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'Fortnite' May be a Virtual Game, But It's Having Real-life, Dangerous Effects (bostonglobe.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: "They are not sleeping. They are not going to school. They are dropping out of social activities. A lot of kids have stopped playing sports so they can do this." Michael Rich, a pediatrician and director of the Clinic for Interactive Media and Internet Disorders at Boston Children's Hospital, was talking about the impact "Fortnite: Battle Royale" -- a cartoonish multiplayer shooter game -- is having on kids, mainly boys, some still in grade school. "We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
A year and a half since the game's release, Rich's account is just one of many that describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease. The stress on families has become so severe that parents are going to couples' counselors, fighting over who's to blame for allowing "Fortnite" into the house in the first place and how to rein in a situation that's grown out of control. Further reading: 'Fortnite' Creator Sees Epic Games Becoming as Big as Facebook, Google.
A year and a half since the game's release, Rich's account is just one of many that describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease. The stress on families has become so severe that parents are going to couples' counselors, fighting over who's to blame for allowing "Fortnite" into the house in the first place and how to rein in a situation that's grown out of control. Further reading: 'Fortnite' Creator Sees Epic Games Becoming as Big as Facebook, Google.
Their parents were raised in the era of video games! They know exactly what it's like!
A "vidogames are bad" story presented uncritically on Slashdot? My how we've fallen from a nerd-centric site. Jack Thompson would be proud of what Slashdot has become.
Err, high-UID Slashdotters do know who Jack Thompson is, right? Get off my lawn!
Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
This is a symptom of parents no longer parenting their children. The game may be addictive but it's the ENABLERS who are to blame for it spiraling into madness.
I thought science and studies had already ruled games dont make people do bad and detrimental things...
It's always fault of something.
Oh, is it really time for another laughable moral panic about video games?
"We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
Who finds out about that and then thinks its a video game issue.
Seems to me the parents suck ass.
Although, video games to have an impact on people, and to thing there is no effect, especially to a developing mind, would be foolish.
But this? this is bad parenting. Should have had his system removed from him a lot sooner.
Give him so old laptop that can't run it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
They make it sound like gaming devices just pop into existence, out of the ether, into children's hands, especially when parents aren't looking.
Well, that's nonsense.
These parents are utterly failing their children in the most objective way; you can't argue with a measurable nutritional deficit. This is proof that these "parents" are not up to the task of guiding a new person into an independent, well-rounded adulthood. They are damaging these kids.
As pretty much always, the problem is the [fake] parent. Charge these parents; force them to attend parenting classes.
Get real, folks. Breaking the windshield doesn't destroy the car; it's still completely drivable, it just needs the windshield replaced.
Good, inexpensive web hosting
Let Darwin do his job, the majority will be just fine.
Breaking the windshield destroys a car? Hello hyperbole.
...in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat -- that doctors initially think they're wasting away from a physical disease.
I'm guessing this could have the opposite effect on deterrence one might think, kinda like the "if you have an erection lasting longer than 4 hours..."
I mean really.
My parents would steal the cables for my consoles, take away my Gameboy, and not allow any internet based on my systems MAC address.
I was allowed books, radio, and outside.
http://progressquest.com/spoltog.php?name=Son+Of+Son+Of+DarkRookie
The premise seems to be the kids should stop doing things they like and start listening to the experts and nannies running civilization.
I can tell you this: the big shots tying people down with weird nanny rules are not happy people. I don't think children should listen to them.
Video games are the new sports just like sports were the new war.
You know what beats obesity? Self control
Whoever could have seen this problem coming? When children are raised by devices instead of parents, shit doesn't go well.
I'm pretty sure everything would have suffered. School, social life, family life. I can totally see that. I'd like to think my mom and dad would have put some kind of limits on it, but honestly I kind of doubt it.
My 12 year old stopped playing it, voluntarily. He now plays Rainbow Six: Siege and Apex Legends. And Terraria.
Seems like I've found the basis for my next self-help book. The Fortnite Diet!
"They are not sleeping. They are not going to school. They are dropping out of social activities. A lot of kids have stopped playing sports so they can do this."
I can recall when this happened when I was a kid and it was Pitfall, then when it was Elite and then when it was Everquest and then what it was....
“Enough games, [go outside and play / do your homework / do these chores / let’s do something else ...]”
I was a kid once, they had video games then too, and they were very compelling and if I had my way I would be playing them all the time. When my parents told me to stop I was mad at them. Because I was so close to winning and or I was having a good run.
But turning off the video games isn’t abuse. And you shouldn’t be allowing your kid to play games at the cost of their health and education.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The silver lining is he still goes to basketball practice 4 times a week... it's the only reason he gets out of the house.
But even still... he's 13 and -looks- like an overworked 35 year old with the bags under his eyes from the lack of sleep. The rest of my family says the same thing... "he used to go out and play with is friends... now he just talks to them on fortnite... if at all".
He has a stack of games he got this past christmas that he hasn't even opened "because fortnite".
If only they felt the ame way regarding college admissions in the US......
Kids are playing video games more nkw because every time you turn around someone is killing someone else at schools, concerts, or wherever. They go to school now and have to deal with that, having every ridiculous kid thing they say get posted online to shame them, and having the potential of getting some disease because another lunatic parent doesn't "believe" in vaccines.
News reporting and more specific news clickbait hyperboly has ruined society and made people distrust everyone and everything.
Kids playing video games is now very much Ready Player One. ffs
I've heard from colleagues how they struggle with getting their kids off Fortnite to engage in normal social activities, corroborating the article.
I'm torn, because it looks like good fun. And I believe I have a good enough relationship with my children that I could get them to stop without the level of tantrums the article presents. But, it might be one of those "thin end of the wedge" things, so we think it's safest all round to avoid it completely.
Are they missing out on a social aspect where everyone else is talking about it? Probably - but I don't think that's a big enough loss given the reported level of addiction it can generate.
Of course the article presents the worst cases, because the balanced ones (playing for a few hours a week) aren't interesting for an article. It would be useful to see a distribution of time spent in game per week, perhaps for each age demographic, to get a better idea of what's really going on.
biopowered.co.uk - catalytically cracking triglycerides for home automotive use since 2008. Just say no to big oil!
In my day we had Everquest to ruin our lives.
Oh no it's the video game! Video games are bad m'kay!
I mean, it couldn't possibly be that we have an entire generation of parents that can't be bothered to actually do what they're supposed to and be.. you know... parents? Parents have gotten into the habit of treating electronic devices as babysitters. I was in a restaurant the other day and was stuck beside a family with a toddler. The toddler wouldn't stop making a scene until they dropped a tablet in front of them and played some annoying youtube video. I ended up having to move to a different table cause it was so breathtakingly annoying.
It's called disciplining your child. They won't stop play to come eat, you make them stop, by whatever reasonable means necessary. Your children are not your friends. They're your effing children. YOU are responsible for teaching them what it means to be a healthy well-functioning adult. If you can't handle that, then don't have children.
There is literally *always* something for a child to obsess about. Fortnite is nothing special.
But naturally people won't take responsibility for their actions, so "blame everything but me" circlejerk resumes anew.
My daughter is young but she gets .5 - 1 hour of game time max. My wife tries to make that screen time period, but I'm not so heartless. Stop being a little shit and parent your kids. Stop trying to blame it on video games. There are way more addictive and damaging things than video games and your kids are likely to find those as well if you let society babysit them for you.
Hands up if you almost flunked out college because of Diablo II -- and developped a nerve injury as a result that still dogs you 20 years later.
describe an obsession so intense that kids are seeing doctors and therapists to break the game's grip, in some cases losing so much weight -- because they refuse to stop playing to eat
I thought America was facing a childhood obesity crisis, it appears you inadvertently found the solution!!
So why are we not making more kids play Forrtnite? Set a sunlamp next to them and a regulated amount of food within reach to maintain a specific level of body weight, and you'll not have to do anything else with them until they have to move out of the house!
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
But youll have to fly to China for it https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/28/electronic-heroin-china-boot-camps-internet-addicts
This article is meaningless without statistics to back it up and if those stats are any less than 1%, then it would be fairly "normal" abnormal behaviour.
FFS, when I was 13, I pawned my watch & my bicycle and used the proceeds at the local arcade. (Yeah, I'm old).
My folks held back my allowance for six months after going to the pawn shop to get them back.
That solved the problem.
If you're, say, 25 or older, you've probably been socialized enough growing up to at least be less susceptible to it, but if you're younger than that, you've grown up around the cancer we refer to as so-called 'social media', and as such have been spoon-fed the falsehood that 'sharing' on the internet is somehow being 'social', when in fact all it does is give you an excuse to be anti-social, avoiding actual human contact. These days, you could theoretically go through your entire life never having any substantial direct contact with another human being, thanks to 'social media' the Internet in general; you can order literally anything you need to sustain your life right of the internet and have it drop-shipped right to your door and never even have to talk to the delivery person, even, and they're working on eliminating the need for humans to deliver packages, too. Add all this to a popular online multiplayer video game like Fortnight, and of course you end up with people ruining their lives over it. By the way the same thing happened with World of Warcraft, as you may recall, but it's probably even worse this time with Fortnight.
Doesn't matter what the mechanism is that provides the stimulus. Most things can be addictive, provided it turns the screws in the right way and is more or less consistent.
In our neighbourhood/school, I'm seeing kids as young as 7 and 8 playing this game, which just seems too young to me. The excuse you get is, "all their friends are playing it, so I feel like they'll miss out." I have no problem keeping it out of my house. The only gaming system we have is an old Wii, and it's rarely played. None of my kids have told me they feel like they're missing out. Not that we're perfect - they watch too much Netflix.
"I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." - Mark Twain
FFS people, video games are addictive. Are you really this clueless?
love is just extroverted narcissism
Fortnite has Daily quests and seasonal goals to keep you coming back every day and to appear as though you are building towards some long term goal.
Video games are addictive. Addictions, if poorly regulated, lead to a host of social issues. This has been the case since pong and tetris and before. Quarter eaters.
Why are we surprised?
All the advance in psychology, cognitive sciences and AI are put to work to create a game that is addictive. And it worked out pretty good.
That's it.
If you task the best minds to create a weapon of mass destruction, they will do that. If you task the best chemists to create some damn efficient poison, they will do that. If you task the best guys in health and science to create some fatal disease, they sure will do it. This is how it works.
Vajk
in the film "Ready Player One", the end scenes, the new owners of the VR Game decide to shut the entire game down, one day a week.
except, the new owners portray *ethical* responsibility that, unfortunately, would be financially irresponsible as far as the enactment of the Articles of Incorporation of a profit-maximising Corporation. bottom line: if Epic Games actually tried to do something as socially responsible as shut Fornite off for one day a week, their shareholders could legitimately sue them for adversely affecting profits, and the Directors would be prosecuted and struck off as a result.
Speaking of quarter eaters, Perhaps we should swap back to coin operated devices as a fun regulation mechanism.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Blo8XPaLv-8
you won't allow video games in your house.
Their parents not only get to play video games, but they drink a sixpack every night, take various legal opioids, possibly semi-legal pot, and an occasional treat of coke or meth, go to church on Sunday, have one-night-stands to prove to themselves that they're desirable, collect porn by the Terabyte that they'll never have time to watch, blow paychecks at casinos, overeat, check slashdot/reddit/facebook 20 times per day each, and occasionally start a fire or steal something for a little excitement on the side.
They ought to be experts!
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
Won't someone PLEASE think of these useless little cunts? Or can we just depopulate them already?
The Welfare state funds these dregs, and the tax burden required to pay for them dissuades responsible people from reproducing (as much, if at all).
Idiocracy.
My kid's "addicted" - read he loves it. His classmates who live much too far away for any afterschool park time hang out with him on voice chat and they wander around the Fortnite map playing and inventing games to play, some of them just generic "war" some involve building. I listen to them chatting and it sounds just like a playground.
So do all these parents think zoning out in front of generic sitcoms is "better". No, in their day they sat around the kitchen table reading poetry out loud and debating history?
The human brain craves challenges. Fortnight is one.
If we would introduce type type of kids who get addicted to Fortnite to making or programming I expect that they would enjoy it.
Lay off the meth, kid.
Remember 15 years ago when children were dropping out of school "because" of World of Warcraft?
We have to go back
Remember 25 years ago when children had anger issues because of DOOM?
We have to go further
Remember 40 years ago when children were dropping out of school because they felt like outcast in a system that did nothing to help?
Perfect!
"Nope" is not an argument.
I have a 11 year old who is starting to become like this. All he wants to do is hang out on Fortnite with his friends. I set his time limits on xbox but he is less interested in soccer and doesn't want to come up to eat when he is playing. I can see how this can become a huge problem for parents. Especially ones who need to be their kids best friend rather than a parent.
My grandson plays and loves Fortnite. His parents don't let him play long per session and when it's time to do other things (eat, sleep, go somewhere), he simply tells his friends he's gotta go and logs off.
It's called discipline. More parents should look into it.
Yep, these people are surplus population. We don't need this many people on the planet.
Unfortunately there isn't a good way to deal with it. (At least no suggestions I would want to implement)
It's even worse situation in the 3rd world.
Most people aren't strung out on heroin.. But we don't declare "Heroin isn't a problem!". Maybe it's time to understand that, for some people, these games are a problem.. I've read a couple of study blurbs that talked about the link between addiction and serotonin levels in people. These same studies show that, for some people, social media / games / you name it will generate these addictive levels of serotonin. It's a small percentage but so is the percentage for heroin addicts..
Few things in life are YES/NO, BLACK/WHITE, ONE/OTHER. There are shades of grey. Most people do fine with video games.. For some people they become life consuming. I've watched it with my own eyes.. This doesn't mean we have to implement regulations.. But maybe we could fun a couple of really comprehensive studies.. Get all the facts and then decide, as a society, what to do about it..
Standing up and declaring that "video games aren't a problem" might be 99.8% accurate.. But that .2% inaccuracy (if it exists) would affect a HUGE amount of people in a nation as large as the US (or in a collection of nations as large as the EU). If nothing else, it bears further study and perhaps some level of monitoring/data gathering on how many people are being treated for video game addiction (if any) and data of that type..
But, it's pretty hard to have a useful discussion about anything when the data seems to be lacking..
I said forest, and not woods because some wouldn't get it. If you took 3/4 of the kids, between the age of 12-20, stuck them in the middle of the woods with a compass and map, they would die of starvation (not to mention smartphone withdrawal) in about an hour! I'm THANKFUL that I grew up in a world before computers, before the internet, before smartphones. Heck, even kids in smaller cities & towns would probably suffer the same fate! Kids have no real coping skills if something doesn't go their way, in part because their parents let the smartphone be the "babysitter". I've seen it several times in waiting rooms at various places, restaurants etc. Kid starts acting up, hand them the phone. It's a shame kids don't know how to EXPLORE without their $#*(% phone.
A nationwide chain of for-profit fortnight 12-step recovery centers. And a competing chain (run by the same company) doing basically the same thing but without the whole "higher power" stuff. For those who don't buy into spirituality. Why? Because, anything that can be done by recovering addicts trying to help other people recover can also be done by those who are greedy and prescient enough.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
How about parents start parenting instead of letting the Tv, Computer, console parent for them. Such BS, "my child plays too much Fortite and won't listen to me I don't know what to do". Grow a pair and learn to engage with your child and stop making excuses for being a bad parent.
A windshield is a few hundred bucks properly installed.
How is this destroyed?
It's just a bit of damage.
Unfortunately there isn't a good way to deal with it.
In fact, there is a final solution to this problem, but it is wildly unpopular.
Oh No GTA! Oh NO Minecraft! Oh No Dungeons and Dragons! Oh No!
Brought to you by the makers of Russiagate(tm) in association with Jussie Smolett
April fools, motherfuckers!
Have gnu, will travel.
Fortnite has Daily quests and seasonal goals to keep you coming back every day and to appear as though you are building towards some long term goal.
Fortnite is not an rpg. All these quests and goals do is unlock cosmetic items.
It's a skill based game. You can create a new account, go in naked and kick everyone's ass.
Are most people really playing it to collect some limited time skins? Where's fun in that?
In the 1930's B.F. Skinner found that a variable schedule of reinforcement could cause rats to push a lever unto death. In the 1950's an implanted electrode was even more impressively compelling. In the 1970's John B. Calhoun noted modern human behaviors among his rats of NIMH. I recently camped outside a casino in their parking lot and imagined their never-to-be-seen truth-in-advertising sign to read, "WELCOME TO OUR SKINNER BOX RATS OF NIMH!"
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/compass-pleasure_n_890342
http://www.sustainable.soltechdesigns.com/critical-mass.html
As a parent, i have to say: those kids need more present parents.
I wonder if the premise of the South Park episode where every adult was distracted from his real life by playing Read Dead Redemption 2 has any truth to it. I can say that I'm going to play RDR2 some more right after I wrote this comment, but I've never felt inclined to play it like more than 2 hours in succession. Plus it will have a very definite end when the story ends - I'm not playing online, ever.
Well, at least he had an educational opportunity and may have learned something. He hopefully learned that windshields are made of laminated safety glass and are much more difficult to break through with a hammer than the side windows which typically shatter easily because they are made of tempered glass. This will be an important skill to speed his progression through the criminal ranks.
Why is there an "insightful" mod and why isn't it "-1"? If I wanted insight, I wouldn't be reading
I've played Fortnite a few times... I follow the industry, so I know how big it's gotten.
What I don't quite get is whether there's some qualitative difference here between it and -- to pick two random examples -- Evercrack or WoW at their respective peaks. It seems like people are putting in some slight Second Life elements into it, with live concerts and so forth, but isn't that really it? What am I missing?
Or is this next generation now officially Too Young To Remember either of those two games at their peak and we're going to have to go through this whole thing again?
Hire a Linux system administrator, systems engineer,
There were quite a few stories like this in the months after WoW came out. Some adult gamers lost jobs due to addiction.
Homework in school is supposed to implicitly teach kids time management skills. Play games after you've done your homework. Go to bed at a good time so you wake up refreshed in the morning.
The bogeyman has always existed; Once you see him for what he is he just changes his name.
30 years ago, a crack fiend would smash out a car window and steal the stereo for his next hit
40 years ago there were a couple D&D related suicides.
The problem is with the PEOPLE. D&D is just a game, and even a drug like crack is just a pile of atoms. It's how people use/abuse and obsess over these things that causes problems.
If a kid can't handle Fortnite, pull the plug. If the kid is going so far as to smash up your car because his Fortnite fix is locked up in there, maybe it's time to have that kid put in a mental institution.
Where's your proof for that claim?
Parents need to step up and teach their kids some self control or the transition to adult-hood is going to be a rather rough one.
( Already have too many entitled parents producing entitled kiddos who go full stupid if things play out differently than expectations. )
Personally, I would rate-limit or QOS that traffic back to the stone age depending upon how obsessed the kiddo is and how it is impacting them in other areas of their life. ( Grades, etc. ) ( The experience will be awesome at 300 baud :D )
It's a great shooter made by one of the best teams in the business (Unreal Tournament team). The mechanics are solid, and it's a fun game. They do inventive limited time game types (they keep it fresh). But then they slap on meta mechanics that deepen the addictive nature of the game: gambling (random loot boxes), dailies, weeklies, and seasonal 'quests' that just unlock token aesthetic items.
Personally, I don't play it because I waited too long and the core mechanics have a distant skill cap (building magical fortresses instantly, and dropping on your unsuspecting/confused opponent from above with a shotgun) and I have other stuff taking up my time (1000 hours in PUBG, for example). Plus the game was clearly designed for the younger audience (... yadda yadda, I suck at it).
My son plays it. I play it. It drives him crazy that I make it to final survivor more frequently than he does - which is fun in its own right. Then we turn off the Xbox, read, take the dog for a run, y'know, live.
Pythia - Battlestar Galactica : "All of this has happened before, and all of it will happen again"
World of Warcraft: Stayed up, Launch events (IRL, Online), not eaten, bought special edition expansions, guilds, vent, etc. It is all old news.
Space Invaders: hanging out at arcades.
Rock concerts are the devils work
Every generation of game, or fashionable thing has the same problem
we had Nintendo, and folks would get paid bank to play all day... while most of us over near Lake Bill and other offsite locations... slaved away programming all day.. fast forward 30 years.. same game.. same problem.. same attitude... same solution... get a life..
It was two days a week, Tuesday and Thursdays.
Given how I've seen my nephew act when his parents tell him to get off his computer and actually go play with his friends in real life I have to agree that shutting down the Internet even one day a week would be a good thing. Hell's given how much time I spend playing Final Fantasy XIV I think a weekly shutdown would be good thing.
The games/social media/etc.do such a good a job triggering the release of Dopamine in your brain that anyone saying it isn't addictive is deluded.
my US$.02
Fewer concussions, CTE, and steroids isn't dangerous, it's a positive impact.
Now, who could it be? Could it be...SATAN?!
... "glad I had a daughter" column.
Everyone complains about how fat kids are, now they're losing weight and that's a bad thing!
And heaven forbid kids don't play sports, their bodies will remain in decent condition and colleges won't be able to exploit them for money!
My little sister was obsessed witn Nintendo back in the day. She would also scream and cry like a toddler throwing a tantrum whenever Mario died. I would run around the corner and laugh my ass off at the 10 year old who reacted this way.
Is there a point to this story? - Maybe not, or maybe it means that parents need to recognise when their progeny is too obsessed with something and take action.
Remember the witch hunts for 'Goths' and gamers right after Columbine? This was so the cunts who ran the foul system could keep the spotlight off themselves. And for good reason- because if any real justice was served, there would have been school administrators, teachers, and other 'good people' sharing a cell with Bubba.
Seriously? Blaming video games for your shitty parenting? Jesus, when will the ad nauseaum attacks end? It wasn't video games the last 20 times, and it's not video games now. Raise your fucking children or sterilize.
So what happens when Fortnite goes belly up and the little tykes lose all of their virtual baubles? Are parents prepared to handle their reactions?
Its a problem for a million if that families across the planet. That's a parental problem not a game problem.
You're the one who was trying to be pendatic enough to put the goddamned name in ITALICS like you're writing a goddamned research paper for goddamning English Lit, godammit!
It's the person who consumes the video games.
Yes, I never understood what people have against education.
What is best in life? Hot water, good dentishtry and shoft lavatory paper.
There is no such thing as 'addiction'. Read 'The myth of addiction' and 'Addiction is a choice' first.
This is just a symptom of an underlying problem, as are all so-called 'addictions'. These children obviously enjoy playing Fortnite more than doing other things. Personally I gave up playing games decades ago, no spare time, got bored of them very quickly, and so on.
Now it's Fortnite, before it it was another game like world of warcraft etc. This isn't anything new, and has been happening since the introduction of the home videogames..
Unfortunately there isn't a good way to deal with it.
In fact, there is a final solution to this problem, but it is wildly unpopular.
ww3 should thin the numbers quite significantly.
Wanna buy a shirt?
https://www.redbubble.com/people/stealthfinger/shop?asc=u
when its a good game. Fortnite is just bad though.
A lot of people are hoping for delicious Soylent Green.
"We have one kid who destroyed the family car because he thought his parents had locked his device inside," Rich said. "He took a hammer to the windshield."
This kid was going to develop serious problems even if he never touched a video game in his life.
The cure for America's childhood obesity problem has accidentally been found. Fortnight battle royals was launched quietly to the public.