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The Media Entertainment Games

Games Are Not Drugs 90

Posted by Zonk from the as-an-ex-chicagoan-i-am-not-surprised dept.
Kyle Orland has a considered look at some more poor reporting on gaming in the mainstream media. This time it's Chicago's WGN, and a weak report about the 'medical dangers of gameplaying'. From the article: "Sorry, but isn't this how rebellious teenagers have been acting for generations? I'd challenge the reporter to find a adolescent child whose hormones don't make them act this way at some point. I'd also like them to explain how playing fun games fails to make a child 'fun-loving' (or show some evidence that any of these children were 'family-focused' and 'totally different kids' before being exposed to the evil of games). And while it's regretful that the three children that are the focus of the story have a mother who says 'it felt like I really couldn't connect with them' it seems a bit much to blame video game for the generation gap that inevitably develops once a child passes the age of, oh, eight." Kotaku also has a nice deconstruction of the piece on journalism grounds.
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Games Are Not Drugs

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  • Damnit (Score:1)

    by suso ( 153703 ) *
    Why'd have to tell me that.

  • Huh? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by kaldrenon ( 954188 ) <kaldrenon@gmail.com> on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:13PM (#14794824) Homepage Journal
    I'm pretty sure this post's title is self-explanatory. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably either crazy or just very badly misled.

    • Re:Huh? (Score:2)

      by Surt ( 22457 )
      ... or are on drugs or play games.
    • I'm pretty sure this post's title is self-explanatory. Anyone who thinks otherwise is probably either crazy or just very badly misled.

      Yeah! They should know better. I mean, games aren't drugs.

      They're porn! [slashdot.org]

    • ........A simple counter to the mainstream news' report is counter-claiming that the news is addictive, since many people get upset and agitated without knowing what's going on, and even (gasp) pay lots of money to get their fix (magazine susbscriptions, cable bills, buying newspapers etc).

      It's just the same logic that led them (the mainstream media) to say that games are like drugs....

  • I'd probably still be playing my xbox regularly.

  • Books are not drugs (Score:2, Insightful)

    by keldog42 ( 956510 )
    On a related note:
    Books are not drugs
    Movies are not drugs
    TV is not drugs
    Spatulas are not drugs
    Garden gnomes are not drugs
    Drugs are not drugs... no, wait...
    • TV is not drugs

      You've probably never seen a 3 year old child watching Dora the Explorer. The similarity between them and a heroin addic getting their fix is spooky.
      • I was referring to the literal meaning of this figurative statement. I agree with you entirely. Everything on my list is exteremly addictive including (and especially) the garden gnome.
    • Your comment is funny, but there is a grim truth to it. There are so many researchers who, presumably to secure funding or make headlines, make totally misleading statements like "reading stimulates the reward centers of the brain just like heroin does".

      Hans Olav Fekjær, chief medical officer at Blue Cross in Oslo (Blue Cross helps people with various addictions), wrote an article debunking such spurious drug-comparisons. I've been sufficiently annoyed by "TV/garden gnomes are like drugs" claims that I
      • I definitely agree. I wanted to show the obsurdity of the situation with that comment. Anything can be considered "addicting", but we tend to focus on the hot button topics like video games. Thanks for linking to that translated article. I hope some people get some insight from it.
  • They often times can be as if not more so addicting than drugs. See recovering evercrack addicts and world of warcraft addicts.
    • That isn't the game that is addictive, humans are pretty much hardwired to continue activities that grant a random reward. See slot machines for the same principle (there isn't even much fun except the occasional reward).
      • Interesting point, I must be hardwired for known rewards that I must work very hard for. See Civilization series of games.

    • BS (Score:3, Insightful)

      by PhoenixOne ( 674466 )
      Maybe some people have a hard time giving up their WoW or EQ accounts, but this isn't the same sort of addiction that you get from drugs. Comparing the two is not helpful for game players *OR* drug addicts ("Why can't you give up Meth? I stopped playing EQ.").

      • I'm not so sure. I remember in college when I was first exposed to Quake...man I could think of nothing else for weeks, when I wasn't playing it I was thinking about it. It was more addicting for me than alcohol, sex, or gambling.
        • So how bad was the shaking, nausea, and palpitations when you kicked your dangerous Quake habit?

          I'm not saying you can't become addicted to games. You can become addicted to *anything* (food, water, sex, sun-light, driving fast, ...). But it isn't the same thing as a drug addition.

    • I can vouch for this. One of my relatives is hopelessly addicted to WoW - he doesn't sleep and often forgets to eat because he's playing that stupid game.

      He ignores his friends and family, who have in return given up on him, and neglects all responsibility except for work. Even then, he only gets a couple of hours of sleep a night, and is so exhausted that his mom has to do everything for him - she wakes him up, gets his clothes ready for him, gives him some food, and then drives him to work. He's even g
      • As a World of Warcraft player (and a former obsessive player of other games, mainly MUDs), I agree that such games can be addictive. However, personally, I have found that their most addictive qualities are actually also found in more "wholesome" media.

        There are really two things that draw me to games like WoW: one is that I get to forget reality for a while, immerse myself in a fantasy world, and become whoever I want. The other is the social nature of the game.

        I can get the first of these two things fro
      • I used to be like that, for years in fact. It wasn't the fault of the mmorpgs I played (Dark Age of Camelot and WoW) though. It was the rest of my life. During the process, I went through mental institutions and a lot of doctor visits and wound up with an Asperger's Syndrome diagnosis. That only made me want to escape my life more into a life where I was successful and popular, away from being a basement dweller who'd barely touched a girl. All the while I knew exactly who stupid I was being but actually tu
    • They often times can be as if not more so addicting than drugs. See recovering evercrack addicts and world of warcraft addicts.

      That's really an issue of willpower though, as opposed to an actual physical addiction. Similar to the "addiction" to marijuana as opposed to other drugs that are actually physically addictive (heroin, cocaine, etc). There isn't really any physical addictivness to marijuana, but there's a psychological one possibly... it's just up to the individual to exert their will to control t
  • Kyle Orland is right to catch this as sensationalist media pap, but there is another issue with videogames and human development that I think is more important and substantial: the way that games, in conjunction with other media, have affected the nature of attention, protention, and concentration, and how these changes affect the ability for certain types of interior experience (aesthetic, moral, philosophical). Not that it creates amoral psychotics, but I would, casually, make the following observations:

    A
    • *puts on grammer natzi badge* defintion:
      that is not a word!
      • It is a real word, just a specialized one from philosophy and the psychology of attention: it refers to a type of attention oriented toward the future. It is the complement to "retention."

        And it is, indeed, in my Oxford English Dictionary, albeit as the 'alternative' - that is, American - spelling of the British-styled "protension". I'm afraid the online dictionaries, like Orwell's Newspeak, do not list many of the more specialized terms.

        From the New Shorter OED: "3a. Extension in time, duration. b. In phen

    • Visually, we do not interact with aesthetic objects the way we used to: the ability to appreciate much great painting requires a kind of dogged patience, a kind of restraint, that is very inconsistent with videogame thinking. (This is why I think that videogame aesthetics is almost - almost - a contradiction.) Likewise with literature, etc.

      That depends on your definition of great art ("high" art) and why you consider it important. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the quality of art is always relativ

      • Dammit, that's the 2nd time in two days I forgot to put in paragraph tags.

        **le sigh** Here's how that' supposed to look:

        That depends on your definition of great art ("high" art) and why you consider it important. Personally, I'm of the opinion that the quality of art is always relative, and that it depends on the observer to determine if the piece is great to them or not. Some pieces speak out to a lot of people. Others do not. If a piece does not speak to a new generation, that is not a loss of society. I
        • **le sigh**

          Never before have I seen such a small phrase adequately convey such an insane amount of arrogance. You've not only taken the cake, you've shredded the recipe and killed the chef. Congratulations.
          • Even though the grandparent poster was responding critically to my post, I have to defend him in this: his "le sigh" was self-directed at his own formatting problems, not at me.

            I remain skeptical about the expressive possibilities (as distinct from the creative possibilities) of games-as-games (the "game-ish" parts of games, rather than the games as containers for stories, visual art and landscapes, etc.) And I believe that a generation that plays games in lieu of a significant informal education in literat
            • I have been hearing more and more about how video games are somehow inherently less expressive then fixed media (like books, 'high' art, etc) and I am not sure how accurate it really is. In a way, a video game is potentially far more expressive due to it's interactive nature compared to purely unidirrectional flow of information. Granted, it DOES give the creater less control over the exchange... which makes me wonder if this argument is born more of artists fearing loss of control more then anything else
        • Where I disagree is the assumption that the "container" or "delivery mechanism" is neutral. The kind of attention and focus you give to games is so starkly different than the attention you give to other media, that I really don't think the same kind of signs - the representations, the scale of experience - really gets through. Playing a game as a game (as distinct from, say, cut-scenes) moves you to an operational, problem-solving, systematic mode of interaction - which in its way is fine, and can even be c
    • I tried to read yur post, but I kept drifting off. Hmm, what am I typing? Must get to next lvl, earn food pellet [drool]. Flashy gfx, sound fx, zzzz....

      Seriously, video games are an artistic medium not unlike any other. How many teens do you know sit and contemplate fine art, or remain pensive when dealt life's great mysteries? The ones I know read pulp novels, stare blankly at MTV, or appreciate MC Escher because it looks cool on Acid. Pulp games are no different; they are targetted at this audience.

  • Not so oblig. Fear and loathing (Score:1, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We were somewhere around Barstow, on the edge of the desert, when half life 2 began to take hold...
  • This is why I don't watch the news. I'm sure there is some good information in their nightly broadcast, but it is covered in sensationalized Bull Crap. At best it is sick entertainment (like watching a car wreck), at worse they are twisting your view on how things really are:

    You can't change the world
    But you can change the facts
    And when you change the facts
    You change points of view
    If you change points of view
    You may change a vote
    And when you change a vote
    You may change the world
    - Depeche Mode

    • Seems like the other parts of the song are more topical:

      "Sex jibe husband murders wife
      Bomb blast victim fights for life
      Girl, thirteen, attacked with knife
      Princess Di is wearing a new dress

      "Jet airliner shot from sky
      Famine horror, millions die
      Earthquake terror, figures rise
      Princess Di is wearing a new dress

      "In black townships, fires blaze
      Prospects better, Premiere says
      Within sight are golden days
      Princess Di is wearing a new dress"

  • It's a downhill spiral. (Score:3, Funny)

    by bluemeep ( 669505 ) <bluemeep@gmail . c om> on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:24PM (#14794934) Homepage
    First they get hooked on the Space Invaders, then they start playing the Dungeons & Dragons game, listening to the Rock and Roll music and reading comic books! Our children will be rife with disobedience, leather jackets and sassback!
    • First they get hooked on the Space Invaders, then they start playing the Dungeons & Dragons game, listening to the Rock and Roll music and reading comic books! Our children will be rife with disobedience, leather jackets and sassback!

      Hmmm...does this apply to my life?

      Space Invaders? Check

      D&D? Check

      Rock and Roll? Is it still called that anymore? Check

      Comic Books? Check

      OMG, that means I'm a rebel! Kiss my butt you establishment-worshipper! Power to the People!

  • Kotaku also has a nice deconstruction of the piece on journalism grounds.

    I expected to follow that link and get some incomprehensible humanities mush [ucl.ac.be] that tries to prove the original article means the exact opposite of what it says, because the subtext of the patriarchal influence that the interloquitor experiences is Hagelian in its existentialism... or some bullshit like that.

    No, it's pretty much a straight-up rebuttal. How banal in its bourgoise-logic encased cogitation. How pedestrian!

  • No? Um, hey, let go. You said you're not addicted, so put down the controller for three weeks.

    Hello?

    Guess he was addicted to gaming.
    • Sarcasm perhaps, but that's a pretty bad test. I'm sure they could do it, but there's simply no reason. Replace it with something else you have no need of, but that doesn't have any negative consequences: perhaps you read lots of books. Could you stop? Sure, but why?

      Many drugs (especially those that the media's trying to draw connections to) have major negative consequences. Gaming simply doesn't (except in the extremes, but then so does anything).
  • i dont get the big deal..
    if at all games r like 'drugs', so what???
    alcohol is like drugs, u gonna ban it??
    gambling is like drugs, u gonna ban it??
    recently there was another /. article that computer addictions getting high, u gonna ban it??
    comon ppl wake up, games are like good drugs, making you strong (in terms of reflexes, & other common sense stuff)
    for instance, Did anybody notice that game players are better drivers in real world, & they know to keep watch on other cars while on road,

  • Drugs is a misused word in the english language (Score:4, Insightful)

    by vertinox ( 846076 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:43PM (#14795115)
    Drugs used to mean medication and it still does.

    But mostly people refer to drugs as a bad thing.

    Like "He is on drugs" or "She gives special favors for drugs" when the meaning could be just about someone having to take allergy drugs or aids drugs or some one take a pharmacy drug for medical reasons.

    One can't go about and say "That guy is addicted to AIDs drugs" because he'd most likley die without them.

    However, because some medical drugs like morphine and cocaine turned out to be addicted, we ended up referring to them as a bad thing. Then we started calling things that were not medical drugs as drugs. You know... LSD and pot... While not calling tobacco and beer drugs.

    I mean, one does not smoke tobacco and drink beer for cure ailments... Well maybe I do, but I don't expect medical benefits or a doctors prescription to buy a six pack. Now back to my point...

    Because people who speak english have a bad habbit of making analogies like how a car engine is like Microsoft windows, we eventually started referring to anything addicting to be akin to drug use.

    The truth of the matter is, anything can be addicting:

    You know like breathing air and clean water.
    Religion can be addicting.
    Sex can be addicting.
    Reading books can be addicting.
    Exercise can be addicting.
    Eating and sitting on the coach can be addicting.
    Playing poker can be addicting.
    Posting on slashdot can be addicting.
    Sleeping can be addicting.
    Doing nothing can be addicting
    Doing everything can be addicting.

    Any activity that stimulates the brain can cause an addiction. That is all there is to it. Some activities are more addicting than others and some habbits are harder to break than others.

    However, this has nothing to do with drugs.

    Certain drugs do give a euphoria or a brain stimulas that cannot be acheived otherwise and many people can get addicted because they haven't felt anything like it before and just want to do nothing but doing that.

    While, most other activities that do not affect the mind directly with a chemical injested stimulus can be walked away from.

    Well... At least until my Xbox720 or Playstation 4 has a direct neural interface into my brain via a cybernetic jack.
    • English is an infinitely flexible language, and I think you overlook something here.

      In modern usage, what has happened is that narcotics and hallucinogenics such as Opium, Pot, Cocaine, LSD, etc. are commonly referred to as drugs, with an implicit chemically addictive component. Anything taken as a prescription or for medical purposes is called what it is - a medication, often short-handed as "meds".

      Common usage is far more flexible and faster to react than any dictionary out there. You can't call a change
      • There's nothing addictive about LSD, and cannabis is less addictive than caffeine. Addictiveness has nothing to do with whether something gets labeled as "drug" or not.
      • In modern usage, what has happened is that narcotics and hallucinogenics such as Opium, Pot, Cocaine, LSD, etc. are commonly referred to as drugs, with an implicit chemically addictive component. Anything taken as a prescription or for medical purposes is called what it is - a medication, often short-handed as "meds".

        Ah, so then by that logic "drug stores" really are primarily intended to serve as distribution networks for pseudoephedrine for use in the manufacture of illegal drugs! I knew it!

        On a serious n

    • However, because some medical drugs like morphine and cocaine turned out to be addicted, we ended up referring to them as a bad thing.

      You don't know your history very well.

      Back in the day, yes, cocaine and opiates were easily bought at the local pharmacy, but that isn't the end of the story.

      Lots of heavy duty tranquilizers and painkillers were routinely overperscribed. People back then wanted an escape & it came in the form of drugs.

      Cocaine wasn't truly demonized until it got associated with "the Negro

    • >Drugs used to mean medication and it still does.

      >But mostly people refer to drugs as a bad thing.

      No. A "drug" is something which has a lethal dosage. (Let me repeat that: *all* drugs have a lethal dosage.) In other words, if you keep on increasing the dosage, it will eventually kill you. So yes, even the drugs that are used for good things are bad for you.. just not always. Sometimes they can help. If you don't overdose. Which is why we have something called a "prescription".

      By the way, my dictionary
  • That Evercrack is not a drug? Why do all my friends turn into zombies after playing that game for 12 hours a day?

  • Comment removed (Score:3, Interesting)

    by account_deleted ( 4530225 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @01:56PM (#14795241)
    Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • How would life be if the world smoked weed?
      Guaranteed there'd be peace not greed

      --Kottonmouth Kings, Peace Not Greed

  • Games are good for people (Score:3, Insightful)

    by egarland ( 120202 ) on Friday February 24, 2006 @02:08PM (#14795371)
    There has been this huge backlash against video games ever since doctors started blaming them for childhood obesity (because they didn't want to face the real reasons) and parents started blaming them for badly behaved kids (because they didn't want to face the real reasons). Gaming is an easy scapegoat and punching bag but if you look at it carefully, it's usually great for those who play.

    Good games teach mental agility, strategic thinking, problem solving, and some even teach some light programming skills (macros in the old QuakeWorld and in WoW). There are twitchy games like fighting games that aren't necessarily that good for your brain but even they have evolved the complexity that requires strategic thought to be good at them.

    Just like with any artistic media though, parents need to re-enforce positive messages and discourage negative ones. The problem is many parents treat games as these foreign alien things that it's not their job to have any interaction with. It's kinda like dropping your kid in front of pay-per-view and not paying any attention to what movies they choose to watch. Not a great idea.

    Parents need to sit their butts down, pick up the controller, and beat some monsters with their kids. And when the game's plot starts moving into pushing drugs and slaughtering police.. they need to express disgust. It's a rare teachable moment, and if you aren't there, they aren't learning your values, they are learning lord of the flies style.

    Parents with badly behaved kids need to understand that if the "real rules" are fair and consistent, kids will follow them. They also need to understand that the real rules aren't what you say they are, they are what you enforce. For example, saying "turn that off in 15 minutes or I'll take it away for a week" and then saying it again in half an hour means the real rule is "Ignore them and we do what we want" and every time you do that you reinforce that rule. Pay attention to what the real rules are and make sure they are fair and consistent. With games, making them fair usually means not making the end of play time based. "15 minutes then shut it off" is rarely fair except for the most twitchy stateless games. Most parents don't bother to understand the games their kids are playing enough to set realistic rules. Setting an arbitrary time like that in a game where it's not appropriate is not fair. If a kid's been working towards something for 2 hours and has 5 minutes left until they achieve a goal, coming in and pulling the plug is cruel. It's like walking into a room where kids are building something and stomping all over it, destroying it, and kicking them out. To be fair you often have to understand the game and that's more work than parents often want to do. "You can play until this map is done." "Go straight to a save point right now without doing anything else." "You have 5 minutes, tell the rest of the party to find a replacement, kill the next boss, then hearth." Those are all much more appropriate rules and will help children feel respected and understood. Monitoring that they aren't abusing those rules is harder than looking at your watch every time a commercial comes on though so parents often don't bother.

    That said.. exercise is important for kids too, especially young ones, so don't let them hide in the basement playing games every day either. A little moderation is warrented.
    • Some games directly teach programming skills, like Sierra's Dr. Brain series [wikipedia.org].
    • "There has been this huge backlash against video games ever since doctors started blaming them for childhood obesity"

      I agree with you on that one! I play video games all the time, and I'm skinny as fuck!

      Well yeah, I don't eat alot. If you don't eat alot and play video games all day you won't get any bigger.

      Yeah, it's the food you eat that makes you fat, not the video games you play, you stupid muthafuckas!!!

  • Seems like a bit of a straw man setup to me. Of course games are not drugs, the association is entirely due to the likelyhood of becoming addicted. But how long are we going to blame the capitalist for finding a good market, and creating a good offering, instead of holding an individual responsible for his own behavior?

    A prime example, from world of warcrack, is the pvp honor grind. The game holds 14 ranks in pvp, each week one's standing in overall honor point gain is used to determine
    • A prime example, from the real world, is the political honor grind. The real world holds 4 ranks in politics, each week one's standing in overall honor point gain is used to determine if they gain or lose progress in these ranks. Rank 4, the coveted President, can only be held at any one time by 1 person.

      The result? Fierce competition. People spending 16 hours a day farming for political honor. People ignoring jobs, school, families, for a chance to succeed in reaching rank 4. A
  • I would guess that the parents complaining about games are the same ones whose children go to school on a shooting rampage. Seriously folks, the populace of the United States has some serious issues that are a direct result of reduced social expectation of individual responsibility. To be blunt, The parents of these children should be taking responsibility for their own (in)actions that led to their childrens' so-called "addictions", just as they should be held responsible for their kids becoming hooked o

    • the populace of the United States has some serious issues that are a direct result of reduced social expectation of individual responsibility.


      You, sir, are a prophet and a wise man.
  • When I was younger, my parents limited the amount of time I could play video games. If our homework was done, they sent me outside to play baseball/croquet/whatever with my brother, or had us do other things like play a board game, or maybe even try to get us engaged in a new hobby, like woodworking. Now that I'm in college, I know how to limit my time spent playing games, although online multiplayer games haven't helped with that... ;)

    Any parent who doesn't provide alternative activities in which their c
  • Holy crap, that's so true! I rolled up and tried to smoke my GTA3 manuel but only got a headache.

    I even tried to shoot WoW into my arm but all it did was make me run around shouting "LFG GNOMER" in my neighborhood.

    When I snorted my UT2004 my head exploded and all I heard was "Head Shot".

    *Winners Don't Use Games*
  • If this was to be a well-done news story by the station, they would've found a doctor who actually understood the principles of addiction. To be brief, people can be addicted to things other than drugs... and it is very typical for people to be addicted to different behaviors that have nothing to do with drug abuse. But to label the hobby of playing video games as a dangerous addiction comparable to a drug addiction is being careless. Just because I play games for an average of 2 hours per day doesn't ne
  • I want to start by saying that I agree that the idea that "video games are a negative influence" is horribly flawed. People have been making that conjecture about any activity that they don't like for all of recorded history. Dungeons and Dragons is a good example and, before that, cards and dice in general.

    However, there is something to the addictive nature of games. There are three forms of addiction. The first is a physiological addiction where your body is used to something and craves it. This kind
  • You guys are welcome for the video. I spent 2 hours converting the video, and posting it on You Tube. I also spent a considerable amount of time writing up the blog that that I LINKED MY VIDEO TO. You guy's can use the video, just give the original poster of the video(me) and the writer of the blog which broke the the news of the video(me) some credit. By the way, I am going to update my blog tonight, at around 8 to 10 pm, I will be posting new videos of newscast trashing video games(comparing them to porn
  • All bad parents. That will teach them not to raise their kids poorly.
  • Do one of you want to print out this thread tomorrow and send a copy to the offending newspaper, and then it's rival? Because otherwise it's not going to matter - no really.

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