Violence in video games

[One Bad Pig]

Again, that's a behavioral problem and not a dependency.

Oh, that makes it MUCH better.

[KingsGambit]

Given that most people on this site seem to be avid gamers, there seems to be an understandable difficulty in viewing the subject from a detached POV

And I totally get that most gamers don't have any real problems. That doesn't mean that I don't still think gaming is a net negative for society.

[Juvenal]

Me, Personally? I love me some Video Games. I picked up a controller when I was 2, and I haven't put it down since.

I'm a touch typist, and I'm forever correcting my typos.

Enter CV, posting with his elbows.

[Darth Executor]

Given that most people on this site seem to be avid gamers, there seems to be an understandable difficulty in viewing the subject from a detached POV

And I totally get that most gamers don't have any real problems. That doesn't mean that I don't still think gaming is a net negative for society.

There isn't much to discuss when your side almost instantly retreated from "violence in videogames" to "videogames are addictive" after the former topic turned out to be overwhelmingly a dud. It's obv you have a chip on your shoulder about the subject matter and I think you're just projecting that on us.

[KingsGambit]

There isn't much to discuss when your side almost instantly retreated from "violence in videogames" to "videogames are addictive" after the former topic turned out to be overwhelmingly a dud. It's obv you have a chip on your shoulder about the subject matter and I think you're just projecting that on us.

Meh, my general theme was "video games are bad", but they had to give the thread some sort of title when it got split off, so violence it was.

[Mountain Man]

Oh, that makes it MUCH better.

I never said or implied that one was "better" than the other, you simpering boor, but the first step towards finding solutions is to correctly identify the problem.

[Mountain Man]

Given that most people on this site seem to be avid gamers, there seems to be an understandable difficulty in viewing the subject from a detached POV

And I totally get that most gamers don't have any real problems. That doesn't mean that I don't still think gaming is a net negative for society.

Gaming only? Or are there other forms of entertainment that you feel similarly about?

[Juvenal]

I never said or implied that one was "better" than the other, you simpering boor, but the first step towards finding solutions is to correctly identify the problem.

*boar

[rogue06]

I'm a touch typist, and I'm forever correcting my typos.

Enter CV, posting with his elbows.

Don't be silly. CV does not type with his elbows

texting.jpg
Actual pix of him posting

Smiley squirrel.gif XXXXXXXXXXXXX HAPPY SQUIRREL APPRECIATION DAY!! XXXXXXXXXXXXX Smiley squirrel.gif

[KingsGambit]

Gaming only? Or are there other forms of entertainment that you feel similarly about?

I'm focusing on gaming here. I've gone on record elsewhere as having a jaundiced eye toward the film industry because the early Christians refused to participate in the theater, but that's not my focus here.

[Mountain Man]

*boar

I had considered that.

[Mountain Man]

I'm focusing on gaming here. I've gone on record elsewhere as having a jaundiced eye toward the film industry because the early Christians refused to participate in the theater, but that's not my focus here.

People always look to blame the latest technology or innovation for society's problems, but that's shortsighted. I recall a picture years ago with the caption "Remember in the days before cell phones when people didn't ignore each other in public?" Below was a picture from the 1930s showing a long line of people waiting at a bus stop, each one with his face buried in a newspaper.

[KingsGambit]

People always look to blame the latest technology or innovation for society's problems, but that's shortsighted. I recall a picture years ago with the caption "Remember in the days before cell phones when people didn't ignore each other in public?" Below was a picture from the 1930s showing a long line of people waiting at a bus stop, each one with his face buried in a newspaper.

I don't think that's an apt comparison because newspapers are not immersive in the same way video games are. There's never been a medical debate over the addictiveness of newspapers, for instance.

[lilpixieofterror]

Given that most people on this site seem to be avid gamers, there seems to be an understandable difficulty in viewing the subject from a detached POV

And I totally get that most gamers don't have any real problems. That doesn't mean that I don't still think gaming is a net negative for society.

I just base it on the evidence I see I haven’t found gaming, in of itself, to be any worse than social media or movies.

[Mountain Man]

I don't think that's an apt comparison because newspapers are not immersive in the same way video games are. There's never been a medical debate over the addictiveness of newspapers, for instance.

You seem to have missed the point. I think what happens is that people see human behavior that they perceive as undesirable and then look for a recent phenomenon to blame it on. My example was about how people claim that cell phones have made people less social when the fact is that people, at least in America, have always been a bit anti-social in general, especially around large groups of people that they don't know.

This isn't the exact imagine I was referring to, but it makes the same point:

1*U36hBj8i-C7JJJxS4MP2HQ.jpeg

So someone decided that being anti-social when among the general public is bad. They look around and see all these people with their heads down looking at their cell phones and reason that, "If being anti-social is bad, and if cell phones are making people anti-social, then cell phones are bad." I wonder if anybody was making the same claims about the newspaper printing press back in the day?

People+read+their+morning+newspapers+on+New+York%27s+subway+en+route+to+work%2C+1963.jpg

So as this relates to video games, is there some undesirable social behavior that only exists or is on the rise because of video games, or has the behavior always existed (like people being anti-social in the days before cell phones), and busy-bodies are putting the blame on video games the same way they once blamed radio programs, and comic books, and rock-n-roll, and Dungeons & Dragons for similar societal problems? Seems like instead of looking for solutions, they're just looking for something new to blame for problems that appear to have always existed.