Porn and games addiction leading to 'masculinity crisis'

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Jeust

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According to an article in The Independent:

A leading psychologist has warned that young men are facing a crisis of masculinity due to excessive use of video games and pornography.

Psychologist and professor emeritus at Stanford University Phillip Zimbardo has made the warnings, which form a major part of his latest book, Man (Dis)Connected.

In an interview on the BBC World Service's Weekend programme, Zimbardo spoke about the results of his study, an in-depth look into the lives of 20,000 young men and their relationships with video games and pornography.

He said: "Our focus is on young men who play video games to excess, and do it in social isolation - they are alone in their room."

"Now, with freely available pornography, which is unique in history, they are combining playing video games, and as a break, watching on average, two hours of pornography a week."

Zimbardo says there is a "crisis" amongst young men, a high number of whom are experiencing a "new form of addiction" to excessive use of pornography and video games.

Zimbardo gave a TED talk in 2011 outlining the problems facing young men's social development and academic achievement, which he puts down to excessive use of porn, video games and the internet.

He cited the example of a mother he met while conducting the study whose son does not see the problem in playing video games for up to 15 hours a day.

Zimbardo said: "For me, 'excess' is not the number of hours, it's a psychological change in mindset."

Giving an example of the mindset of a gaming and pornography-addicted young man, he says: "When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Zimbardo claims that this relatively new phenomenon is affecting the minds of young men.

Citing the research he and his team conducted for the book, he says: "It begins to change brain function. It begins to change the reward centre of the brain, and produces a kind of excitement and addiction."

"What I'm saying is - boys' brains are becoming digitally rewired."

He also mentioned the growing problem of a disputed phenomenon called 'porn-induced erectile dysfunction', or PIED: "Young boys who should be virile are now having a problem getting an erection."

"You have this paradox - they're watching exciting videos that should be turning them on, and they can't get turned on."

In his opinion, the solution is to accept that the problem is serious - parents must become aware of the number of hours a child is spending alone in their room playing games and watching porn at the expense of other activities.

He also blamed negative images of men in the American media, which show men as being "slobs, undesirable, only wanting to get laid and being inadequate in doing that."

He also called for better sex education in schools - which should focus not only on biology and safety, but also on emotions, physical contact and romantic relationships.

The pressing issue of male mental health is now a much more prominent concern than it once was. Last year saw the first Male Psychology Conference at University College London, intended to encourage the British Psychological Society to introduce a male specialist section, to sit alongside its female equivalent.

Source: Porn and video game addiction leading to 'masculinity crisis', says Stanford psychologist

What do you feel about this?

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Jeust

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#2  Edited By Jeust

Sincerely I agree with the views of the psychologist, although I don't feel that the excess in video games and porn are the sole reasons for the masculinity crisis. They are conditions that affect a large number of men, but they interact with the personal aspects of the of said individuals, and with them gives their behaviour.

But these aspects are important in my point of view.

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Zeik

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#3  Edited By Zeik

I'm not really sure what he's qualifying as "masculinity", so I don't really know how to feel, but my first instinct is to laugh. It sounds like yet another biased study intended to show a result he wants to show. It doesn't sound like it's bothering to factor in the countless other psychological or sociological issues that might contribute to those results.

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I_Stay_Puft

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#4  Edited By I_Stay_Puft

I don't even remember my school teaching us anything about sex ed in High School or Middle School. I remember them covering it in Elementary School crazy as that sounds but that was it.

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Y2Ken

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#5  Edited By Y2Ken

One of my friends was actually on a BBC debate show with this guy last week - he was called in after answering a survey as a "games fan". I suspect you can guess how most people here will respond to it. There's certainly some people who can't strike a balance in their life, but they'll exist for any form of entertainment or hobby. If anything, the issue I took most with this particular "critic" was that his main argument seemed to be along the (not a direct quote, to be clear) "men aren't men any more because they aren't doing manly sports things or romancing ladies", which is perhaps a slightly stuck-in-the-past way of looking at things. But then what would you expect from someone who still thinks video games are a terrible threat to our youth? What about girls who want to play games? because there's plenty of those too.

That's not to say I think children (of any age bracket or gender identity) should spend all their time playing games and watching porn, of course. Both mediums certainly have their fair share of issues, especially the latter, and that's a conversation worth having. But Zimbardo's stance is very much that of the traditionalist who seems to think that the classic image of masculinity is somehow the only correct one. That's not something I can truck with. Let people be who they wanna be, y'know?

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deactivated-6050ef4074a17

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What I've heard of this guy makes him seem like a crackpot.

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indure

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"He cited the example of a mother he met while conducting the study whose son does not see the problem in playing video games for up to 15 hours a day."

15 hours a day of one thing, 7 days a week, is going to messed you up regardless of what that one thing is. To me, its just another study illustrating that scientists are great at observing data, but no better than anyone else at synthesizing it.

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Jeust

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#8  Edited By Jeust

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

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hassun

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#9  Edited By hassun
@y2ken said:

his main argument seemed to be along the (not a direct quote, to be clear) "men aren't men any more because they aren't doing manly sports things or romancing ladies", which is perhaps a slightly stuck-in-the-past way of looking at things. But then what would you expect from someone who still thinks video games are a terrible threat to our youth? What about girls who want to play games? because there's plenty of those too.

That's the feeling I'm getting from him as well. Kind of reminds me of the time when satanic music was corrupting our children and making them shoot up schools.

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alistercat

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I fail to see what anything he described has to do with masculinity. Should I be putting up some shelves and adding women to my list of conquests or something?

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Zeik

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@y2ken said:

If anything, the issue I took most with this particular "critic" was that his main argument seemed to be along the (not a direct quote, to be clear) "men aren't men any more because they aren't doing manly sports things or romancing ladies", which is perhaps a slightly stuck-in-the-past way of looking at things.

Yeah, that's the impression I got, which is why I was leaning toward "this sounds like bullshit". That kind of attitude gets on my nerves. There are certain elements of "masculinity" that are positive, and I can condone some arguments that the loss of those things are negative for men and society, but once you start defining masculinity as a stereotypical dick waving contest and men and humanity are inferior for not valuing that as the only way to be then I will gladly tell them to go fuck themselves.

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ASilentProtagonist

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This made me laugh.

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Kumatose

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#13  Edited By Kumatose

Zimbardo is the same guy who led the Stanford prison experiment, which you may have heard about at some point as it's been very influential in the study of group psychology:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment

Anyway, here's a good rebuttal to his comments on gaming addiction:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/may/11/the-cliche-of-lone-male-gamer-needs-to-be-destroyed

Even more tenuous is the idea that boys now completely lack societal role models. Zimbardo sees a popular culturing teeming with moodles (“man poodles”) and infantilised losers like the stars of Judd Apatow’s comedy movies. What he doesn’t seem to have kept up with is the rise of the aspirational geek. Sure, the muscle-bound alpha males of 80s action cinema have largely retired, but tech culture has brought us new figureheads – Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, Biz Stone, Palmer Luckey – men who (whatever you personally think of them) reached the top through intelligence and industry, who read the prevailing tech trends and got it all right. David Fincher’s movie Social Network is effectively a modern-age take on Brian de Palma’s Scarface: the analysis of male aspiration and heroism as a symbol for its contemporary milieu. Geeks are heroes now, and they’re a lot more functional and relatable than the movie and sports stars we once adored.

I can’t help but feel that what Zimbardo expresses is a saner version of the fetid MRA assertion that men are being pushed out by society, that we’re somehow being sidelined; that the feminazis are taking over. And certainly the death of traditional industry in the West, together with complex new work patterns, is leading to an employment market that values different skillsets than those our fathers required. Add this to a culture that is increasingly questioning notions of masculinity and femininity – the online battles over Marvel’s depiction of women, the controversy over Anita Sarkeesian’s questioning of sexist video game tropes – and you have a complex and confusing environment of gender inquisition. Things are changing fast, and transition is frightening – as the recent election has shown us, grasping on to what is known and familiar is a natural human response.

As for video games not being as attractive to women, that’s dated too. The rise of smartphones as a habitual technology has seen a huge boost in the numbers of women playing and enjoying games. Research by the Internet Advertising Bureau last year found that 52% of British gamers are women. This isn’t an isolated blip and it isn’t just down to “casual” phone games like Candy Crush Saga. In the US, research specialist Super Data found that just over 50% of PC gamers are women. Senior researcher Stephanie Llamas wrote about how her data challenged the cliche that women only play casual titles – her female subjects identified mostly as “mid-core” and hardcore players.

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matiaz_tapia

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Zimbardo kinda looks like satan. That's all I have to say and is in no way relevant.

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#15  Edited By CaLe

Real men are the ones I see on TV, like Mel Gibson from Mad Max. I just watched it and to me he looked like a real man, unlike me. I wish I was a real man, like Mel Gibson from the Mad Max movie. Games prevented me from becoming a real Mad Max man, and maybe also porn indirectly played a role because though I've no interest in it myself but I know most boys do.

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Belegorm

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#16  Edited By Belegorm

I'm of two minds on this. On the one hand the whole "VIDEO GAMES ARE DESTROYING YOUR MIND AND OH PORN'S BAD TOO" isn't going to hold much weight as an argument.

On the other hand, it does seem concerning that many young people (a majority of which are male, hence the emphasis on that), are becoming isolationist due to spending all their free time playing video games or on the internet, and pornography is tied in with excessive time browsing the internet.

I think on one level, young people don't always have their priorities figured out and sacrifice valuable time that they could be interacting with people out in the world, playing games and being on the internet. I think playing games and going on the internet are good! However when your social life suffers because either you need to grind out another level in an MMO, or because you're too lazy to go out to a gathering with your friends and would rather just laze around bored on the internet, I think that can get to be a problem. And maybe also getting obsessed with jerking off to porn every night might not be only concerning to religious conservatives.

Most people can probably get behind the ideas "moderation is good" and "doing one thing to excess is unhealthy." Certain people tend to have more "addictive personalities," and these people tend to be the ones playing games 15 hours a day or whatever. Is it more on the person rather than on the game? Absolutely. But a lot of games are based around being "addictive." Hell how many times have we heard the adjective "addicting" to describe a great game?

By no means I'm I saying "ALL THESE CRAZY GAMERS NEED TO GET A LIFE." What I am saying is that if they want to play games 15 hours a day that's their choice. But it might not be the healthiest choice and I personally suggest they try changing their lifestyle a bit. Also from talks that I went to in college about the internet and how it affects us, I learned that it's not necessarily a handful of crazy biased people, but a fairly large number of psychologists out there who have evidence that a lifestyle of watching internet porn a lot has an adverse affect on your brain. Take that with a grain of salt if you need to. What I'm saying isn't "these lifestyles are bad!" it's "maybe evaluate what you're doing on a daily basis and re-evaluate if it's healthy, more than you usually would?" And I think that's decent advice to anyone.

As to the whole masculinity thing... I think that's kind of off-tangent to the issues that really need to be discussed in this area.

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deactivated-6050ef4074a17

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@kumatose: It's worth nothing that while Zimbardo's findings here are crazy sounding and rooted in outdated traditionalist notions, that response to him in The Guardian is sort of all over the place and doesn't really do much to actually directly counter anything Zimbardo's hypothesized. It's some weird excuse to ramble about MRAs when that's only tangentially related, and those two citations at the end that talk about "women are 50% of gamers, here at the links to prove it, it's not just casual games!" don't actually back up the author's point at all. Like, the first link he cites actually says the opposite of what he claims it does. Which I find weird.

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MattyFTM

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#18  Edited By MattyFTM  Moderator
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With porn specifically, this nonsense has been touted for decades. When it's not motivating rape (it doesn't) or aiding sex trafficking (again, doesn't), it's turning men into folks who'll love their hand more than their girlfriend.

Unfortunately (at least for the folks who make their living writing books, giving talks, and getting precious page views about these horrible epidemics that must be stopped), facts and science just don't back up any of those claims.

Studies have been done that show the amount of porn consumed has no relation to sexual desire and performance. Check out this article and the links therein. My sister is an anthropologist who's published a book about erectile dysfunction (ED) in Mexico, and porn was never found as a contributing factor in her research (including interviews).

ED is a very real thing, and it's largely emotional, so if there's a guy who feels he'd rather watch porn than have sex, there are most likely personal reasons in that person that leads to the problem. Maybe the man is inhibited around the woman and can feel more secure with just himself, maybe the porn includes some specific fetish that the man is afraid to include in sex, etc. Myriad causes of ED, but they're brought on by personal issues. Porn doesn't take a sexually regular man and make him unable or unwilling to have sex. Science shows us otherwise.

Not to mention, that all of these claims completely disregard the effect of porn on gay men and women, and straight women who watch porn. And trust me, I worked for 3 years at one of the country's largest distributor of porn DVDs, and it's WAY more than just straight men that watch the stuff.

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ArtisanBreads

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#24  Edited By ArtisanBreads

The videogames part is real BS.

The pornography I can see danger in, for sure. Felt it personally, to be honest. Not always healthy. However, don't see what it has to do with masculinity.

@jeust said:

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

This is part of what I'm talking about. Definitely not healthy. However, I don't see what it has to do with masculinity. It is mainly involving isolation, loneliness, depression, etc. That's where the danger is.

There has been a lot of talk about it recently and I do think there's value in that for some (hell, maybe many) but the masculinity angle is crap.

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csl316

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Anything in excess is potentially harmful, not just these two things.

Instead of telling people what not to do (which makes you want to do it more), we should encourage people to try new things. Vary your hobbies and you'll have no desire to play 15 hours a day.

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hippie_genocide

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I would agree that there is a 'masculinity crisis' but completely disagree for the reasons why. I think it has more to do with shifting societal attitudes towards traditional male roles. Laying it at the feet of porn and videogames feels lazy to me.

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deactivated-582d227526464

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I think people are shying away from the point this study is making because of confirmation bias. No one here wants to say videogames are bad, but let's acknowledge that videogames and porn are being used by a lot of males to circumvent living an actual life. There is absolutely no denying that, I'm sorry. I've seen in it people I know and myself to varying degrees. I don't think videogames are inherently bad and I still play them regularly, but like any enjoyable activity, they can become a crippling addiction if left unchecked. And many people are basically binge-playing games without almost no other social interactions. That has an impact on society. Just like texting, the activity itself may be benign, but what it does to how SOME people live their lives is incredibly damaging. Society isn't going to collapse if people keep playing games, but if the attitudes towards them don't change we may see a decline in the birth rate and the employment of men in a certain demographic.

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Jeust

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The videogames part is real BS.

The pornography I can see danger in, for sure. Felt it personally, to be honest. Not always healthy. However, don't see what it has to do with masculinity.

@jeust said:

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

This is part of what I'm talking about. Definitely not healthy. However, I don't see what it has to do with masculinity. It is mainly involving isolation, loneliness, depression, etc. That's where the danger is.

There has been a lot of talk about it recently and I do think there's value in that for some (hell, maybe many) but the masculinity angle is crap.

Masculinity here is synonym of masculine behaviour as it is socially considered.

The game's angle enters when people start prefering more solitary experiences that provide a secure and lesser gratification to more social ones, that have bigger uncertainty to them, but have better and more important social repercursions and can be more enjoyable.

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@claybrez: I think it's fair to talk about mens issues and the future prospects of new generations of men and boys, but the problem with this is that video games are not uniquely addictive or uniquely a crutch. Some people use TV in the same way, eating as a coping mechanism, binge drinking or smoking weed. There's a wide array of vices out there that people lean on and all of them can become unhealthy when used excessively. Anything can be psychologically addictive. I'm not sure what the actual solutions are, here.

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SomeJerk

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Parents letting the kid do whatever for however long is the problem.

Also see kids being brought up being used to having an iPad or iPhone to toy with at all times.

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gamefreak9

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#31  Edited By gamefreak9

I don't know. I do feel like masculinity is being suppressed quite a bit in modern culture, mostly in the form of lack of adventure/thrill seeking. Especially damaging since society still demands masculinity, I know a bunch of guys over the age of 22 who are virgins because they don't have the "masculinity" to go ask girls out, this would be trivial for a girl as most guys don't care if a girl is a virgin but the same standard ABSOLUTELY does NOT hold the other way around. I don't do pick up "artistry" but if its success has shown us anything its that most girls are attracted to power(this is coherent with evolutionary theory) and a guy who is a virgin is usually perceived as having low power. In all honesty it pains me to see my "friends" suffer loneliness in this way(and I am worried they might do bad things to themselves).

edit: note that I did not agree or disagree with the cause of this. Just stating my observation on masculinity in general.

I would put on my statistician/economist hat and go digging more formally but its a rather busy period and the reference seems to be a book.

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ArtisanBreads

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#32  Edited By ArtisanBreads

@jeust said:

Masculinity here is synonym of masculine behaviour as it is socially considered.

The game's angle enters when people start prefering more solitary experiences that provide a secure and lesser gratification to more social ones, that have bigger uncertainty to them, but have better and more important social repercursions and can be more enjoyable.

I tend to think that definition of masculinity is BS.

As far as games, I think they are totally gratifying and worthwhile. Like @csl316 brings up, the games one just feels like, yeah, if I do anything too much that's probably unhealthy. If I watch sports all day and ESPN all day and call into the local sports hot take show with a script written up, yeah that's no good either.

I don't see the relevance. Yes, you could spend time gaming instead of being social, but that could be said of reading. Is reading bad? I just don't buy that angle. It's all about balance.

As far as pornography, I look at that differently because I have felt the impact it can have on my mood, emotions, and it's not that I could spend time looking at pornography instead of being social, it's like you mentioned, I might be afraid of rejection so I just look at pornography and get lost in that instead and there is really little good to come of it. As a young man, I might spend lots of time with pornography vs meeting girls in what should be formative years. I have also felt it warp my feelings towards women romantically when it was at its worst to be overly sexual.

Just how I view things. I don't see the relation and "videogames" could be a lot of other things in the example. I just think pornography is something to be a bit weary of, as someone who has felt effects.

I have never had that happen as a result of videogames. It'd be almost as if the violent tendency thing you see the Jack Thompsons of the world say about videogames were something I actually felt (or existed, I think it does not), if it was like my feelings about how pornography can be negative.

To be clear, I'm not some big anti-porn guy at all. It's fine. It's just it can be unhealthy and the internet has made the whole thing a little insane.

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EXTomar

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#33  Edited By EXTomar

I believe the issue is more that cultural attitudes about gender and sex promote this kind of thing. Make sex a stressful mystery that only "the beautiful manly man" can do and it is no wonder some nerdy guy would rather not bother, retreat the basement, and do it himself. Games and porn don't harass or reject him. And also, this ignores what "damage" it is doing to girls who can fall into a "Madonna Whole" cycle getting mixed messages about staying pure and being evil for tempting men.

And another thing, what is wrong with nerdy guys going nuts on porn? If they aren't bothering anyone, who really cares?

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deactivated-582d227526464

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@marokai said:

@claybrez: I think it's fair to talk about mens issues and the future prospects of new generations of men and boys, but the problem with this is that video games are not uniquely addictive or uniquely a crutch. Some people use TV in the same way, eating as a coping mechanism, binge drinking or smoking weed. There's a wide array of vices out there that people lean on and all of them can become unhealthy when used excessively. Anything can be psychologically addictive. I'm not sure what the actual solutions are, here.

Absolutely, but I disagree that videogames are not uniquely addictive. I think you're seeing a lot of people these days substitute videogames for sports. That's kind of a new thing. TV certainly did not use to fill that role.

I'm not trying to make any huge claims here. I just think it's a legit problem.

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ArtisanBreads

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#35  Edited By ArtisanBreads
@claybrez said:

Absolutely, but I disagree that videogames are not uniquely addictive. I think you're seeing a lot of people these days substitute videogames for sports. That's kind of a new thing. TV certainly did not use to fill that role.

People have been doing things like TV instead of playing a sport for a long ass time. There are people that sit around and watch TV all damn day.

There are other factors that may be leading for people to be less healthy, overweight and all that these days. But I think that's just false. As I mentioned in my post, there are people that sit around and watch sports and ESPN all day instead of doing something like going out and playing a sport. Videogames aren't so special.

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penguindust

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#36  Edited By penguindust

Isn't this the reason why the Japanese birth rate has declined? I'm sure I read something where they blamed otaku culture, video games and porn for the lower birth rate and young men seemingly losing interest in the opposite sex.

Of course, there are 6 billion people in the world, so I don't consider a declining birth rate to be a bad thing.

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colourful_hippie

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I like Zimbardo.

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Hunter5024

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#38  Edited By Hunter5024

Should we expect standards and definitions to remain the same if the rest of the world changes around them?

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@artisanbreads said:
@claybrez said:

Absolutely, but I disagree that videogames are not uniquely addictive. I think you're seeing a lot of people these days substitute videogames for sports. That's kind of a new thing. TV certainly did not use to fill that role.

People have been doing things like TV instead of playing a sport for a long ass time. There are people that sit around and watch TV all damn day.

There are other factors that may be leading for people to be less healthy, overweight and all that these days. But I think that's just false. As I mentioned in my post, there are people that sit around and watch sports and ESPN all day instead of doing something like going out and playing a sport. Videogames aren't so special.

That's very true. I guess it's a personality type thing. The people who were predisposed to avoiding physical activity were always going to do so, and videogames are just the newest thing so they are catching the most flak. I definitely see that.

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Zeik

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#40  Edited By Zeik

I can't say I live an especially healthy social life myself, but trying to place the blame squarely on video games feels like scapegoating and reductive bullshit. There are so many other factors that have nothing to do with video games that contribute to that lifestyle. They're trying to create a simple and easy answer to an incredibly complex issue. Frankly, I kind of find it insulting that they're implying that men are that simple minded.

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@jeust said:

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

Sounds pretty normal to me. Young men are bored and sexually frustrated. I think that's probably true at pretty much every point in history. The ways that they deal with it have just changed over the years.

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Zeik

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#42  Edited By Zeik

@penguindust said:

Isn't this the reason why the Japanese birth rate has declined? I'm sure I read something where they blamed otaku culture, video games and porn for the lower birth rate and young men seemingly losing interest in the opposite sex.

Of course, there are 6 billion people in the world, so I don't consider a declining birth rate to be a bad thing.

I'm sure there are crackpots who want to lay the blame solely on that, but it's definitely more complex than nerds playing too many video games and prefering "waifus". Their ridiculous work lives are a large reason for why that is happening, and it's not just men who are no longer priortizing relationships.

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ArtisanBreads

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@claybrez said:

That's very true. I guess it's a personality type thing. The people who were predisposed to avoiding physical activity were always going to do so, and videogames are just the newest thing so they are catching the most flak. I definitely see that.

I think the reason it's easy to blame videogames is mostly because they are so popular among a younger crowd. But if we went back in time this would have been true, I'm sure, with other new media. Kids were obsessed with comics for example and that was the downfall of society too at some point.

It's just a complex issue to me and blaming a form of media won't solve much.

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Quantris

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@marokai said:

What I've heard of this guy makes him seem like a crackpot.

I heard that he's a psychologist.

BOOM

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We are quickly approaching the era where video games will be as ubiquitous as movies and television, and this kind of stuff will finally disappear. More and more kids are growing up their entire lives now playing games, including a huge amount of women and young girls.

It won't be long before every generation who lived without video games is dead and gone.

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Skald

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#46  Edited By Skald

The attitude that measures men by their sexual experience has done more harm to society than video games could ever hope to do.

E: (And that goes for women, too. Who are too often bullied for the inverse.)

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@milkman said:
@jeust said:

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

Sounds pretty normal to me. Young men are bored and sexually frustrated. I think that's probably true at pretty much every point in history. The ways that they deal with it have just changed over the years.

You're right. But it's also more than that, games and porn become in the minds of some men more enticing than their education and real relationships, and that is worth thinking about.

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AsKo25

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this just makes me want to play Yakuza 4 again, the most masculine game ever

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boysef

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I'm just glad Stanford is still doing meaningless case studies, truly god's work finding all those societal scapegoats

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Zeik

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#50  Edited By Zeik
@jeust said:
@milkman said:
@jeust said:

"When I'm in class, I'll wish I was playing World of Warcraft. When I'm with a girl, I'll wish I was watching pornography, because I'll never get rejected."

Personally I've gone through this kind of experiences. Although I never played World of Warcraft, or felt it about rejection. Personally I can relate.

Sounds pretty normal to me. Young men are bored and sexually frustrated. I think that's probably true at pretty much every point in history. The ways that they deal with it have just changed over the years.

You're right. But it's also more than that, games and porn become in the minds of some men more enticing than their education and real relationships, and that is worth thinking about.

Well yeah, but so can countless other things. It's neither exclusive to porn or videogames nor does that apply to a significant portion of the population. For those people that's a serious issue, but I don't think that's enough to single those things out or label it a "masculinity crisis."

The implication is that those people would be normal well-adjusted men if video games and/or porn were not in the picture, and I think that's a load of crap. If you are at the point where you are actively replacing friends and relationships with video games and porn there are deeper seeded and more complex issues than those things being in your life.