Are video games and pornography ruining you?

Excuse the TMZ-worthy topic title. CNN just released a new story that I found interesting:

http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/23/health/living-well/demise-of-guys/index.html

What do you guys think? I think it's totally plausible. It's scary to think that there are people out there literally doing nothing but playing Diablo 3, watching porn, eating, and using the restroom for days on end. No, personally I don't think that's an exaggeration. I don't think the the story is by any means implying that everyone who plays video games is some crazed addict who also partakes in watching pornography 24/7. This particular quote stuck out to me - "The excessive use of video games and online porn in pursuit of the next thing is creating a generation of risk-averse guys who are unable (and unwilling) to navigate the complexities and risks inherent to real-life relationships, school and employment."

Risk-averse guys unwilling to navigate real-life relationships? Sounds familiar, I think we might have a few of these guys among us. Thoughts?

I don't trust anyone who would imply that Katawa Shoujo is bad for you.

God, i hope so.

Leave me alone.

I'm married and play video games all the time. Not so much porn, but I have nothing against it.

Diablo/porn/food/bathroom is probably all I'd be doing if I had the free time. Unfortunately, I've got both full time work and full time school, so I don't have much time to play.

@kmdrkul said:

Risk-averse guys unwilling the navigate real-life relationships?

While I'm not exactly unwilling, I'm certainly not putting a lot of effort into it, there are 2 guys at my work that are still married out of twenty, the rest of them are all divorced, except me (never married) and it pretty much ruined every single one of them.

I would be really happy to meet a decent girl, but they seem to be a rare find these days (not that guys are any better) and my standards just seem to be getting higher and higher for no apparent reason.

It's a real problem for me.

Edit, I really don't think games or porn have anything to do with it though, it's just that most people can be pretty much self sufficient these days so there is less need to get into a relationship on both sides; and taking on a serious relationship is a significant and often one-sided risk on the man's part with comparatively minor consequences for the women.

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

If anything videogames and porn make me a better person as I get all my vices out on those two things, rather than living them out in the real world. My wife wouldn't be happy with that either. 

Lmao what?

not sure about ruining me...

but RSI is a worry

@BraveToaster said:

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

Those guys are holding N64 controllers...

This is a concern that I've had for a while now. Nice to have some research to back it up, instead of just my usual ranting and raving.

@doobie said:

not sure about ruining me...

but RSI is a worry

Careful with that or you'll go blind too.

Well isnt looking at porn and playing video games waaay better, then for example go and rob a store? Or do drugs and heavy drinkin? =P

@BraveToaster said:

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

Then disprove what they're saying. Obviously some of it is fluff, like: "Young men -- who play video games and use porn the most -- are being digitally rewired in a totally new way that demands constant stimulation. And those delicate, developing brains are being catered to by video games and porn-on-demand, with a click of the mouse, in endless variety." That's obviously not a factual statement, but is it outside the realm of possibility? Hell no.

playing videogames whaaaat? who has time for that.

@AlexanderSheen said:

@BraveToaster said:

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

Those guys are holding N64 controllers...

What's a 15 year old article doing on CNN?

ITT: CNN discovers the "poop sockers."

Some say ruin...

I disagree.

Ruining my right hand.

Jeff Gertsmann"Fox news report "THESE VIDEO GAMES ARE RUINING OUR CHILDRENS LIVES" That is all.

Me? risk averse? "Beep" Wrong answer, please try again.

no. people need to stop using media as a scapegoat. some people are just fucked up. Anders Breiveik didn't kill people because he played video games, he killed people because he had serious mental/psychological issues. Same with the Columbine kids. They didn't pick up DOOM one day and decide that it would be fun to do it in real life.

but on the porn side i can agree to some degree, it does desensitize you if you watch too much (just like any good thing, you can have too much of it) and you shouldn't watch it if you're 12.

This is stuff people should be paying attention to. The idea that we're rewiring our risk/reward systems is not absurd, and this article is rather interesting. I'm becoming more detached from digital forms of entertainment over time, which really lets me stand back and view this whole issue with a more unbiased mindset. Looking back, I've seen it in myself; the idea that you would push away real life risk, and real world relationships for something a little easier to grab onto is incredibly real.

Now of course, this is NOT just because of games, it involves someone's personality, their experiences, and their thought processes all coming together to take video games/porn and make it their primary source of being mentally and subconsciously rewarded. So don't get defensive guys, just take a look at it objectively.

EDIT: It may not be rewiring these processes, but we're overloading it in a real quick and easy way. Getting the brain to turn on like that is as simple as typing something into Google, which is kind of scary.

EDIT 2: It is also entirely possible I have no idea what I'm talking about. I'm not a scientist, nor have I done any serious research. Judge things for yourselves guys.

@Guided_By_Tigers said:

@AlexanderSheen said:

@BraveToaster said:

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

Those guys are holding N64 controllers...

What's a 15 year old article doing on CNN?

Imagine how video gaming looked 15 years ago. I think it looked something like this:

*turulu turulu turulu turulu*

Man, after reading that article I could really go for playing some diablo 3 hardcore mode (cause I'm a hardcore gamer) while watching a chinese hooker banging a midget upside down.

Newsflash, CNN has biases and one of those is video games, they'll keep this angle up till the day they stop getting paid to take it up.

Probably true.

@BraveToaster said:

A news outlet not knowing what they're talking about? Astounding!

Got a bit personal did it Toaster?

i thought everybody knew the internet was for looking at free porn. i guess i was wrong. at any rate, i think porn could be a great tool for knowing how to please a person of interest. if it wasn't for nina hartley, i wouldn't have known the proper technique to use for going down on women.

How come no one worries about guys who are obsessed with football and fine art? Taking anything too far is unhealthy.

Here's the logical conclusion to all of this, summed up in one short post:

Moderation and self-control over consumption of every single thing is a good skill to have. If you lose control over yourself, then you will end up watching porn, playing video games, and eating junk food all day, every day. In this day and age, when self-satisfaction is so easily attainable, the ability to control when and where you consume entertainment is of utmost importance to any sort of success.

So, in short, stop jerking off and go find a job.

EDIT:

Norwegian mass murder suspect Anders Behring Breivik reported during his trial that he prepared his mind and body for his marksman-focused shooting of 77 people by playing "World of Warcraft" for a year and then "Call of Duty" for 16 hours a day.

I didn't know you could train yourself to kill people by clicking hotkeys. Yeah, I can kind of see where one ignorant fucktard might think that Call of Duty could train you in the use of guns (bah!), but anyone who has even done the least bit of research on World of Warcraft, even watching a fucking Youtube video, could tell that the game is in no way good for training anyone for anything, unless they're training for a fucking social Skinner Box.

This article and the motherfuckers that helped make it just lost all fucking credibility.

i need to get a picture in picture capable TV so i can watch porn while playing video games without turning my head to my computer monitor like i do now! my neck is sore!

This CNN article is somewhat misleading (surprise!). In the book the video games they talk about are almost exclusively MMO's, and the people they focus on are people who have addictive tendencies in the first place. Basically, it sounds like there isn't much difference between someone who is addicted to video games and someone who beats someone else outside a soccer stadium (except real world violence, ofc), or the old recluse who watches The Brady Bunch re-runs, or the guy who smokes marijuana all day, ect.

Also, do these people remember what it was like to be a kid before video games? Kids were never exactly calm and focused in the first place. I swear, if Lord of the Flies was written today people would be blaming video games instead of realizing the point about human nature.

The statements about "rewiring" sound overly dramatic too. I mean, yeah, my brain is being rewired by games, but it is being rewired by anything I do. Going for a run rewires my brain, playing tic-tac-toe rewires my brain, learning math re-wires my brain. Heck, math must be as bad as videogames! The Unabomber was crazy good at math and he worked on it so much he often didn't leave his dorm room which lead to social isolation, and we all know where that leads!

I want to see some of these articles/studies that focus on women. I've seen so much crap with titles like "The Decline of Men," wherein modern man's apparent dependence and corruption by video games and porn is brought up that it borders on sexism.

I don't trust CNN's biased reporting to read any of it's articles.

Sexism! I demand women be ruined by videogames and porn as well!

@TheHumanDove said:

Sexism! I demand women be ruined by videogames and porn as well!

I think girls are being ruined by Facebook games and 50 Shades of Grey instead.

@TheHumanDove said:

Sexism! I demand women be ruined by videogames and porn as well!

Where tha white women at?

@No0b0rAmA said:

I don't trust CNN's biased reporting to read any of it's articles.

All American news is biased in one way or the other, Fox News is pretty much propaganda. Actually it was after 9\11, building up to the wars and any election year. I watch Al Jazeera and BBC for really journalism like being in the heart of the battles just to get the true story out. Instead of Fox News standing infront of a green screen to pretend im on the other side of the world.

I BLAME VIDJA GAMES!

Thank god women are there to pick up the slack. No woman would ever watch porn or play video games, it just isn't possible.

My fiancee and I both play video games and watch porn together. If anything, we bond over that stuff.

That being said, over indulgence of anything will fuck you up. Don't need a finger-pointy article by someone who clearly has a "be afraid of these here vidya games and girly sites" agenda to tell me that. Moderation, people. Moderation.

Zimbardo is a really smart guy

This is only a case of CNN bias in that they are spinning an announcement of his book a certain way

The old picture is some stock art some gaming-ignorant CNN employee grabbed to fill space in the article and has nothing to do with the age or quality of the content.

You can't deny that MMO and Social Game makers and Gamification people are deliberately trying to make games (and everything) more addictive.

This article actually has a point if you can read it without having a "Why does everyone hate video games!?!" knee jerk reaction.

@Bourbon_Warrior said:

@No0b0rAmA said:

I don't trust CNN's biased reporting to read any of it's articles.

All American news is biased in one way or the other, Fox News is pretty much propaganda. Actually it was after 9\11, building up to the wars and any election year. I watch Al Jazeera and BBC for really journalism like being in the heart of the battles just to get the true story out. Instead of Fox News standing infront of a green screen to pretend im on the other side of the world.

CBS is pretty damn good.

This is totally plausible, not only with video games and porn but other forms of distraction as well. We are all just trying to get from point 'A' to point 'B' and once you get into a rut or a consistant pattern of living (like having a 9 to 5 job, or being unemployed for 6 months) it's naturally to try and find something to distract you from reality. Some people watch jersey shore and read advertisement ridden magizines, and others play video games and watch porn... its comparing apples and oranges in that both can rot your brain.

We are all just trying to get from point 'A' to point 'B'.....go porn and games

Oh for fuck's sake CNN. Are you stealing Fox News stories now?

CNN is enforcing a nice 1950s definition of what it means to be happy. Which back then was to marry young, and go out there and be successful and climb the ladder.

That article is a bunch of people upset that the definition of happiness isn't that anymore. Straight up. It's not a matter of anything beyond "you aren't married and your career isn't important to you, that's unacceptable!" Why? Because they're subconsciously angry that they did what they were told instead of what they wanted to? Which one of us is unhappy again?

I don't care about marriage and I extra double don't care about a career. Marriage is not the cure for all ills, I feel sorry for the people out there who are so terrified of being single that they have to be in a relationship. That's not healthy or happy, that's emotional dependence. And a job or career... the average person changes careers 3-5 times and changes jobs 10-15 times, and that's only going to increase as time goes on. The old days of getting a job at the plant and working there until you retire are over. Same with the idea of 'you finish college and you get a job in your field'. Flat no. I know eleven people who went to university, five who completed it, and two who are working in their field. That means that 80% of us are paying off student loans working careers we could've got without them (including me).

If video games, or your friends, or reading, or travel, or anything makes you happy, don't let old crusty bastards tell you that you're not happy because you don't give a shit about work or aren't wrapped up in a relationship. Better chance than not, they're mad that they suffered through hardships in order to have something they never really wanted in the first place and seeing you taking it easy and get what you want pisses them right off.

It isn't a problem with being open but it is a somewhat dead horse being beaten again.

What's wrong with being relationship averse? Am I bothering someone by preferring to be alone?