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My brother who was intellectually handicapped chose a similar escape from society. He died in his twenties of a pulmonary embolism. It was likely caused by a la
by marbm 8y ago
My brother who was intellectually handicapped chose a similar escape from society. He died in his twenties of a pulmonary embolism. It was likely caused by a lack of exercise due to his excessive gaming habit.
- thanatropism 8y agoThis this. An important counterpoint. Heavy multiplayer gaming is just coming into the mainstream. I never even got into it for its unsavory vibe, much like I never got into one-armed bandits and weed. I knew early alarmist reports were wrong, but speedy mainstreamization (along the lines of what's going on with weed too) is bound to erase previous criticism. Despite not being a gamer this story touched me -- enough that it made me suspend the slower more rational critical "loop" temporarily. But people do get disable kids all the time, a cousin just got an autism diagnosis for her nonverbal 3-year old; and it's not good to enter gaming into the annals of it-can't-harm-at-least alternative medicine.
- pawelmurias 8y agoMost mobile games are actually one-armed bandits in disguise.
- sago 8y agoI know criticism is rarely nuanced online, and it can unhelpfully trigger people's fight response. So I hope this doesn't come across as vicious, but: > people do get disable kids all the time struck me (a profoundly disabled person) as very dehumanizing. I regularly trade quality for quantity of life. Socialising in ways that allow ways of relating I otherwise cannot access is not 'alternative medicine', it is living. I respectfully suggest a bit more humility. Listen to disabled gamers before you firm up your opinion.
- stan_rogers 8y agoWhen the point being discussed is parental strategies and choices, referring to the parent rather than the child isn't dehumanizing.
- thanatropism 8y agoBut as you see from responses and down votes even raising questions is frowned upon now. (Racists and other bad-faith actors may have ruined the "can't even raise the question" routine. It's unfortunate -- we're quickly losing the ability to think critically; and you know what the great men have said about the unexamined life.)
- dizzi90 8y agoThere is lots of room for cognitive dissonance here. The article hardly claims that gaming is a universally GoodThing(tm). Rather that it isn't universally a bad one. In my reading, nuance seems to be the very point.