# Are video games good for you? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cecil's Columns/Staff Reports\ **Created:** [January 27, 2012, 8:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907 "2012-01-27T20:56:12Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 7:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/21 "2012-01-30T19:54:54Z")
Justin, read the column again. It says the opposite of what you apparently think it says. ---
**Author:** ![JF1451](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ccd318/32.png) [@JF1451](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JF1451)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/22 "2012-01-30T19:59:41Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > [Obama Names Video Games as Health Concern in Speech to A.M.A.](http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/06/15/obama-names-video-games-health-concern-speech-ama) > > [Tying Columbine to Video Games](http://thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2007/07/05/tieing-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: consider me corrected. Thank you. Just wasn’t all too clear that was the point he was trying to make. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 8:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/23 "2012-01-30T20:19:20Z")
You’re welcome. The Master’s love of sarcasm, indirection, and caricature can often lead the unwary astray. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 8:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/24 "2012-01-30T20:29:40Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > Let me get this straight. You folks think Cecil was attacking video games? No–I think he was (flippantly and offhandedly and gently) attacking Obama. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 8:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/25 "2012-01-30T20:43:07Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > Justin, read the column again. It says the opposite of what you apparently think it says. No, it doesn’t. Which is quite an accomplishment since you wrote it. [QUOTE=Cecil] The common view from President Obama on down is that video games rot your mind, sap your strength, and probably give you acne and bad breath. [/QUOTE] For the third time, that is not the common view of video games in the US in the year 2012. You can claim this is sarcasm all you want, that is not the way it’s written in the article. > [@](#): > > I don’t claim video games have been 100 percent beneficial. The Columbine massacre shooters were reportedly addicted to video games. News accounts tell of a kid killing his mother with a hammer when she took away his Sony PlayStation, and of another killing his mom and shooting his dad when they made him stop playing the violent game Halo 3. A woman murdered her baby because its crying disturbed her concentration on FarmVille, which is up there for most idiotic game on earth. A South Korean couple reportedly let their baby starve to death while they raised a virtual baby online, and an American mother did the same while obsessing over World of Warcraft. A Korean man (Korea is the Holy Land of video game fanatics) apparently died of exhaustion after a 50-hour Starcraft binge, and a guy in Wisconsin fatally shot himself while playing Everquest. All of these have way more to do with the mental state of the people involved than the video games they may have been playing at the time. Or, to put it in a way a Boomer can understand… Can we claim that The Catcher In the Rye has some sort of voodoo powers because Mark David Chapman started reading it after shooting John Lennon? Most people would say that’s crazy talk and wouldn’t include it in an article about Mark David Chapman except as a footnote. So why is that laundry list of mental illness somehow proof that video games “[haven’t] been 100 percent beneficial”? Yes, the rest of the article from that point on is pretty good. But the beginning is poorly written and has an opposite tone of what you’re going for. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 8:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/26 "2012-01-30T20:57:50Z")
Whatever you say, Justin. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 10:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/27 "2012-01-30T22:04:10Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > No–I think he was (flippantly and offhandedly and gently) attacking Obama. The Federal Election Commission said that if we were going to take shots at Republicans (see answer graf #5), we had to do the same with the Democrats, or anyway one Democrat, in the interest of fairness and balance. So really we had no choice. ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/28 "2012-01-30T22:33:38Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > Or, to put it in a way a Boomer can understand… Can we claim that The Catcher In the Rye has some sort of voodoo powers because Mark David Chapman started reading it after shooting John Lennon? Most people would say that’s crazy talk and wouldn’t include it in an article about Mark David Chapman except as a footnote. It would be crazy talk, since he was reading it obsessively before he shot Lennon, and had a copy on him at the scene. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 30, 2012, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/29 "2012-01-30T23:47:45Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > It would be crazy talk, since he was reading it obsessively before he shot Lennon, and had a copy on him at the scene. That’s exactly what I mean. Do you blame the book for John Lennon’s death or do you recognize that Chapman was nuts? Most people take the latter, this article from “Cecil” acts like the former towards games and gamers for the first few paragraphs. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/30 "2012-01-31T00:20:59Z")
Ooh, thanks for bringing this up. In the collector’s edition of this column we are definitely going to cite Catcher in the Rye as proof that books are bad. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/31 "2012-01-31T00:22:24Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > Ooh, thanks for bringing this up. In the collector’s edition of this column we are definitely going to cite Catcher in the Rye as proof that books are bad. Don’t forget to mention that novels caused kids to super-masturbate back in the 1800s! ---
**Author:** ![Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Attack_from_the_3rd_dimension)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 1:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/32 "2012-01-31T01:39:32Z")
> [@Justin\_Bailey](#): > > That’s exactly what I mean. Do you blame the book for John Lennon’s death or do you recognize that Chapman was nuts? Most people take the latter, this article from “Cecil” acts like the former towards games and gamers for the first few paragraphs. The point of the post was pedantic. You said “…started reading it **after** shooting…”. You meant “…read it obsessively **before** shooting…”. I don’t think you are reading or writing carefully. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/33 "2012-01-31T02:36:36Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > The Federal Election Commission said that if we were going to take shots at Republicans (see answer graf #5), we had to do the same with the Democrats, or anyway one Democrat, in the interest of fairness and balance. So really we had no choice. What, Tipper Gore wasn’t available? ---
**Author:** ![Irishman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/b487fb/32.png) [@Irishman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Irishman)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 7:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/34 "2012-01-31T19:09:07Z")
Tipper Gore is not running for President. ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/35 "2012-01-31T19:38:31Z")
> [@Attack\_from\_the\_3rd\_dimension](#): > > The point of the post was pedantic. You said “…started reading it **after** shooting…”. You meant “…read it obsessively **before** shooting…”. I don’t think you are reading or writing carefully. After shooting Lennon, Chapman sat down and began reading the book. I knew exactly what I was writing. ---
**Author:** ![Petrucha](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9d8465/32.png) [@Petrucha](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Petrucha)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 7:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/36 "2012-01-31T19:47:37Z")
[the same is or was thought to be true of TV, pop music, cars, and yes, books.] Books? Cecil, I believe you, but I gotta know - where’s the documentation/references regarding those opposed to books? ---
**Author:** ![TubaDiva](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tubadiva/32/507_2.png) [@TubaDiva](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TubaDiva)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/37 "2012-01-31T20:31:20Z")
> [@MedicusLex](#): > > 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 Not only Cecil but Google is your friend. [http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2010/07/22/6769/video-games-for-kids-with-diabetes/](http://www.diabeteshealth.com/read/2010/07/22/6769/video-games-for-kids-with-diabetes/) [http://www.bayerdidget.ca/](http://www.bayerdidget.ca/) ---
**Author:** ![Justin\_Bailey](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/justin_bailey/32/8792_2.png) [@Justin\_Bailey](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Justin_Bailey)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 8:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/38 "2012-01-31T20:51:43Z")
> [@Petrucha](#): > > Books? Cecil, I believe you, but I gotta know - where’s the documentation/references regarding those opposed to books? Just call me “Cecil.” [http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:DaiZtQ0\_UqIJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as\_sdt=0,33](http://scholar.googleusercontent.com/scholar?q=cache:DaiZtQ0_UqIJ:scholar.google.com/&hl=en&as_sdt=0,33) ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [January 31, 2012, 10:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/39 "2012-01-31T22:16:39Z")
> [@Irishman](#): > > Tipper Gore is not running for President. What an excellent and salient point in response to my totally serious critique! ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2012, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907/40 "2012-02-02T02:28:48Z")
Video games may be good or bad mentally, but it sure is annoying when we visit my wife’s sister, and her teenage son (my wife’s nephew) spends the entire time we visit glued to the video screen playing games, and barely acknowledges our presence. In terms of family sociability, it’s pretty depressing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-video-games-good-for-you/610907.md?page=3)