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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!"
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.
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
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.
The big kerfuffle in the 90's wasn't that games were addictive, it was that they were violent and that we were going to turn into desensitized savages who want to dismember people. Basically this article is about kids that grew up on Mortal Kombat.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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.
or you could play the masterpiece, Portal 2. And actually get smarter while you play. So says Stanford et al. http://www.fastcompany.com/303...
They're using their grammar skills there.
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...
I swear I might snap at any moment, though.... rawr!
I once stood up a friend in college because I forgot about our appointment because I was playing Quake. That makes me a bad person. FACT.
/ Still friends with this person.
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.
So in summary psychos play video games. Video games don't make you psycho.
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.
That is an urge control issue, like gambling. If it wasn't video games it would have been one of any other endless list of vices. Maybe if we holed everyone up in plastic bubbles with filtered air, we'd all go to harvard some day. Your argument has no place in the violent video games debate, go away.
moox. for a new generation.
or you could play the masterpiece, Portal 2. And actually get smarter while you play. So says Stanford et al. http://www.fastcompany.com/303...
The wait for Portal 3 is driving me insane.
I should use this sig to advertise my book ISBN-13 : 978-1501515132.
Why do you need Portal 3, aren't you already smart enough from Portal 1 and 2?
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.
or you could play quake AND portal.
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.
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
Why do you blame the games? Perhaps the job/spouse was at fault and the game was just an escape valve due to lack of any other choice.
Define 'thrown away.' There is more to life than breeding and stacking papers. Most 'collage' is little more than a paper mill at this point. Most of the people going to 'collage' don't really belong there but are forced to go just so they can satisfy overstaffed HR depts.
Addictive personalities can find nearly anything addictive if it gives them pleasure. Stop blaming things and start looking at people.
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.)
This is just the new claim, video games are addictive and ruin lives.
First they claimed games lead to satanism, then they claimed games caused people to be violent, lately it's been games cause people to be sexists, and they've been proven wrong over and over again. "Games are addictive" is just the latest iteration for busy bodies that have too much time on their hands and have a need to butt into other people's business. I'm sure when people start looking into it they'll find that, if it wasn't games, people with addictive personalities would just become addicted to something else. Then these people will probably move on to claiming games cause you to hate puppies.
I once talked about my violent dreams with a friend who is a social worker so studied all this shit - he says that most if not all people have violence fantasies. There are some for whom the socialization does not work and who actually try to realize their fantasies. This applies to soldiers too - most of them have trouble with killing, not at the moment when they pull the trigger but in afterthought which shows that their socialization works. There are all sorts of people - some enjoy hurting others, most not. I suppose this works even for children-soldiers leaving them as living wrecks if they survive their 'adventures'.
It's complex. I've known two people who have seriously messed up their lives as a result of excessive gaming and one who came close (but pulled back at the last minute). I've known a lot more people who fouled up their lives for other reasons.
The two I knew who seriously messed up their lives were friends from my university days who managed to get so heavily into the QuakeWorld/Quake 3 online scene that they failed their exams at the end of their second year and were thrown out (my university didn't "do" second chances). One of them went into the workplace without a degree (and is doing more or less ok now, almost 15 years later, though probably not in the field he wanted to be in) while the other enrolled at another university and came damned close to flunking out a second time (but scraped graduation and is now a teacher, so draw your own conclusions).
The near-miss was more recent. A friend I've known for about a decade got so heavily into an MMO last year that it started to affect his attendance and performance at work. A few of us spotted what was happening and did a bit of an "intervention" (god, I hate that term, but I can't think of a better one). The immediate result was a week long sulk - but after that, he realised the danger he was in and pulled back from the edge.
Thing is, though, I'm not ultimately convinced that "gaming" was a unique factor in either of those cases. In both cases, I think the social obligations that existed around gaming were a bigger factor. The Quake-pair weren't just playing the game; they were heavily involved in the competitive scene and had weekly practice and event schedules imposed on them by their clans. They both knew (one more than the other, perhaps) that they should be playing less, but didn't have the experience or maturity to tell their clan-mates when enough was enough. The MMO-player was, as he later admitted, more or less hating the game, but was so bound into his guild's hierarchy and structure that he felt he couldn't stop playing (or even cut back) for fear of letting other people down. So it wasn't so much video-game addiction as it was a kind of social entrapment.
Thing is, I've also seen people mess up their lives even more spectacularly for non-gaming reasons. In my first "grown up" job, one of my colleagues was into mountaineering. Seriously so. He'd take months of unpaid leave each year to go on expeditions. He'd done a couple of Himalayan 8,000ers as well as a whole load of peaks in Alaska and the Andes. And over time, it destroyed his life. His marriage fell apart, he lost contact with his son and, when redundancies came around at the office, he was the first one out the door; his lengthy absences meant that people had gotten used to doing without him, so he wasn't able to pull the "look indispensable" trick.
Another guy I was at university with ended up not just flunking out of his course but also winding up tens of thousands of GBP in debt. How? Poker. He convinced himself that as an "elite" maths student, he would be able to clean up. Turns out he couldn't. He ended up hopelessly addicted and throwing good money after bad.
I've also seen people wreck their lives through mundane and even unpleasant stuff. One guy I worked with got so drawn into work for the building management committee for the apartment block he lived in that it took over his life to the point he was spending most of the working day on it - and again, he was out the door at the first whiff of redundancies. He always told people that he was only doing it because he felt people were depending on him...
People are remarkably adept at finding ways to wreck their own lives and will use any tool at hand to do so. Games can be one of those tools and there certainly seem to be some people with a high general propensity to addictive behaviour who will be especially prone to gaming addiction. But for those people, I can't escape the view that if it wasn't gaming that brought them down, it would just be something else.
As for gaming and violence, whi
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.
I don't remember anyone really talking about video game addiction until Everquest.
It's a perfect time for being wasted.
A perfect time to watch the stars.
- Burden Brothers, "Beautiful Night"
I don't remember anyone really talking about video game addiction until Everquest.
I remember talk about video game addiction back in the 80's when you had to go to an arcade. There was even a short about it on HBO about a guy whose wife and kids left him, but he didn't care because all he needed was another round of Galaga.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Oh please, everyone is smarter than Einstein. I challenged him to a math-off a couple of weeks ago and he didn't even solve one problem!
He's referring to the well-known fact that Valve is less capable of counting to 3 than Arthur, King of the Britons, is.
You're exactly right that those things have nothing to do with games. People have been failing out of school for a long, long time, for reasons that had nothing to do with video games. In fact, of my high school friends circle, the people who failed out were the ones who weren't hardcore video gamers. They instead "partied themselves out" the old fashioned way, with women and alcohol.
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).
What a horrible strawman.
It was the same dumb argument when Jack Thompson made it, it's the same dumb argument now, whether it's feminist supporting it or not.
I'm not even anti-feminist, but being a feminist doesn't automatically make you a good person, or right. Jack was proven wrong and mocked, Anita is proven wrong and, oh wait can't mock her because feminism. You're not doing anyone on the line about feminism any favors. From a neutral perspective, on feminism, I'd rather be called a misogynist and a "GamerGate type" then to associate with people who illogically strawman and demonize anyone that doesn't agree with them 100%.
"So in summary psychos play video games. Video games don't make you psycho."
I approve this message, at least pslytely.
Donald Trump, on a crusade to make Nixon look respectable
The cake is a lie!
No, the cake is a pie.
in summary, if Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
Okay. I agree. So where are you going with that?
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
Bullshit. I mean, there is some of that in everybody, and that desire for avoidance can influence people's behaviour (I admit it has mine at times). But the companies that make games know perfectly well that the game does better the more addictive it is, even if they don't think about it in those terms.
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.
in summary, if Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music.
Hey, you just described my weekend.
Gotta run, a couple of ghosts are following me.
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.
Heard on alt.music.industrial
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.
Exactly. I've been reading some parenting books by William Sears, and although he is renown as a pediatrician, I was quite surprised at how he was clearly swept up in the moral panics of the 90s. I read his "Discipline Book" that was written during that time and though I agree with a lot of his advice, he totally took the violent movies, violent games, and even rock music moral panics seriously. He was very concerned about the impact that violence in media would have on his eight(!) children. He even wrote about the time one of his children snuck out to a rock concert against his wishes. Damn, and he was bothered by "Beavis and Butt-Head". He said that he was relieved when he found out that Butt-Head means "imbecile". Uh, hey Beavis, someone should tell that doctor that three of his kids grew up to be doctors, too, in spite of Beavis and Butt-Head. /rant
Wh47 d1d j00 541, 31337 15n't t3h r0xor5 ne m0r3???
Ah, I'm glad I asked, I thought you were going down a different path. :)
I am reminded of something someone said to me once: if video games had no affect on people, then the military wouldn't use video games for training.
That person hasn't thought too much about it. Video games don't teach you how to aim a gun. Or how to operate it safely. Or how to maintain it. Or how to navigate with its weight bearing down on you. What it does teach you is how to rapidly identify targets. While useful, there is a reason the police aren't being overwhelmed by teenage bad-asses that could stand in for soldiers. It's not even a factor of realism, it's the interface.
I'll put it to you this way: Imagine two people standing on a skateboard for the first time. Both are physically and mentally identical, but one has mastered Tony Hawk's Pro Skater. Do you imagine either of them being significantly better than the other at real-world skateboarding?
That said I do agree with you that the evolving nature of games means we should keep studying its impact. Although I personally don't feel we'll find anything particularly worrying, the reasoning that we should keep an eye on it is sound.
"I like to lick butts!" by MobileTatsu-NJG (#32700246) (Score:5, Informative)
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>
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.
The big kerfuffle in the 90's wasn't that games were addictive, it was that they were violent and that we were going to turn into desensitized savages who want to dismember people. Basically this article is about kids that grew up on Mortal Kombat.
This.
And it is the same nonsense that was spouted about Metal, Comics, TV, Movies and Books (that weren't the bible) in the past. Same shit, different target.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
... gamers are bad; morally rotten to the core and mysoginistic, all five guys. #GamerGate
Only feminist approved games are beyond critizism.
The cake is a lie!
That is deeper than it first appears... 8-) 8-(
The cake is a lie, there is only pie.
Through pie I gain calories.
Through calories I gain fat.
Through fat my waistband is broken
Sweatpants shall free me!
-The Overweight Sith's Code
"Hope is the first step on the road to disappointment."
I think we'd settle for Portal 5.