Video Game Syndrome
 

This is probably just old fogey nonsense, but I wanted to open a discussion on some of the influences of video games on our everyday lives. Loved or hated, video games are now an interlocked part of Western society's fabric, and it would be foolish to assume that they have no impact on our daily lives. Here's an example:

This week, I overheard two college students talking about their grades for this brand new semester. One of them said she'd done poorly on the first test in her English Lit class, and she was going to drop the course and take it the next semester so she could start over. Start over?!? After two weeks?

As I've thought about that conversation this week, I noticed a similarity between her English Lit class and video games. It seems to me that people who grew up on video games are simply accustomed to hitting the RESET button when things don't work out perfectly, and they are growing up unable to learn perseverance. Whereas previous generations would have likely buckled down and studied harder, she simply wants to hit RESET and keep re-starting the course until it comes out perfectly.

How many of you have started a game of online Hearts and simply hit RE-DEAL as soon as you get the Queen of Spades (especially if it's early in the game)? As a society, I think we are growing toward that same outcome in our everyday lives. Why bother to dig your way out of an unfortunate financial situation when you can declare bankruptcy and hit RESET?

This troubles me when it comes to the lack of intestinal fortitude found in young people today. Okay, so I grew up on pinball, Pac-Man, and Galaga, that's true. But I could only play those games if I inserted a quarter, and hitting RESET was not an option. If I started a game out with a shitty start, then I had to stick it out and keep playing or else lose my quarter. And very often, some of the most shining and wonderful moments in my video game life came right after that shitty start. If I'd started over, I would have missed them.

What are your thoughts about this? And can you think of other examples of how lessons and skills learned in video games are having an influence on our daily lives?

ART already mentioned something in another post about noticing how people play games with him when meeting face to face, and I'd really like to hear more about that.

---EDIT---
In no way do I intend for this to be a video game "bashing" thread. I am also anxious to hear examples of ways you believe video game skills have positively impacted our daily tasks as well.

There was a recent article in one of the major business publications (which I cannot at the moment locate) talking about how the "Video Game Generation" had potential to be more successful as a result of learning to keep trying and to attack problems from a different angle when you get stuck. Kind of the opposite of what you're saying.

Then there's the old argument of how video games can improve hand eye coordination thereby making you more skilled at work requiring precise control, like surgery .

This is not to say that I don't see video games causing problems, but I see the problems being more directed at social skills. Specifically, I think that internet/networked games are creating an entire generation of kids that have no concept of good sportsmanship.

I like to play online games. I'm a bit of an MMO addict, but I started out with Quake back in the day and I still enjoy the occasional online frag-fest. The problem I run into, is that I can't find anyone I enjoy playing with anymore. There's no enjoyment to be had in playing with someone who, when victorious, spams you with "h4h4, j00 suxx0rz!! I pwned j00 f4g!" You get the same kind of textual diarrhea when you win, they call you names etc, or they log off in anger.

The anonymity of the internet just seems to being out the worst in these people. They wouldn't act this way if they were in your physical presence. First, they'd quickly find that nobody wanted them around and wouldn't play with them. Second, they'd most likely get their asses kicked if they did act like that. A lack of consequences breeds a lack of respect for proper behavior.

Now, I'm not that old, but "back in my day" we were taught to behave better than this. Everyone likes to win, nobody really likes to lose, but win or lose the contest is most enjoyable when faced with an honorable opponent. Sadly I feel that I am vastly outnumbered by people who have never learned to share my outlook.

video games most certainly do help good hand/eye coordination, I'm living proof of that :)
It seems to be a common trait among the better welders at school..

as for it being responsible for people just wanting to 'hit reset' I think that has a lot to do with general upbringing. Although I do have that option while playing games, I don't take it, for better or for worse, I'll play the hand I am dealt. Taking a massive ball of shit, and turning it into something that smells better than a rose, is a GREAT feeling. And conquering adversity is what gives me that feeling.

This also kinda makes me think about people who are suicidal, and believe in reincarnation, but thats prolly off topic...

The "help or hurt" angle isn't going to be my tack here.

What I will say is that our consciousness is framed by the media in which we participate. Our lives consist of the interactions between our consciousness and the world - as mediated by thought/language and technology. It is a McLuhan-esque axiom and I have seen nothing that contradicts this.

A corollary is that the world itself is altered by the media and frames of reference we use to apprehend it and to interact with it. As far as I am concerned, there is nothing else.

As to whether all this mediation is a good or bad thing, it depends on who exactly I'm addressing at any one moment and what, in my estimation, they need to be hearing from me.

I don't think it causes the whole "hit reset" thing. I play video games all the time and would never do such a thing. I do believe it improves hand-eye coordination though. And the idea that it helps one attack problems from different angles, I believe it, though I don't feel it has taken that affect on me lol.

I fail to see the correlation to video games and the English class. Sounds to me like you've either left something out or have something against video games. Some clarification, maybe?

I game most every day. And I would consider myself to be a person who sticks through tough situations. My girl, however, doesn't game at all and tends to want to throw in the towel at the very first sign of resistance.

Maybe we're just an anomaly.

I have thie GenX analysis book on my shelf, with the highly optimistic title "Abort, Retry, Ignore, Fail?" :lol:

As with all things social and cognitive, people are affected different ways. I personally think that video games have increased my desire to perservere. After playing any type of game, and just HAVING TO GET PAST THAT BOSS, or needing to get all the high scores on 1080 (loved that game). For example, my brother recently got Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. He spent an innumerable amount of time (stretched over the course of weeks though) going through some incredibly tedious things. It's almost a point of pride to be able to beat a video game without resetting, or whatever you want to say.

I can't say that they have affected my real life in the manner in which I deal with problems, because really, they haven't. I don't deal with any of my problems in real life the way I do in video games, using any sort of analogies or metaphors. I think you might just be seeing a few isolated incidences and falsely generalizing them to the population. Sure, there may be some people who are affected in such a way, but then again, there are a very few people who will allow a video game to send them "over the edge" and get them to kill. And that is a horribly ungeneralizable side-effect of gaming.

That said, I'm not arguing that video games do not affect people in the material world (how can they not, through time management, emphasis on using different areas of the brain/mind and so forth), but simply that they do not affect most people in the material world in the manner in which you describe.

It is all about the people. I know some who fail classes in college because of WoW or other video games. But if they didn't have the video game, they would watch TV or do something else to avoid their work.

Video games have more of a positive effect on me, currently I am working on a video game in a class. This requires a great deal of work that includes almost every part of computer programming. Add they were are doing it in VR, and it becomes even better.

I don't know about you....but, should a bonelord decide to attack my family I am confident I could protect them quite nicely....thank you very much.

It has been said but the only reason you fail is that you lacked the persistance to succeed. For this woman to leave English class after two weeks to begin agian is a sign of weakness, she will never succeed if everything needs to be perfect to be completed.

While it's true that persistance and hard work are necessary to suceed, so too, is the ability to step back and look at the big picture. Sometimes you ARE headed for a dead end and it is better to shitcan what's been done up 'till now, and start over after re-examining priorities. In the girl's case, maybe she had too many classes and each would require a great deal of attention to do well in. In that case it might be better to drop one and try it again later when she could give it the attention needed to do well.

I'm with ART on this one - help or hurt depends on the context, but I don't think it's at all in doubt that digital media have absolutely changed the cognitive landscape of several generations. Computers, the internet, video games, television, telphones, cell phones, etc., one thing they all have in common is the transportation of the consciousness outside its physical setting. They "split the self" so to speak, and I don't think it's any coincidence that we're seeing the rise of learning "disorders" like ADD at the same time. (I put disorders in quotes because I don't think it really is necessarily a disorder, it's just a paradigm shift in the social and educational milieu that institutions haven't adapted to yet.) I find it amazingly difficult to do one thing at a time. Sometimes this is a hindrance, like when I am required to focus on a task for a period of time; but sometimes it's a huge help, like when I'm at work in a meeting and I need to keep one ear on the conversation so I can help steer the agenda and then later capture the essence of things in my report, and one part of my brain on the logistics of the meeting - is the room temperature okay, do we need more coffee, has the staff changed so-and-so's room reservation yet, etc. The amazement of the participants in the meeting that I can do this has less to do, IMHO, with my particular abilities and more to do with the fact that they're all at least 20 years older than I am and their brains don't work like that.

I can think of a number of other examples, but I don't think we've yet seen the tip of the iceberg in terms of how digital media - think wireless, AIM technology, bluetooth, wearable computers - are going to change the experience of being human.

People like this make me sad, what she's learning now, she'll take with her later in life. Imagine when she gets married, and the first time her husband doesn't leave the toilet seat down or leaves his socks on the bedroom floor, she doesn't like this, so is she going to bail on the marriage?

I too, am a child of the pinball machine generation You insert the quarter and play what you are dealt, and how you deal with it, is entirely up to you. You make a mistake, you adjust your game. You might tilt every so often, but you can always play again, just cause you tilted once, doesn't mean youhave to swear off pinball for the rest of your life, you learn from your mistakes.

I fail to see the problem with the RESET trait. If I play an RTS and half of my forces gets cut down before I could punch a hole in the eneminie's defense, I retreat, regroup, and attack again. The same goes for life, it would be foolish to defend a mistake to the bitter end. But if you are a perfectionist, then the reset idea would be a problem.