Slashdot Mirror
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).
- Human knowledge belongs to the world
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've been playing video games all my life and I'm as healt
obesity, which is in turn a a major risk factor in a huge number of potentially deadly conditions and preconditions.
Its not a risk for me. Its a certainty. When I was seven years old my grandfather died at the age of 58 from a heart attack. My dad told me at the time what did it and how he planned to avoid it. When I dad was 63 he had a heart attack, and survived because his partner was on the ball and got him to hospital. So knowing what was on the way gained him five years. So here I am, aged 43. I'm not going to let this happen. Am I? Realistically I might be able to delay it another five years.
http://michaelsmith.id.au
I'm not sure what the game publishers are actually protesting here, because this sounds like a pretty clear cut issue to me.
I believe the problem is that the ad tries to make a direct causal relationship between playing video games and death. And as one of the tags states, correlation is not equal to causation.
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.
The problem is that they didn't do this. They just jump straight to the scare tactic of saying you will die if you play video games.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
This is exactly like cake. I've been saying it for years. Everybody who eats cake dies. Cake must be stopped before everybody dies.
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!
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....
Really? you will die if you play video games?
Somehow I suspect that's true...
ALL THINGS IN MODERATION.
I take things in moderation in moderation.
Does that count?
Let q be a radix > 1. I am in ur base-q, killing 10 d00ds.
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
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
You have just touched my argument against what they have done. They are aiming directly at video games and while they can contribute to inactive lifestyles, so can a lot of things that most people PROMOTE. What about board games (which you mentioned), reading, building model cars, playing cards, or god forbid, STUDYING!
The truth is that EVERYTHING we do can contribute to our death if we do too much of it. Play too many video games and you can become obese, build to many model cars and you can inhale paint fumes, exercise to hard and you can have a debilitating injuring, study too much and you can become a recluse (causing obesity), wash your hands too often and you can lower your immune system.
People need to stop freaking out about every little thing they do and just realise that moderation is everything. Everything can kill you, but few things will do so in moderation.
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.
The problem is that they didn't do this. They just jump straight to the scare tactic of saying you will die if you play video games.
No they didn't. This campaign has been running since the new year, and they started with telling you how to modify your lifestyle in a positive way. They used no scare tactics, favouring a utopian vision. I'm guessing this resort to standard NHS tactics* means it didn't work.
Besides, I think we have to face the truth here. Gaming to the exclusion of exercise is unhealthy, this campaign has a reasonable point. Denying this makes Slashdotters look like oil executives denying global warming by straw-manning the opposition.
"Oh, so the advert campaign is saying that if you play games you'll certainly die right away! How stupid!" +5 Insightful.
The point of the campaign is that a sedentary lifestyle is harmful to your health, which is true! The self-deluded rage expressed in the summary is moronic.
*I wish it didn't have to be the Daily Mail, but they had the best example.
All intents and purposes. Not intensive purposes.
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?
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?
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!!!!
No one disputes that sedentary living is usually unhealthy and can lead to all sorts of issues. The problem is how specifically this targets games. Why run a campaign specifically against one medium when all could be held responsible? For fucks sake, I could start a campaign against the sedentary lifestyle induced by reading! I'd like to see how that is received.
Conscience is the inner voice which warns us that someone may be looking.
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?