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This Is Your Brain While Videogaming Stoned
Daniel_Stuckey (2647775) writes "Pot and video games have long been bound together in hazy, wedded bliss—as well as in compulsion and codependency. Many a World of Warcraft binger has been found in the darkest hours of the night with clouds of sweet, milk-white smoke curling around him, a bong next to the keyboard. But the way these lovers, games and weed, commingle has only rarely been studied, and when done so, usually exclusively in the context of substance abuse and how it relates to what is known as PVP: 'problem video game playing.'" Motherboard takes a different look.
Say PVP to a gamer and they're thinking of how to frag everybody else, not that they're addicted.
Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't out to get you
slashdot.org uses an invalid security certificate. The certificate expired on 5/23/2014 5:49 PM. The current time is 5/23/2014 10:16 PM. (Error code: sec_error_expired_certificate)
They can barely follow basic tutorials over there
Pew pew pew...
<PAUSE>
<SCHLERP (bubble bubble)>
"What?? That's ridiculous."
<UNPAUSE>
Pew pew pew...
Gamers? What about the programmers? They can't be straight.
Let's see this same thing repeated with these for comparison:
alcohol
cocaine
LSD
MDA
MDNA
adderall
zoloft
perkoset
xanax
etc...you get my point...
every damn time people anywhere talk about "drugs" and their effects we need to **compare** it to other similar things!
Thank you Dave Raggett
Do we link emo children to the sad music they listen to or stoners to the bad tv they watch?... Come on.
Enough with trying to demonnize video games to a generation that never experienced them and so only has their own ignorance to base anything upon.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
These dopers should all be put in prison for the rest of the short unnatural lives. Sick!
Well, I'm stoned and I've been playing video games stoned for almost all of my video game life.
And all I have is this to say:
What are we talking about again?
Be seeing you...
Which ones first? The cigarette smokers or the drunks?
I'd start with them, they're easiest to find.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I must be playing the wrong games and hanging around with the wrong crowd. I've never heard of a habit of pot and video games.
Could it be the case that playing video games are simply the most likely recreational activity a stoner is going to feel motivated enough to perform? Honestly, how many people get stoned and then go hiking, running, playing football or whatever?
It's bad enough that some people believe video games cause violent behavior, but now drug use too? Next we'll be demonizing food, since every murderer, stoner and rapist ate food regularly during their lives.
---
DRM is like antifreeze, to the MPAA/RIAA it's sweet, to the consumers it's poison.
Reading this article, atl-tabbed in between 2 battlegrounds, hitting up the bong at 1AM
You're supposed to be nerds. Act like it.
Mark my words, that's the drug that's going to lead to zombies!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
I used to drink when playing Quake 2 and UT with my clan. The goal was not to get too drunk, but just enough to be a real Kamikaze. Weed also enhances creativity as many artists will confirm.
I've got better things to do tonight than die.
Which ones first?
Coffee drinkers.
That's a helluva lot of leaf!!
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
From personal experience, drinking while programming isn't so bad, although the increasing mental and physical clumsiness will eventually become a problem. Smoking weed while programming, on the other hand, is asking for trouble. If you're a designer brainstorming before coming up with a rough design document, weed's probably an ally in many ways. Programming, though, God help you. I suppose it adversely affects the ability to base one logical proposition upon another, which is generally bad for a series of equations relying upon the results of the previous for a useful result.
While playing games it depends on the game. If it requires the same sort of sequential, analytical processes as programming then you're doomed. If it's just a twitch game with simple goals and gameplay you'll be minimally handicapped. In any case, I can't imagine being high will improve your ability to play a game; just your enjoyment of it.
Buy your next Linux PC at eightvirtues.com
Playing stoned made them more confident. They felt like they were playing better, so they took more risks. A lot of games have systems in which risky behavior is often more greatly rewarded, but rewarded less frequently. Spelunky especially is one of those games. Tetris, however, can be much less forgiving of risky behavior, hence the lower scores there.
So I don't think this was a very good test of the effect of actual basic skills that contribute to good or bad play. I think a series of reaction time tests, memorization tests, and problem solving tests, independent from complex interactions within the game itself or the nebulous "score" would make for a better testing environment. Also, three people playing just four games, all of which are single player and most of which are puzzle games, doesn't seem like enough data to come to any useful conclusion whatsoever.
I've played with and against players who were high in competitive multiplayer games in which the high players were obviously making mistakes and playing poorly (the whole time insisting that playing high enhanced their abilities) to change my belief that playing high probably makes you worse rather than better. Especially in a multiplayer context with a group of highly skilled and experienced players, ones overconfidence can be much more directly and specifically exploited and countered. The high players were not only overconfident, but much less likely to recognize and acknowledge mistakes, leading them to repeat those mistakes or allow their opponents to capitalize on the mistakes even more frequently or severely than normal.
simply due to the fact that the whole "weed" affair was written up very misty eyed.
A proper journalist would never call it weed nor stoned, but use proper and neutral terms.
Nothing beats playing Resident Evil 2 on speed and then going to a performance art show.
Geeks are so full of shit that "beating the crap out of them" takes a whole new meaning.
like, RTS, for example. I suspect that THC is helpful for situations where one needs to focus in, but the opposite of helpful for situations where one needs to multitask. However, that which seems like multiple tasks to one mind may well be perceived as a single (multidimensional but easily subject to simultaneous apprehension) task to another. If people play video games for job interviews as was discussed this past January, ...
instead of doing something you love you should spend all your time beating the bible outside the grocery store, cause drunk on jesus is fine but playing a dumb ass game is not
But Tea's a gateway drink...
They seem commonly used words so it seems fine to me. Maybe they want to be able to communicate with none specialists?
Also they show a far greater understanding of science than most 'proper journalists' and it is a more informative article than the average 'science' piece in a paper. Also I consider them as valid a journalist as other journalists. I've worked in the print industry (in the UK) so know what a lot of shit most hacks spout.
Mannnnn, have you ever looked at your hand controller? I mean, REALLY looked at it? It's like, wait... it doesn't control MY hand. It should be called a control handler. I smell a conspiracy and it smells like pop tarts.
rewriting history since 2109
That's when your video card can't handle Watch Dogs on high graphics settings.
You are welcome on my lawn.
...is exactly what the doctor prescribed! --Writen from Amsterdam.
... even if N = 4 in a non-double-blind placebo-controlled experiment isn't exactly science. But a lovely anecdote, and one that matches my own personal experience (from long ago) in many ways. I hope people are actually reading TFA -- but wait, this is /. so that's a silly thought.
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
My mom started me on milk.
This is NOT REDDIT.
This is one of the few websites for people who are actually intelligent to come together and share things.
This is NOT a place for fucking pothead morons to push their drug religion on others. There has been a steady crossover from Reddit-esque articles showing up here and I'm fucking sick of it.
Slashdot is for SMART PEOPLE and not FUCKING DRUG ADDICTS. Stop posting all this pro-drug drivel!
I've seen similar comments from others on this thread...
TFA isn't just examining effects of marijuana...it's using the data to ***draw a conclusion*** about marijuana
what conclusion?
it wasn't just about performance, but "addiction"
they're trying to see if marijuana smoking during video games makes the video gaming "more addictive"
TFA had an agenda to show that somehow either weed or video games (or combination thereof) is inherently "bad"
this is just like those B.S. studies that were gamed to make stoned drivers look as bad as drunk drivers...however, the data itself, just comparing how weed affects all kinds of tasks, sure that's beneficial
but again...why aren't we doing this with ***other drugs***
does Ritalin, Adderall, and other pharma's affect driving?
if it affects driving, then why do we let people who work with their hands take it?
Thank you Dave Raggett
This whole article was written squarely from the pro-dope drug advocacy standpoint. At every turn it boosts psuedoscience claims, shits on real science, and pushes the same tired, proven-false dope propaganda that drug advocates ceaselessly repeat.
It's a bullshit opinion piece, and frankly Slashdot is way, way better than this. If you really want to post stories on dope, do ones with real science, real medicine, real statistics, and not a piece that is terribly slanted towards a pro-dope agenda. This is ridiculous and it has no place here.
You clearly didn't read the article (The "Motherboard takes a different look" one at the bottom)
They killed it on the games while stoned, performance was equal or greater (often massively so) in all cases. It's also full of references to other studies (for example about driving) suggesting weed does not decrease focus & performance, and in some instances enhances it.
So.... pretty much the exact polar opposite of the "demonizing" you're complaining about.
"Mind, as manifested by the capacity to make choices, is to some extent present in every electron." -Freeman Dyson
Take your new acronym, put it back on the shelf.
PVP = Player vs Player.
Back in university, I tried playing Pinball after two or three beers. I quickly realized that there was no point. No matter what pinball game I played, I was very much worse in my reaction time and coordination.
I come here for the love
Don't do the white stuff!
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I think I need to smoke some weed.
Flamebait? Really? Is that how we score ironic humour around here nowadays?
That said I suppose a +5 Flamebait is probably a sign of muddled /. groupthink.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Is this rational discourse from you http://news.slashdot.org/comme... ? Looks more like off topic stalking complete with irrational profanity to me.
Looks more like off topic stalking complete with irrational profanity to me.
Sorry, what was that APK?
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Saw your post history. You're apk obsessed. Get professional help.
No it's a link to your stalking apk profanely raving off topic (not rational at all) http://news.slashdot.org/comme...
why didn't you post even a few sentences from TFA to support your contentions?
i read TFA...I was stoned while I did it, but I'm usually stoned....it looked to me like they were trying to link "addicting" behaviors like video games and marijuana
if you want to converse on this, show me where you think TFA proves my interpretation wrong
Thank you Dave Raggett
...which is inexplicably absent from the Slashdot posting is:
"Problematic gamblers seem to be more similar to substance users than problematic computer gamers. From a personality perspective, results correspond to the inclusion of gambling in the same DSM-V category as substance use and question a one-to-one proceeding for computer gaming."
Amazingly enough, Slashdot does not allow users to delete their accounts. Worse, it does not even allow users to change their nicknames.
So, if you're concerned about Web analytics or analogous technologies connecting your Slashdot postings to postings made with stylistic language, zip codes, other inferred demographics, or even nicknames similar to those of your Slashdot postings, you're shit out of luck. And speaking as one who works in the field, such connections and inferences are far from mere paranoia. Analytics and inferential knowledgebase-driven tracking is what drives NSA data mining, many types of clicktracking, and magically targeted Netflix & Amazon messages, and these methodologies are still barely out of their infancy -- data collected today is likely to yield far more information when mined 5 or 10 years from now, when increased data-storage and processing capabilities eliminate some of the scalability constraints of current technology. DNA computing, anyone?.
Still unconvinced? As recently as last March (http://yro-beta.slashdot.org/story/13/03/11/218221/facebook-knows-if-youre-gay-use-drugs-or-are-a-republican), Slashdot itself reported that researchers, using only Facebook metadata (not postings), could generally predict a user's sexual orientation, political party, IQ, likelihood to use drugs, and other personal characteristics. Hence, prudence dictates that online users should ALWAYS delete unnecessary traces. And older Slashdot postings, which may be far more revealing than a Facebook "like," should certainly be high on the list of deletion candidates -- even if you always post as an AC.
Amazingly, Slashdot refuses to provide basic posting-deletion functionality. It refuses to allow even half-assed attempts to hide one's identify by changing a nick. And it won't acknowledge email requests to explain these policies. When I sent a message to Slashdot last month asking for clarification or assistance with deleting my account or past postings, I received a form letter apologizing for "Slashdot's inability to reply to every question about its new beta system."
Jeez, can't we even get kissed when we get fucked?
So what can a helpless Slashdot user do? Well, to start, I'll be continuing to submit this message as a story proposal until I get some kind of reaction from a Slashdot decision-maker who thinks I'm raising a valid issue. In the interim, I STRONGLY urge anybody thinking of opening a Slashdot account, or of posting other than anonymously, to think again. Search on Google (or better, on the Patent Office Web site) for terms like "web analytics," "inferential statistics," "knowledgebase," "big data," "natural-language prcoessing," or even just "cybersecurity." Or page through a copy of the already-outdated, but still relevant, book "Dragnet Nation." And remember that, once you open that Slashdot account, once you post that Slashdot message, there's no redo.
Shame on you, Slashdot! I could understand seeing these kinds of policies on a Duck Dynasty fan-club forum, but you guys are supposed to have a clue.
Saw your post history. You're apk obsessed. Get professional help.
And who are we pretending to be now, APK?
Oh, and of course you saw my post history, you're busy stalking people who you complain are stalking you.
Way to get the moral high-ground, retard. Yes, that's right, the word is 'hypocrite', the same word you like to throw around about other people.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
Quite unlike the completely sane and rational APK. Yup, gottit.
..Mullah or Pope, Preacher or Poet, who was it wrote: "Give any one species too much rope and they'll fuck it up"?
I've always wondered how people can put up with the tedious grind of WOW and now it all makes sense
Saw your post history. You're apk obsessed. Get professional help!