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Video Gamers From the '90s Have Turned Out Mostly OK (arstechnica.com)
A study reported on by Ars Technica indicates that video games, much ballyhooed (alleged) source of mental, physical and psycho-social ills for the kids who spent a lot of time playing them, don't seem to have had quite as big a negative effect on those kids as the moral panic of the past few decades would have you believe. Instead, There didn't seem to be an association between the number of games the children reported owning and an increase in risk for conduct disorder. When examining depression among shoot-em-up players, there was evidence for increased risk before the researchers controlled for all the confounding factors, but not afterwards. Of course, there's a lot of data to go around in the several studies referred to here, and the upshot seems to both less exciting and less simple than "Video games are good, not bad!"
Make sure you play something that makes you react within milliseconds, and also has general strategy involved if you can. You can train your brain to make run and gun decisions better typically needed for sports and reacting against an emergency vehicle situation.
In regard to social issues, I do like that Slashdot is getting back to its roots at least! :)
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
Just like the kids who grew up on metal, and comic books, and rock 'n roll, etc.
I love video games and think any kind of ban is just stupid. But they aren't without harm. I have seen people put their jobs in jeopardy repeatedly playing online games late into the night. I have read about people neglecting their kids to play farmville, I have even done a few nasty binges where I would swear to "stop by midnight" only to look outside and see that it was dawn.
I suspect that more than one life has effectively been thrown away to play video games. So while people might not be out there in droves pulling people from their cars after a few GTA sessions, I suspect that there are a number of kids who didn't go to collage, went to a crappier collage, or dropped out of collage, because of video game addictions.
I think it is telling that I have met a probably going to die alcoholic who was able to stay on the wagon primarily through his newfound addiction to video games.
Full study here.
Pretty tame conclusions, but I'm glad they're still doing research into this. I'm actually really curious to see what kind of psychological effects show up (or don't) as graphics technology gets ever closer to perfect fidelity. Not in the moral panic or "we must legislate this" sense, but just to understand whether and how a technology is capable of damaging us. VR is right around the corner, and game developers are focusing constantly on immersion -- this makes me wonder whether a sufficiently advanced game could cause PTSD, or a similar condition. I suspect not now, and not soon, but it'll probably be an issue some day.
don't forget Eric Harris
That particular condition is a very serious condition involving pervasive destructive patterns and anti-social behavior.
There are many other problems to be screening for besides conduct disorder.
Honestly it doesn't surprise me games weren't found to just flip bits to cause conduct disorder.
This study doesn't really seem to indicate anything and is probably propaganda to skew peoples perception of video games by the video game industry.
You mean to tell me that the feminists that go on about video games turning everyone into misogynists are wrong?
Yes, because the 1980's studies were not conclusive. We weren't able to find any evidence of what playing a game where to go around chewing little white pills in the dark and listening to repetitive computer music would do to small children as they get older.
There's a reason people dismiss claims of IRL "harm" the from Tipper Gores or Jack Thompsons or Anita Sarkeesians of the world. The burden of proof is always squarely on them, they almost always fail to meet it, and years later we (as often as not) get scientific evidence showing the opposite.
Srlsy we okay bro FUCKYOUASSHOLE caus we know wherr we at RELOADDIEDIEDIEASSHT an it never gets seen JCKTHEFCKOFFDCKWAD that we fit in wth everyone else n stuff
Timmah!
* Please try to keep posts on topic.
Unfortunately the newest moral panic is the representation of women in video games leading to rape culture, misogyny, and what ever else the moral crusaders have within their sights.
Will we ever learn?
And suppose there was a clear link between videogames and violence, exactly what is to be done? There were riots when the Rites of Spring was first performed, yet it is not damnatio memoriae, almost as if these relationships aren't quite as static as we are lead to believe, which is why there is so much conflicting data.
Most of these "studies" make for a nice pseudo-science justification for a particular set of biases, only a few steps removed from "it is witchcraft" and as luck would have it, nothing of the moral crusaders' most cherished is placed under the same scrutiny.
I have had about enough, thank you, whether it is hate-speech, "radicalization", or whatever mores of the age; surprise! people are influenced from the environment, but that is hardly just cause for the morally indignant to lord over all of creation.
They didn't even get to ask the ones who are dead or still in prison did they? What happened to the other 2/3 when they started the study? Even with the people that did respond there is a clear pattern of puzzle games being increasingly more popular over violent types as the person's education level rises.
I am not sure what to make of it all but I am still glad I installed these games on all the machines on my LAN, http://www.chiark.greenend.org...
Sitting six inches from a CRT wasn't so bad for you after all.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
I definitely didn't turn out OK... in fact, I died of dysentery.
If you read the wrong books x years ago, you were a deviant and likely to incite riots, kill people, etc... (catcher in the rye,...)
If you listen to the wrong music, you were a satanist who raped, killed, etc.. (Marilyn Manson,...)
And now they say the same about video games.
People still read and listen to music but now when something bad happens, they never mention anything about what type of music or books they had. I guess that miraculously the bad effects were mitigated.
I predict that in the future people will claim that VR (or something else that will become popular) causes deviant behaviour and caused people to flip out and kill.
Ok, show me a successful police investigation which found thousands of men scheming to rape a few Twitter stars. You won't find it because Harper and the other ladies targeted by the gamergate strawman invented the whole thing to get protection money from the games industry lol.
Just like the kids who grew up on metal, and comic books, and rock 'n roll, etc.
When the Supreme Court considered the free speech case about parental permission for violent video games, one of the things they knew (although not in the opinion) was that their law clerks had grown up playing Mortal Kombat.
And they turned out okay.
No shit.
I'm doing ok, I got a successful retail business and I got pretty straight morals, yes I've done things as a teenage that makes my kids and others go WTF? But that's another time and place in history.
We use to play TONS of video games, believe it or not we actually walked in snow and -10+ temps for 30-45 min each way to the closest video game rental place (Overwaitea Food). One day a few buddies of mine came over and asked me to stash some Nintendo machines and box on top of boxes of games. I sure as hell didn't mind as my eye and thumbs twitches at the gloriousness that will be happening to me in the next few week of my teenage life. I truly had a Nintendo thumb and 3 hours of sleep for weeks. Well it turned out fine for me and majority of my friends.
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
I've used Pokemon, D&D, Minecraft, and Goldeneye as tools over the years in my practice as a case worker and group facilitator, and these things have been blessings. I've had colleagues frustrated that they can't connect with clients that I've forged good relationships, and I explain that I traded them a rare pokemon and they opened up. There have been cases where videogame addiction has been problematic, but for the most part, it's just a form of media, and having a strong handle on it allows you to connect and bond with kids, creating teachable moments and whatnot.
What has this got to do with video games? Who knows? But we must understand that this generation is one of the most mentally fucked up generations to have ever walked the face of the earth. So, saying 90's vido gamers turned out 'ok', is clearly bullshit.
I think the idea is that they turned out okay compared to non-gamers from the same time period. Although it's next to impossible to exclude other correlating factors, because those who played games likely had more similar demographics than compared with those who didn't.
As for speculations of why the late 30 early 40 somethings of today are so fucked up, I would guess that the conservative resurgence and Mrs. Reagan and "no child left behind" is part of the problem. A coddled generation taught to rote learn and not to think, and that the grown ups would do all the thinking for them. Not a good recipe for brilliance, in my opinion.
... relative to the general population. Not saying it's a bad thing, but most of the gamers from the 90s I know (that till game, anyway) are also heavy smokers. Granted, this is a small sample size (25-30) but the trend is still interesting.
Anyone else experience similar?
captchgotchya: gorges (as in gorges on Doritos and Mountain Dew after smoking a bunch of weed and playing Fallout 4 for days)
There are games and there are games. And my guess is that games that map onto the real world more closely may have more intrusive effects than others. How could PacMan realistically affect real world functioning? You are guiding a blob of pixels around a maze, there are no real world corollaries to this. However, interacting with with photo realistic others in simulated environments could have a very positive impact. Take as an example some vulnerable kids who have learned to deal with others with aggression, then expose them to a simulated where game play success is only achieved through appropriate interactions, we might see positive effects in real world behaviour. At least this is the thinking of some developmental behavioural scientists... whose names and work I cannot at the moment find.
I have even done a few nasty binges where I would swear to "stop by midnight" only to look outside and see that it was dawn.
Losing oneself in a book, reading until the break of dawn cause you "just couldn't put the book down" is a common occurrence.
Often referred to with a dose of nostalgia and sympathy, along with reading with a flashlight, under the covers.
It's not the medium - it's the message.
Humans are suckers for vicarious experiences.
Particularly in the form of fiction - but they will also gladly waste hours and travel miles to watch millionaires kick or throw a ball around.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
I'll be damned. Here I thought here claims were "well researched" and scientific. Turns out it was wasn't, and science in fact shows that she is completely wrong.
I wonder what other feminist claims are equally unsupported by evidence..
Even if you're right, you haven't linked games as a cause..
Adult children who live in a deluded world view where women are either villains, trophies, and the reason women won't have sex with them is entirely because they're disgusting. How much of that is from video games? It can be argued that the degrading treatment of women in the games played a role, but it could also just be that they don't get out of their moms basement to see the world isn't the awful place that they think it is.
As opposed to adult children who live in a deluded world view where women are perpetual victims of a mysterious and mythical patriarchy?
The worst thing video gamers have become is skeptical of feminism? Yeah, that's a result of not just listening and believing, but of actually employing healthy skepticism. Modern second wave feminsm does not hold up to such scrutiny, so it can safely be dismissed as false. Thankfully, more and more people are doing this, and feminism true nature is becoming clear to more and more people. Hopefully this cancer will be gone from politics and academia in a decade.
Once upon a time if you enjoyed this ped smearing car with bonuses for artistic impression it was believed you may be deranged, psychopathic (when that was still a definition) or worse.
Since then I played games like Manhunt, Hitman, Postal, GTA and a wide array of other less controversial games.
Now I take my kids to have ice cream and we watch car crash videos together. -see? Now I'm helping a new generation grow up normal.
(Whatever the fuck normal means.)
The massive push to regulate games was never about preventing violence. In fact, the big push to regulate anything is never about what they say it's about.
It is always about one thing and one thing only: money. The gaming industry is enormous, and largely unregulated. Politicians see a cash cow here but need a way to convince voters to give them the authority to regulate and tax it to death. Currently the federal government has very little authority, even under the Commerce Clause, to regulate or tax video games.
Politicians on both sides of the two-party aisle would love to get their grubby little paws into the gaming cookie jar. The leftists would love to say how they're protecting children while the whackjobs on the right want to protect our morals. Of course, that'll cost money - a lot of money - which they will spend on making policy friendly to their sponsors.
I imagine game companies everywhere would be busting down the doors on Capitol Hill the morning after game regulation authority was passed to make sure they set up large campaign contributions to the right politicians.
Pretty sure kids in my generation knew you don't do what the video game does. Oh and I'm pretty sure my generation knew Acme wouldn't sell you TNT all the time, or a catapult, or anything else the coyote got. There's this thing called common sense we all got when we were young....
Having basically step-kids I am not worried about the violent part of the video games, but how much time they spend on either video games or their phones (which seems like every waking hour).
How could PacMan realistically affect real world functioning?
Unfortunately, the summary is missing an important fact: the study _did_ control for the type of games played; the study (at least attempted) to only measure the effect of violent video games, although they relied on self-reporting of game type by the children who played them (a method which, while much better than nothing, still has issues). So yeah, the study authors are well aware that PacMan isn't going to cause violence.
In other words, the study conclusively showed that the idiots had cause and effect backwards: Violent kids liked violent video games, rather than violent video games turned kids violent.. Which is what most intelligent people realized was going on long ago.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Every generation talks about how the current generation of teenagers will be complete wastes because of ________ (fill in the blank.) In the 50s it was Rock and Roll, in the 60s it was drugs and the hippie movement, in the 70s it was drugs and disco, in the 80s it was just drugs, the 90s it was violent video games, in the 00s it was a generation with no motivation. In each case the result has been the same. Kids that are ok as kids turn out ok as adults. Kids that are messed up as kids turn into messed up adults. We can always try and find something to blame it on, and in many cases it does have to due with the environment they grow up in, but sometimes broken is just broken.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
I'm both a long time gamer and and a thirty-something father with 5 kids. I started playing games with the Ataris and an IBM PCjr. I think gaming is great but I can see where it will not always be that way.
My issue isn't so much the games but the gaming industry. In the 90's VERY few games had a cost after the retail purchase. The only one I can think of at the time was Ultima Online. Now a days many games are subscription based (and maybe a retail cost too!) or pay to play. Both of these models require one thing: For the player to play as long as possible. This leads to developing a game that is addictive. Maybe not actively, by the code developers, but I can see any bean counter foaming at the mouth to add every addictive practice there is. And guess what, most of the time the code developers don't win unless it is going to drastically alter the game.
This long term playing brings out the worst in people. It makes small character flaws, big ones. And don't say you don't have any character flaws, everyone has them. It is just how you manage them. Long term additive playing brings out the worst in people. It is addiction.
No good deed goes unpunished.
They never seem to do studies about how the kids turn out who's parents were control-freaks and used things like "video games are evil" and "D&D is evil" and "pogs are evil" to force their kids into the line the parents want them to adhere to.
Admittedly, those are just the excuses those parents use, and as a society our approach seems to be "Well, kids are chattel, nothing we can do about it if their parents are horrible."
A shooter investigation called the Spiral Notebook said James Holmes and Eric Harris played lots of violent video games.
But this doesnt imply the reverse. Say half the 20 million males between age are frequent gamers. That would mean only 1 in 100,000 become shooters. In fact gamers could be blamed for every ill in society because it is such a common hobby.
Ever since playing Super Mario Brothers I've had this insatiable urge to hurl fireballs at my enemies.
then how do you explain the Donald Trump supporters?
According to the study, the only long-term effect they could find was a marked increase in violence towards crates and barrels. The store by that name is investigating moving to a strict "you break it, you bought it" policy, as losses mount.
Step 1: Know even a little bit about what you're researching.
Shoot-em-ups are the likes of Gradius or Asteroids. First-person-shooters are the likes of Doom and Unreal Tournament.
Did they take into account economic class? Computers were expensive in the 90s.
Carmageddon, inspired by the Deathrace 2000 movie franchise. I told my son it doesn't matter what you do with virtual fists or weapons because some day when you're using real ones you'll be mentally sharp and know the difference. But driving is different, you strive to make the process automatic and subconscious. Steering for pedestrians in a game cannot be a good groundwork for driving, regardless how different the game controller is. He agreed.
<blink>down the rabbit hole</blink>
"moral panic of the past few decades would have you believe"
Or the moral panic of the last 2 years...
... gamers are bad; morally rotten to the core and mysoginistic, all five guys. #GamerGate
Only feminist approved games are beyond critizism.