(emphasis added)
Excellent point - especially novels. Early novels are filled with characters who deride novels as silly and intellectually damaging.
Plato (as reported by Socrates) denounced writing as a crutch that discouraged people from keeping ideas in their heads where they belonged.
Plato was right, dagnabit. Writers should be heard and not seen.
Er… ?
The Perfect Master says:
“My point is if you’re going to make judgments about something just because it attracts kooks and losers, you’d have to ban the Republican primaries.”
Cecil, you da man! 
Not so perfect. He left out any Occupy camp or SF/Berkeley protest.
Nice analysis guys. However, I’ve been reading TSD for some time and find it informative as well as entertaining at times. I could do with out the political barbs. More than Democrats read this stuff you know.
It’s interesting to read the second reason given for playing video games (under “other benefits”) since this same rationale has also been (sensibly) applied recently to teen rape… Just swap the “Violent video games” for “Internet porn” and you get this:
“Internet porn may reduce rather than increase [teen rape], some academics contend, because causing make-believe [sex] leaves participants with less time for the real thing.”
This similar idea is expressed in the articles “The Sunny Side of Smut” [Scientific American — online] & “Is Pornography a Catalyst of Sexual Violence?” [Reason.com — online].
Sex-columnist (for 36 years), Michael Castleman wrote in a blog post (“Does Pornography Cause Social Harm?” April 27, 2009), “I compared rates of sexual assault, teen sex, and teen contraception before and after free porn became easily accessible on the Internet. Comparing the early 1990s and today, rates of teen intercourse and sexual assault have declined considerably, while teen condom use has increased.”
Not that online porn doesn’t have some socially harmful characteristics, but in itself does not increase sexual activity amongst teens.
:dubious:
CECIL! When you mention this sort of thing, could you make a hotlink in the online article? I read your Chicago Reader article and would love to have the name of this game or a link to the study. Pretty please with Splenda on top…
MedicusLex
At the risk of having been whooshed, I feel compelled to note that this is backwards.
I think the smartest man on Earth may be slipping (or perhaps he isn’t real at all)…
This is untrue. President Obama is a big fan of video games, regularly playing them with his daughters. Also, that hasn’t been the “common view” of video games in over a decade. They’re mainstream now, as the multibillion-dollar business they do should show.
Also untrue. “Addicted” is a loaded word in the game community and all anyone has ever found is that the Columbine shooter liked to play Doom now and again. Which was, and is, perfectly common among teenagers.
References normally go up the weekend after the column runs, and will be up later tonight. Here are the references which I think you are looking for.
Lieberman, D. A. “Management of chronic pediatric diseases with interactive health games: Theory and research findings” Journal of Ambulatory Care Management 24 (20010): 26-38.
Lieberman, D. A. “What can we learn from playing video games?” In P.Vorderer & J. Bryant (Eds.), Playing video games: Motives, responses, and consequences (2006) 379-397.
Barlett, Christopher P. et al. “Video Game Effects—Confirmed, Suspected, and Speculative A Review of the Evidence” Simulation & Gaming 40.3 (2009): 377-403.
Another very well researched and logical article by Cecil. But when he mentioned the Columbine shootings as an example of people drawn to violence because of video games. Isn’t it equally if not more logical to think that these people had violent tendencies before, and they were drawn to video games because of that? I believe, and correct me if i’m wrong; but doesn’t this rationale that people use to make these such accusations against video games fall under the logical fallacy, “Post Hoc Ergo Proptor Hoc?”
Obama Names Video Games as Health Concern in Speech to A.M.A.
Tying Columbine to Video Games
Cecil makes no assertion about the truth of this claim; he merely says it was reported, as in fact it was.
Of course. That’s what the column says:
While fictional, this discussion should mention “Ender’s Game”, a novel by Orson Scott Card.
For those not familiar with it, children were selected for a special school. They were encouraged to play 3-d video space war games, and given recognition for excellence at them.
What they didn’t know was that once they reached a level of proficiency, they were issuing orders to the fleet in an actual space war.
Actually, they were fed up with their lack of gains in bowling and decided to go massacre their peers.
So what?
Le sigh. :rolleyes:
If you want to make “Cecil” look out of touch by spouting a long-discredited common view of video games (and the people who play them), I suppose that’s your business. But Obama has always been a big supporter of games. He is also a big supporter of parental involvement in what types of games your kids are playing and how long you allow them to play for. Believing that games are good (as his public endorsement of them shows) and believing there should be a limit to how often a parent allows their child to play are not mutually exclusive.
Doctors have also reported that vaccines cause autism. I’m not sure that’s a defense you want to use when repeating debunked claims. Klebold wasn’t “addicted” to games. He played video games. There is a clear difference.
And that’s ignoring some “Cecil’s” other examples of bad video games, as nearly all of them are the result of mentally ill or deeply depressed people doing the things that mentally ill or deeply depressed people do. If it wasn’t video games, it would have been something else.
In that, he suggests that kids ought to play outside more as a way of improving their health. That’s undoubtedly true, and is not the same thing as saying that video games “rot your mind, sap your strength, and probably give you acne and bad breath.”
Let me get this straight. You folks think Cecil was attacking video games?
First of all, “Cecil” attacked nothing.
Second of all, I’m just offering corrections to a poorly written article. Again, The Smartest Man on the Planet no doubt wants the most accurate words next to his “name,” doesn’t he?
Obama has never come out against video games, as the article from “Cecil” said he did. Obama has merely stated that parents should encourage their kids to play outside as well as play video games. The same with the Columbine line, the article implies a connection between the shooting and video games that does not exist.
Finally, that “common view” of games that is included in the article is now only held by a minority of fruitcakes and hasn’t been the opinion of the mainstream in close to a decade.
So no, not an attack. Just a poorly written article from someone who is clearly out of touch when it comes to video games. Someone should really have a talk with “Cecil.”