups ran 'campaigns' against stuff they do not agree with. in the end what they had accomplished been to implant totally false misconceptions and prejudices against whatever they disagreed with, and this has caused rifts in society and issues in between many people, families, friends, communities.
EFF or computer game producers' associations need to sue these people to make an example and deter further falsified/smear campaigns.
Read radical news here
I would have loved them to expand their sedentary lifestyle witch hunt to include beer drinking. Not only does it involve little exercise, you actually consume a narcotic while you're at it. Pubs lead to EARLY DEATH!!!!1!!!!
Of games players.
What a surprise ...
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
You can eat too many calories of good things.
If you don't count them at least roughly, you are jut using wishful thinking to deal with your health.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As always, they confuse the cause with the effect.
Other factors are in effect that are more common with people that are heavily into that kind of gaming.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Sorry to shatter your silly stereotypes.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Honestly, where do you come with that bullshit?
Eat little meat, avoiding red meat more often.
You don't need meat three times a day in your meals for ure, but there is absolutely no scientific reason to avoid all meat.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Including pubs, restaurants and clubs.
Credit where it is due.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
One angle that isn't really being discussed here is how a socialized medicine system, as for example the NHS in Britain, provides incentives for the government to spend tax dollars on ad campaigns and other measures against other legitimate businesses in the hopes that it may lower health care costs in the long run. What will be next in Britain? Ads reminding everyone that fast food kills and "don't eat a cheeseburger day"? One of the downsides of government provided or paid for healtchare is increased government involvement in the everyday lifestyle choices of private citizens because the government now has a direct incentive to see that you make the right choices. Better not have that pint in the pub or that cigarrete at the football match, the government is watching you. How about dangerous sports or other "risky" activities, should the government be involved in those too because accidents increase health care costs? Now, in the interest of disclosure I must say that I am an American and don't live in Britain, but are there any Brits out there who are concerned by the increasingly paternalistic nanny surveillance state that Britain is becomming and has become over the past 10 or more years?
I teach at an overpopulated high school and could really use smaller class sizes... Tonight4homework play a lot of video games, kiddies.
I remember reading about a recent study (google it yourself you lazy slob!) which showed that 15mins of exercise per fortnight was enough to make a difference in health. The exercise was done once a week in an intense 7.5 minute burst.
Do games kill people? Of course not - but let's not be silly here, the subject is far too serious to be given the "Smoking can't be that bad for you, 'cause I knew somebody whose uncle lived till he was 90"-treatment.
A sedentary lifestyle does contribute to heart disease and obesity and so does junk food and instant meals. Most games and tv-watching encourage both a sedentary lifestyle and eating junk food. And of course you can play computer games for a hour a day without any harm - IF you get plenty of exercise every day. But a lot of people, especialy teenagers, spend many hours every day watching tv and playing computer games; those are the ones this campaing want to target. And it is unfortunately necessary to point out the dangers of that lifestyle, not just in general terms, but with specific examples. It is useless to say "Don't eat too much junk food" - because what is "too much"? You don't know when you are just 13 years old - and in fact most adults don't either. Instead you have to point out that "If you eat a Bic Mac Mega Meal with extra fries and a milkshake, you have already eaten more kalories than you need for the whole day".
However, the real cause for the obesity crisis is not that people can't control themselves or "can't get their squelchy arse off the sofa" - the real problem is the commercial interests that dictate that people should be enticed to eat and in general consume as much as possible. If supermarkets and burgerbars honestly wanted to promote a healthy lifestyle, then they wouldn't place the healthier versions of yoghurt just beside the creamy desserts, and they wouldn't sell the sensibly sized portions for almost the same price as the mega-version. As far as I can see this is something where the government will have to step in with clear and unambiguous regulations, because the producers are never going to.
You know no one is going to get out of life alive. Life is a bitch. So why not enjoy life to the fullest in a manner which is pleasing to you and not some "know-it-all" organization?