3 ms·

Can you elaborate on how video games are more detrimental to human wellness than certain drugs?

by rudiger 14y ago

jballanc 14y ago
Many video games these days are designed as Skinner Boxes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_box). Drugs have some of the same effects, but their addictive powers are often limited by adverse side effects (e.g. get too drunk, you vomit) and the build up of tolerance (e.g. a heroin addict continually needs bigger doses for the same effect). Since video games play directly on psychological reward centers, they can push a person much farther into a response/reward cycle than drugs can.
drivebyacct2 14y ago
What a weird and incredibly false dichotomy. I smoke a bunch of pot, play a bunch of Halo, have had internships with 3 major corporations, worked as an independent contractor last summer and have a 6-figure job lined up when I graduate. On top of working 12 hours a week with 15-18 credit hours during my Junior and Senior year, I also have 5 side projects that will either make nice additions to my open source portfolio or could potentially become products if I gave them the attention they need. I think ZephyrP is blinded by his good fortune to not understand that: one, software developers are in crazy demand compared to, for example, "creative writers"; and two, that the economy IS quite bad right now and that this is a generalized extension of the unemployment problems across the country. That having been said, when it comes to things like video games and drugs, I think Zephyr's point about "you have to make your own luck" logic is right (granted I have no idea why there is a pot-shot in there about video games). A person's work ethic is the root cause and "video games" and "drugs" are silly remarks for people that don't understand or see that there are plenty of us who can indulge and still live perfectly productive lives. Further, I don't know of any indication that "video game" playing is trading off with employment. At all. On the other hand, there are probably thousands of statisticians and economists who could give you very specific reasons for the downturn in employment and show a trend that will probably make it's way across all segments of society including college grads. Also, people need to understand that they need marketable degrees and they need to understand that employers are learning that all degrees are not equal and you ABSOLUTELY MUST have the skills that your degree assert and you must be able to communicate well and articulate why you deserve a job.
- ZephyrP 14y ago
  You're right, it's somewhat unfair of me to demonize video games. I most certainly did not mean to demonize drugs, our society places an unfair stigma on them that is entirely a result of some rather ancient belief systems. To be direct, I take this pot shot at video games because I see so many peers, filled with unbelievable intelligence, ambition and ideas waste everything they can give the world and themselves by spending their lives in front of video games. Video games are not bad, they are an interesting artform and provide unique cultural dialog. They are however something that people have moved beyond using to relax, contemplate or fill the boring spaces in their life, it becomes them. As the other poster stated, because of their reward systems they can suck very intelligent people incredibly deep into what amounts to a terrible vice.
  - drivebyacct2 14y ago
    I think I agree with you about human behavior and things being drains on peoples' productivity, but frankly I'm sure not if it's anywhere near "big enough" to be relevant in this particular conversation. I have some friends that are extremely intelligent that fall into "addictive ruts" that I think cater to their ADD. In my opinion, it's embarrassing for them (the ones I have in mind) because they run their mouths about these big ideas and then play "Tiny Tower" on their iPad (which I suppose qualifies as a video game) and don't really excel as much as they could. I mean, they're doing fine for themselves but I'm floored at how I can write 500 lines of code for something and they've not moved from their chair/iPad. At the end of it all though, I still don't see anything to make me believe that this is unique to our generation. Anything can and often is a distraction, whether it's video games, drinking, being out doors. I know people that fail classes they were more interested in their rec football game than studying. I don't think these things account for this enormous gap in employment. I'm just imagining the line-graph of "overall unemployment in the US", on top of the linge-graph of "job availability in the US". I'm sure if you placed the graph of "college grads with jobs exiting college" you would find a very large correlation between these three graphs.

Can you elaborate on how video games are more detrimental to human wellness than certain drugs?

by rudiger 14y ago

Can you elaborate on how video games are more detrimental to human wellness than certain drugs?

Many video games these days are designed as Skinner Boxes (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_box http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skinner_box). Drugs have some of the same effects, but their addictive powers are often limited by adverse side effects (e.g. get too drunk, you vomit) and the build up of tolerance (e.g. a heroin addict continually needs bigger doses for the same effect). Since video games play directly on psychological reward centers, they can push a person much farther into a response/reward cycle than drugs can.

drivebyacct2 14y ago

What a weird and incredibly false dichotomy. I smoke a bunch of pot, play a bunch of Halo, have had internships with 3 major corporations, worked as an independent contractor last summer and have a 6-figure job lined up when I graduate. On top of working 12 hours a week with 15-18 credit hours during my Junior and Senior year, I also have 5 side projects that will either make nice additions to my open source portfolio or could potentially become products if I gave them the attention they need. I think ZephyrP is blinded by his good fortune to not understand that: one, software developers are in crazy demand compared to, for example, "creative writers"; and two, that the economy IS quite bad right now and that this is a generalized extension of the unemployment problems across the country. That having been said, when it comes to things like video games and drugs, I think Zephyr's point about "you have to make your own luck" logic is right (granted I have no idea why there is a pot-shot in there about video games). A person's work ethic is the root cause and "video games" and "drugs" are silly remarks for people that don't understand or see that there are plenty of us who can indulge and still live perfectly productive lives. Further, I don't know of any indication that "video game" playing is trading off with employment. At all. On the other hand, there are probably thousands of statisticians and economists who could give you very specific reasons for the downturn in employment and show a trend that will probably make it's way across all segments of society including college grads. Also, people need to understand that they need marketable degrees and they need to understand that employers are learning that all degrees are not equal and you ABSOLUTELY MUST have the skills that your degree assert and you must be able to communicate well and articulate why you deserve a job.

ZephyrP 14y ago
You're right, it's somewhat unfair of me to demonize video games. I most certainly did not mean to demonize drugs, our society places an unfair stigma on them that is entirely a result of some rather ancient belief systems. To be direct, I take this pot shot at video games because I see so many peers, filled with unbelievable intelligence, ambition and ideas waste everything they can give the world and themselves by spending their lives in front of video games. Video games are not bad, they are an interesting artform and provide unique cultural dialog. They are however something that people have moved beyond using to relax, contemplate or fill the boring spaces in their life, it becomes them. As the other poster stated, because of their reward systems they can suck very intelligent people incredibly deep into what amounts to a terrible vice.
- drivebyacct2 14y ago
  I think I agree with you about human behavior and things being drains on peoples' productivity, but frankly I'm sure not if it's anywhere near "big enough" to be relevant in this particular conversation. I have some friends that are extremely intelligent that fall into "addictive ruts" that I think cater to their ADD. In my opinion, it's embarrassing for them (the ones I have in mind) because they run their mouths about these big ideas and then play "Tiny Tower" on their iPad (which I suppose qualifies as a video game) and don't really excel as much as they could. I mean, they're doing fine for themselves but I'm floored at how I can write 500 lines of code for something and they've not moved from their chair/iPad. At the end of it all though, I still don't see anything to make me believe that this is unique to our generation. Anything can and often is a distraction, whether it's video games, drinking, being out doors. I know people that fail classes they were more interested in their rec football game than studying. I don't think these things account for this enormous gap in employment. I'm just imagining the line-graph of "overall unemployment in the US", on top of the linge-graph of "job availability in the US". I'm sure if you placed the graph of "college grads with jobs exiting college" you would find a very large correlation between these three graphs.