"Computer games are crack cocaine", round 2

[Soldat_Louis]

Remember Raymond DeSouza quote about the "crack cocaine of the electronic world", or something like that ? Well, we have another person who thinks that : Stephen Moore, from The Wall Street Journal : (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB119941411630466861.html)


Teenage Zombies
(January 4, 2008; Page W11)

My new year's resolution is to get my two teenage sons back. They've been abducted -- by the cult of Nintendo. I'm convinced that video games are Japan's stealth strategy to turn our kids' brains into silly putty as payback for dropping the big one on Hiroshima.

The trouble began last summer when my sons started spending virtually every unsupervised hour camped out in front of the computer screen engaged in multiplayer role games like World of Warcraft and Counterstrike. At the start of this craze, I wrote it off as merely a normal phase of adolescence. I was confident that, at 14 and 16, they would soon be more interested in chasing real-life girls than virtual video hoodlums.

Boy, was I wrong. Their compulsion became steadily more destructive. They grew increasingly withdrawn, walking around like the zombies from "Night of the Living Dead." Unless I pried them (forcibly) from the computer, they would spend five or six hours at a time absorbed in these online fantasy worlds. My wife tried to calm me down by observing that "at least they're not out having sex or doing drugs." But how would that be any worse?

Both are decent athletes, but their muscles began to atrophy right before our very eyes; their skin tone paled from lack of sunlight. Their idea of playing sports these days is inserting Madden football or the NBA slam-dunk game into our Xbox.

We recently considered purchasing the new Nintendo Wii, because at least its games -- simulated bowling, snow boarding, guitar playing and motorcycling -- require physical activity. Nintendo even advertises this product as good exercise for kids, and I have colleagues who swear that they get a great workout from Wii boxing and skiing. Alas, a new study from the British Health Journal suggest that Wii is no substitute for the real and vigorous outdoor exercise that adolescent boys need.

My wife and I aren't entirely inept parents -- our 6-year-old seems fairly well-adjusted anyway. Back in October we established for the older boys strict screen-time limits. It was then that we discovered the true extent of their addiction. They ranted and raved and cursed and even threw things -- almost as if demons had taken possession of them. These are classic withdrawal symptoms; they craved a fix. When we installed parental controls on the computer, our boys scoffed. It took them about 15 minutes to disable them. We've become so desperate that we may have to get rid of the computers entirely, though that may hamper their school work.

It turns out that we're not alone in our predicament. A parent down the street confided to us that his 12-year-old son was so obsessed with video games that he wouldn't take even a three-minute break from gaming to go to the bathroom -- with unfortunate results. The other day we saw a kid at church, in a semi-trance, going down the aisle to Holy Communion while clicking on a hand-held Game Boy. Talk about worshiping a false god.

This summer the American Medical Association's annual conference debated a proposal to declare excessive video gaming a "formal disorder" in the category of other addictions like alcohol, drugs and gambling. One study released at the AMA conference found that many kids who spend a disproportionate amount of time playing games "achieve more control and success of their social relationships in the virtual reality realm than in real relationships."

I'm not one to blame every human frailty on some faddish psychiatric disorder. But I'm persuaded that computer games are the new crack cocaine. The testimonials from parents of online gamers are horrific: kids not taking showers, not eating or sleeping, falling behind in school. Some parents are forced to send their kids to therapeutic boarding schools, which charge up to $5,000 a month, to combat the gaming addiction.

The war lords of the gaming industry tout research on the positive attributes of gaming -- and admittedly there are some. One study published this year in Psychological Science finds that gaming improves eyesight. A famous 2004 study by researchers at Beth Israel Medical Center in New York, found that video games improve manual dexterity and hand-eye coordination: "Doctors who spend at least 3 hours a week playing video games," the researchers reported, "made about 37% fewer mistakes in laproscopic surgery." Fine. I'll give my sons the joysticks back when they become orthopedic surgeons.

In the meantime, what is to be done? I'm not suggesting making the games illegal -- we don't need a multibillion-dollar black market in video games. But I am pleading that parents take this social problem seriously and intervene, as my wife and I wish we had done much earlier.

November sales for the Xbox 360, Wii, PlayStation 3, and the games that go with them, were up a gaudy 52% over last year. In my neck of the woods, Wii's were such hot sellers that they weren't available in the stores at any price. I'm proud to report that we rejected our youngest son's pleas for a PlayStation for Christmas. He pouts that we're the meanest parents in the world. Someday he'll thank us. A mind really is a terrible thing to waste.


Jack Thompson posted 9 comments on Kotaku blog (http://kotaku.com/commenter/jackthompson/), just to copypaste this story. And the LaRouchites also have something to say about it.

[POLE]

That's what I call paranoia based on ignorance.

But I'm beginning to doubt this guy's parenting. Did he tried to talk about this to his kids.

I'm lucky that when I started playing videogames, my parents often played with me and made me reasonable limits on how much I can play. But this guy did nothing more than adding parental control on the computer. He didn't tried to lecture his kids or even trying to understand their hobby.

[SlyFox]

But how would that be any worse?

Um... it could KILL them or get them arrested.

almost as if demons had taken possession of them

Oh lawdy lawdy, not da demons. Doesn't this one line say alot about the writer?

Fine. I'll give my sons the joysticks back when they become orthopedic surgeons.

Better idea: why don't you actually sit down and try to understand why you're kids are so "addicted" rather than rely on "research" to tell you what is wrong with YOUR own kids? Perhaps they don't like dealing with some people. Maybe they realize that the world is a harsh place. Maybe you should join them in their games and play with them so that they know you aren't being unfair but are giving them the same restrictions that you would give yourself.

[Tom]

Warning - long post :)

The first problem is that he can't distinguish between "Nintendo" and "video games" which destroys his credibility. He's clearly done no research beyond "them damn vidja games!"

Even considering that, though, it would be foolish to disregard what he's saying for two reasons. One, the sort of situation that he describes does happen and probably more often then we like to admit and two this is exactly the sort of anecdotal circumstance that anti-gamers will use in their arguments against gaming. We need to accept that these sorts of things happen and understand why.

There are going to be some kids who are more involved in gaming then others. When I was a kid I was a heavy gamer - we're talking back in the Doom and SNES days here - but I was also very active. Through high school I kept up with gaming and earned my gamer creds, so to speak, but I also engaged in other high school activities like dating, drinking and generally being a complete idiot for a few years. I had friends, though, who weren't so involved in the "normal" high school activities and instead invested an inordinate amount of time with gaming. Now, with a decade of perspective, I can say that my buddies who invested heavily in gaming generally aren't as good at social interaction as myself or my friends who were more involved in "real life." Did it destroy their lives? No - it just led to a focus on a different aspect of life. That said, though, according to our official "standards" my biggest gaming friend least socially adjusted is also one of the most successful.

My point with all of that is that being a heavy gamer in high school does not mean that someone is going to be a maladjusted troglodyte once they enter the "real world." They may not excel at the same aspects of life as a non-gamer, but that's just how the cookie crumbles. One only has so many ability points to spend, after all :)

As to a pair of teenagers who are full-on addicted to an MMO - I think that we've all been through our MMO addiction phases and for most gamers they're just that - phases. Looking back at periods of my life I was heavily involved in a number of things that were unhealthy - drinking too much too often, doing drugs, partying all the time, smoking heavily, etc - but those sorts of things were phases that I went through.

That said, though, most MMO's are designed to be as addictive as possible and if you look at how the rewards are given to players and the way players react emotionally to those rewards there is a clear parallel to the accepted path towards drug addiction. You start with an initial "high" - the first time you gain level or loot something really impressive - and you commence chasing that "high." The thing is, though, that most MMO's are designed to then offer relatively smaller rewards for substantially more work - the "grind." Gamers are still chasing that "high" and when you hit a new level or get that drop you've been waiting for it's really exciting for a little while until there's something else to aim for. The difference is that the rewards from MMO gaming are at least palpable in some sense - the exist, if only in a digital world. You can, conceivably, sell them or trade them for other items of real value and so the end result of an MMO addiction or of steady MMO play is vastly different from the result of drug addiction - you actually have something that has value. Of course, from the perspective of the parent or the spouse that isn't much of a consolation.

When this happens with kids, though, I have to wonder how it is that those kids are able to play WoW so frequently. They must have computers in their rooms because it's doubtful that they're getting their MMO fix on the living room family computer. The writer then complains that the computers are important for the kids to do their homework. You want computers for your kids to do their homework on? Fine, give them a old laptops. I guarantee that they will meet all of the requirements for school work but won't be able to play anything more extravagant then Solitaire.

Finally, the biggest problem is that these parents have never been through their own MMO phase so they don't understand what inevitably makes one "kick the habit," so to speak. For me, the question that arose was a very simple "what's the point?" I couldn't satisfactorily answer that question and as the act of playing the game became less fun I naturally moved away from it. When you're young, though, long term considerations don't have as powerful an effect on your decision making process as immediate gratification - and MMO's are great for immediate gratification.

MMO addiction really does happen and we gamers need to accept that but we also need to know what to say to people who use anecdotal evidence as a basis for some extravagant claims that games are destroying our youth.

[steelcobra]

I'm convinced that video games are Japan's stealth strategy to turn our kids' brains into silly putty as payback for dropping the big one on Hiroshima.

The trouble began last summer when my sons started spending virtually every unsupervised hour camped out in front of the computer screen engaged in multiplayer role games like World of Warcraft and Counterstrike.

Funny how he's says it's japan's strategy, then says games that were made in America.

[Thefremen]

Proof that the WSJ has been ruined by FOX. I cancelled my subscription.

[ezacharyk]

I love the Jack posts on Kotaku. He decided to spam every article with a blurp about this one.

Now on the article. When he said the Cult of Nintendo I was thinking that some how he managed to get a Wii and the kids loved it. But then he went on about WoW and Counter Strike. Idiot. Then he said this was a Japanese strategy, citing American games.

I really wonder if this guy is for real. Is he making it up. The description of the kids behavior is so unreal. I have never seen anyone act like that.

[POLE]

I love the Jack posts on Kotaku. He decided to spam every article with a blurp about this one.

Now on the article. When he said the Cult of Nintendo I was thinking that some how he managed to get a Wii and the kids loved it. But then he went on about WoW and Counter Strike. Idiot. Then he said this was a Japanese strategy, citing American games.

I really wonder if this guy is for real. Is he making it up. The description of the kids behavior is so unreal. I have never seen anyone act like that.

I do think this guy is real. I met many peoples who got this idea of video games. Sometimes prejudices can cloud your judgement of what you see. A simple liking can be easily mistook as an addiction.

In short, I think this guy's real, but he speaks (and view the situations) in hyperboles.

[ConstantNeophyte]

...he wouldn't take even a three-minute break from gaming to go to the bathroom -- with unfortunate results...

So this parent is so inept at teaching his kid control that he wet himself rather than stop gaming, this person should probably have his kid taken off him.

As for limiting time on computers, grow some balls/brain cells (which ever is more urgently required). All you need to do is limit them to certain amount of time and once thats up steal a couple of cables from the back of the computer. If your kids don't respect you enough to stick to this limit then you have other problems beside games.

[POLE]

So this parent is so inept at teaching his kid control that he wet himself rather than stop gaming, this person should probably have his kid taken off him.

As for limiting time on computers, grow some balls/brain cells (which ever is more urgently required). All you need to do is limit them to certain amount of time and once thats up steal a couple of cables from the back of the computer. If your kids don't respect you enough to stick to this limit then you have other problems beside games.

I remember an excuses used by most middle-aged and most peoples regarding teenagers. "Teenagers respect almost nothing." That's also the excuse of most inept parent.

[ConstantNeophyte]

I remember an excuses used by most middle-aged and most peoples regarding teenagers. "Teenagers respect almost nothing." That's also the excuse of most inept parent.

I agree, there is a lot of difference between disagreeing and disrespecting. I disagreed (at the time) with many things my parents said and did when raising me, but I never disrespected them.

If you let it get to the stage where your kid disrespects you so badly that they're throwing things at you then theres a bigger problem than video games.

[Icehawk]

I agree, there is a lot of difference between disagreeing and disrespecting. I disagreed (at the time) with many things my parents said and did when raising me, but I never disrespected them.

If you let it get to the stage where your kid disrespects you so badly that they're throwing things at you then theres a bigger problem than video games.

Agreed. Things have long since gone beyond control at that point. The parent of course seeing no flaw in themselves points at the games as the cause of the disorder and disrespect when the truth is closer to home. The parent should have been more on the ball and interactive with the child instead of pwning them off (to games).

Still the situation is not beyond repair. Ok so the children are bright enough to bypass a parental lockout (password protection on the OS would have been better) so take the system away. Their console(s) too. If they want to play games then let them earn them. Encourage them to work for money to buy the things they want (responsiblity) which not only gets them away from the "evil gamez" but teachs them value. Yes they will yell and complain and call you names. Be an adult, get over it.

[kurisu7885]

Almost impossible to reason with someone who has an"all or nothing" mentality.

And joysticks haven't been used to play games in years.

[POLE]

Agreed. Things have long since gone beyond control at that point. The parent of course seeing no flaw in themselves points at the games as the cause of the disorder and disrespect when the truth is closer to home. The parent should have been more on the ball and interactive with the child instead of pwning them off (to games).

Still the situation is not beyond repair. Ok so the children are bright enough to bypass a parental lockout (password protection on the OS would have been better) so take the system away. Their console(s) too. If they want to play games then let them earn them. Encourage them to work for money to buy the things they want (responsiblity) which not only gets them away from the "evil gamez" but teachs them value. Yes they will yell and complain and call you names. Be an adult, get over it.

That's exactly how my parents raised me. When I wanted something, I had to earn it whether it was a new game or gaming time. And now, most of my games come from my pocket.

[Twin-Skies]

I haven't read the whole WSJ post yet. I stopped when Moore started muttering some conspiracy crazy Japanese strategy to take over our kid's minds.

This looks to me to be more of a case of a parent who refuses to actually try to understand their kids' hobbies, and excusing their inptitude to do so on this generation's favorite scapegoat.

[Silver]

I wonder who is paying for the online MMORPG---the parents or the teenagers?