To think I was wondering what I might discuss in this blog post . . . apparently the blogging gods somewhere decided to throw me a bone. A bone in the form of Robert Brockway’s 5 Bizarre Ways Video Games Are Screwing Up Your Health. Here is my take on it . . .
143 diggs, “5 Bizarre Ways Video Games Are Screwing Up Your Health” Cracked.com
#5 Poor Self Esteem . . .
Apparently seeing the women in volleyball video games is supposed to give me a negative body image. Along the same line that watching anime movies will make me want to grow a tail and have animal ears. Ask Brad, the typical response I have to that stuff is to laugh. It’s just funny to me.
They aren’t just applying this to women though, they are applying it to men too. So how many of you desperately dreamed of achieving Ryu’s figure after playing Street Fighter? or longed to develop the amazing pointy ears that Link sports in Zelda?
I’d like to point out that after I showed Brad my statement on Link’s ears he responded with “only after hearing how hot you thought they were.”
Point proven.
I do not know anyone that has gotten a negative self image from video games. However, it can cause some people to have unrealistic expectations of the opposite gender. For instance, Link’s pointy ears 😉
I do have a question, if video games give a negative body image . . . does that mean that angelina jolie should be killed?
I mean shoot, walking down the STREET will affect your body image. SHOPPING will affect your body image . . . okay well maybe most of this stuff only applies to women. I’ve shopped with Brad, his routine consists of going through pants, finding his size, buying it. That’s about it. Not a whole lot of time to lament the fact that maybe an inch was added onto his waist.
When I’m looking to get a certain body type I do not look at women in video games . . . why? Because they could all kick my butt and I’d rather not scare people away. I think if I decided I wanted to look like Chun Li physically most people would be afraid to come within fifteen feet of me, have you SEEN her calves?
Moving on . . .
#4 Male PMS
um, okay, awkward . . .
to quote
“A study by scientists at Stockholm University hooked up some teenage boys to heart monitors, and then split them into two groups – giving one group a violent video game, the other a non-violent one. The results they found revealed a much higher heart rate variability in the violent group, which continued well after they stopped playing and even into their sleep that night. In general, higher HRV can cause a myriad of symptoms, from increased stress to seizures and loss of bladder control.” (Cracked.com Robert Brockway) See Study Results Here
Okay, #1 these are all teenagers . . . I’m not sure how seriously to take that particular sample group considering how hormonal teenagers are in the first place.
#2 I’d really enjoy getting the SPECIFICS of the study. For instance, how long did they play, how often did they take breaks, were they all in a social group or was it specifically individual study . . .
#3 Watch a suspense HORROR movie before you go to sleep and I’m sure your heart rate will go up and you will lose sleep. It’s an adrenalin thing. If I go running before I go to sleep I will have a hard time getting to sleep because *gasp* I’ve been RUNNING! Heart rate goes up and all that.
#4 I see that it causes a myriad of symptoms, how many of there test group actually exhibited these symptoms?
If these symptoms are basically what they like to call “PMS among men” . . . so?
So whatever.
Ooo here’s my favorite one:
#3 ADDICTION!!!
Wheeeeeee!!! That’s right kids, you can become addicted to video games. So get off all those video games and get on drugs! (kidding)
Apparently video games feed the male need to dominate, to stomp, to conquer ….. annnnnd so does football but that’s good ol’ fun there! More likely to break your leg or arm, BUT its not a video game.
Because males have this need it makes video games more appealing to them, but not as appealing to women . . .
Hey!!! I resent that!!
Let me put it this way, one of the reasons I have a hard time getting addicted to video games . . . well . . . EXTREMELY addicted to video games is because I get extremely emotional about them. I get mad, I scream, I might even throw something. The easiest way to handle that is to learn to turn off the TV and move on. Maybe its because I have an extremely competitive streak that I stifle. Ask Brad, I go nuts when we’re playing something like pictionary, imagine how I get when I’m surrounded by evil monsters with only one arrow left . . . it gets interesting to say the least . . .
#2 Speech Impediments
Okay, well I haven’t heard of anyone on XBox Live having a speech impediment. I also don’t know of anyone personally that has suffered from a speech impediment after playing video games . . .
TWO YEAR OLDS?? Okay, how many people know a two year old that doesn’t have some sort of speech issue?? That’s just annoying . . . I’m not going to waste anymore time on that. It’s just bull…
Okay so the #1 is *drum roll*
SOCIAL DYSFUNCTION!
Wait . . . social dysfunction?
I’m sorry, I have a bit of an issue with this one . . . why? Maybe because my main form of getting to know people is through video games. For instance, I was thrown into a social situation when I was in school, I had one kind of friend in a group, she had her best friend, and then they had four guys that they knew. I was basically in the dark, sitting at the table, when all the sudden I heard a magic word “Ike”. I immediately turned around and asked “Ike? From Super Smash Brothers Brawl?” I got a stuttered response of “yes” from the guys and I exclaimed “Oh I LOVE him!!”
And so the ice was broken.
I’ve seen MOST male social interaction happen over video game playing and I’ve been around boys most of my life. Well, all of my life.
I’ll be fair, this study is talking about ALL technology. Not just video games.
I still have an issue, why do MOST people spend time on the internet? They’re socializing. They are either socializing on forums, AIM (iChat for us Apple people), or chat rooms. All that good stuff.
I get it, I get it social dysfunction. Let’s face it though, some people are just socially dysfunctional. It can happen if your intellect is high, you have odd hobbies, or you are just antisocial by choice.
Not to mention the people kill their own argument at the very end of the article. Tsk tsk . . .
another great article.
If I took time to comment on every point, my comment would be as long as your post, so I will just post about the social dysfunction one.
At my school, one kid decided to make a video game club, so he planned it, got the teachers approval, and now we have a group of about 20 kids that meet just about every wednesday and friday after school to play games. I will admit, I didn’t know over half the people there before the club started, but now, we are all friends.
It has been a really fun experience, I was even there earlier today 🙂
Great article. And what you said makes perfect sense. But my quick $0.02 on the situation:
#5 – You’ve practically hit the nail on the head. Oh and Chun Li has thighs of thunder.
#4 – What the study states is obvious. If you’re gonna play a more intense game (note: it doesn’t have to be violent) then your heart-rate will obviously go up. Comparing that to playing, say, Sudoku on Brain Training is stupid.
#3 – I’ll agree that video games can become extremely addicting (hey, just look at the amount of people who play MMOs constantly), but for most people it’s merely entertainment. To be addicted means being “compulsively or physiology dependant on something habit-forming”. This can pretty much apply to anything, TV, internet etc. not just video games. I like video games, and I really enjoy playing them but I know I’m not dependant on them.
#2 – Speech impediments? Really? That’s the best point they could come up with? It could be argued that there are speech-training games out there. A friend of mine in China enjoys playing RPGs and apparently he learned quite a lot of english through Oblivion, Fallout 3 and Mass Effect.
#1 – Video games bring people together. Over the last month or so, I’ve been playing Left 4 Dead with 3 friends who I haven’t talked with since we left school. If it wasn’t for this particularly video game, I would probably still see them around college and awkwardly shift around them and avoid eye contact. But now, we always greet each other and it’s quickly followed by: “Hey, you up for some more Left 4 Dead tonight?”
TL;DR version: Video games are awesome. The end.
#5 Well this isn’t cat ears and a tail, it’s a fox but google Wagaya No Oinari-sama.
#4 It depends on the movie and it depends on the game. There are some scary movies that would raise your heart rate more then a scary video games. It’s really the suspense level that gets you.
>Really? You’ve never even come into contact with Neko-girls or anything? There’s a whole internet craze about them (hell, look at second-life). Off the top of my head, I can think of Inuyasha (although technically he has dog ears). Which is quite a good anime series actually.
>Normally I’m rather apathetic to horror movies in general. I can get into Thrillers much more though. Like when the protagonist is walking down a corridor and the suspenseful music starts playing and your like: “Somethings gonna pop out of no where… any minute now.” Then the protagonist is frightened by something that turns out to be nothing. They are then mauled by zombie land-sharks or something. Horror video games are a totally different matter to me though, they can really freak me out.
Funnily enough, the Resident Evil series has become less scary as the series has progressed. I played the demo of RE5 and I was not in the least bit scared (ok, so maybe that giant axe-wielding maniac can be a bit scary) the main problem with it is, it somehow feels so hard to aim properly. Co-op seems to make it less scary too.
I’m getting skate 2 btw ^^
Speaking of horror games, Left 4 Dead is AWESOME. I implore everyone to play it. You’ve really got to experience it, great fun with friends. It’s actually less of a horror game and more action really, but it has zombies. 😀
A quick search on Google returned this result:
Via Yahoo Answers
I haven’t seen many animes with “nekos” in. But it’s bigger then you think.
Anyway, yea. I don’t really want animal ears either, but I think you’d be surprised how many people on the internet do.
Then again, this is the internet so you shouldn’t be surprised.
How did you get the ” sign?
And even if I wantede ‘neko’ ears, I wouldn’t think I was ugly because I hadn’t got neko ears.
I think usually women are the ones that want to be wearing the cat ears and such. I’ve noticed they are the ones that tend to wear animal ears and stuff in animes.
In the (I think) third part of Sailor Moon they have a woman called Catsy that has cat ears.
http://www.absoluteanime.com/sailor_moon/catsy.gif
And I know of a lot of people that buy these
http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2013/2237130602_e78860ae23.jpg?v=0
I know two people, one female, and one male that wear fake ears similar to the ones above.
Is there anyone who would wear that? Yeau
@Nyubis: I just used the blockquote tags.
About the neko ear things: Well, wearing a hat is one thing. But surgically implanting animal ears onto the top of your head is another. 😀
Now that I think about it, I do know quite a few people who wear those sorta hats. I believe my sister has one too.
^That’s also true. If you read the opening paragraph it says:
It shouldn’t really be taken seriously. But then again, the issues proposed are usually the ones put forward by most people when talking about video games being bad.
Here’s an article on Destructoid that explains how playing video games made him more sociable. It’s a good read, and it’s related to this article too.
Uh, how is what I wrote taking the cracked.com article seriously?
I said here is my take on the studies that HE quoted on his article. I was merely addressing the same points he was but in my way. I wasn’t exactly arguing with what he said, haha.
So, yeah, I know the article wasn’t supposed to be taken seriously.
Silly Gamoc 😉
Hey… I have a Godzilla video game.. does that mean I’m gonna wanna look like Godzilla? RAWR!