Health News Article | Reuters.co.uk
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) – After playing a violent video game, young men are more likely to think it’s OK to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol, raising the possibility that exposure to violent media could negatively affect health-related behavior.
Really. Are these people serious? It seems that “researchers” will go to any lengths to demonize video games. And whoa, look at the “evidence” compiled by the study:
1. Playing the violent game boosted young men’s blood pressures…
2. … young men who had played the violent game were less cooperative and more competitive in completing an assigned task with another person …
3. … more likely to have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use …
Ok, so playing video games raises your blood pressure. I took a brisk walk to the doctor the other day and that raised my blood pressure. Do we then assume that any activity that raises a person’s blood pressure is evil? Since when did elevated blood pressure have anything at all to do with a person’s intent to behave in a violent manner? A lot of things can raise a person’s blood pressure: watching the evening news, sex, winning the lottery, riding a bike, playing poker, a fatty diet, etc.Perhaps the government should track people who take medication to lower their blood pressure… surely they are a legion of terrorists and murders in waiting.Video games are exciting, like many other things in life. If they weren’t then we wouldn’t play them. Exciting things tend to increase your heart rate, which in turn will raise your blood pressure. I really wish that “researchers” would stop using the body’s natural response to exciting stimulus as some sort of proof that video games are evil.
On to the “less cooperative and more competitive” statement. Again, a lot of things can put a person into this state. Games are by their very nature a competitive event. When doing these studies why don’t researchers do side-by-side tests of other competitive activities such as sprinting, playing golf, bowling, or even playing chess? I would imagine that after such activities we’d see the same results. Video games are doing nothing different than other competitive activities, yet they are painted black because… can we say “political agenda”?
Finally, “permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use” as a result of playing video games. How on earth did we get here? If this isn’t a clear example of intent to demonize video games by any means, I don’t know what is.
It used to be that music was the culprit, causing kids to smoke pot, drink, and then commit mass suicide. Then it was violent “gangster” movies. Now, somehow, a parent’s worst fear, that their child might do drugs and drink, is being manifested by the latest entertainment bad boy: video games.
It seems all too convenient to me.There is a pattern here. A machine is at work to turn video games into a scapegoat for all of society’s problems. Aren’t there enough real problems in the world already? But then, maybe that’s the point: We live in a time of make believe news and make believe threats. While real atrocities are committed in the real world, politicians and the media focus on fictional issues, hoping that you will be overwhelmed and unconcerned. Which you probably are.
It’s enough to make you want to smoke pot and get drunk.
6 responses to “Video Games = Drunken Marijuana Smoking”
I actually figured that you wouldn’t open this up for discussion. I can tell you for a fact that video games have never inspired me to do drugs, drink, or otherwise misbehave. I did these things to escape the world and all of my troubles. Is it sad that video games have filled this void, now that I’ve cleaned myself up?
I don’t really think it’s that sad. I feel much better that I’m able to try something intellectually stimulating in order to get myself out of the stress rutt, instead of destroying my mind and body with said drugs.
All studies come from statistics, you can make “Statistics” say what ever you want them to. People just don’t play a violent game and say “I need to go smoke weed now, and hell while I’m at it, I’ll get drunk”. Im not a Saint and I can tell you its not from video games. The fact is parents cain’t watch their kids and they blame every one else for it (Im pretty sure the majority of the world’s population is a parent, or or someday will be. Its not the 1700’s anymore. When a family was around each other almost 100% of their lives and every one knew every thing in a small town where 20 people could point their fingers at one person and keep controll of certin things. Technology has made the whole world accesable; more ideas. There’s more fingers being pointing at not people, but technology its self for peoples problems . The newest thing out there is video games. There’s violent movies,violent sports,violent t.v. shows (which all raise your blood pressure),and yes there is violent video games. And untill people get use to it or the next best thing in violent technological media comes along we’re only going to see more of it.
computer games have enhanced my life. Take them away, and I will become very sad and lonely. I just then might want to pick up a couple cases of beer and a sack of grass…Ironic??
I got this following tidbit sent to me once. Unfortunately I don’t know the source.
Bread: The Half-Baked Truth Revealed
1. More than 98 percent of convicted felons are bread users.
2. Fully HALF of all children who grow up in bread-consuming households score below average on standardized tests.
3. In the 18th century, when virtually all bread was baked in the home, the average life expectancy was less than 50 years; infant mortality rates were unacceptably high; many women died in childbirth; and diseases such as typhoid, yellow fever, and influenza ravaged whole nations.
4. Every piece of bread you eat brings you nearer to death.
5. Bread is associated with all the major diseases of the body. For example, nearly all sick people have eaten bread. The effects are obviously cumulative:
6. 99.9 percent of all people who die from cancer have eaten bread
7. 99.7 percent of the people involved in air and auto accidents ate bread within 6 months preceding the accident
8. 93.1 percent of juvenile delinquents came from homes where bread is served frequently
9. Evidence points to the long-term effects of bread eating: Of all the people born since 1839 who later dined on bread, there has been a 100% mortality rate.
10. Bread is made from a substance called “dough.” It has been proven that as little as a teaspoon of dough can be used to suffocate a lab rat. The average American eats more bread than that in one day!
11. Primitive tribal societies that have no bread exhibit a low incidence of cancer, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s disease, and osteoporosis.
12. Bread has been proven to be addictive. Subjects deprived of bread and given only water to eat begged for bread after as little as two days.
13. Bread is often a “gateway” food item, leading the user to “harder” items such as butter, jelly, peanut butter, and even cold cuts.
14. Bread has been proven to absorb water. Since the human body is more than 80 percent water, it follows that eating bread could lead to your body being taken over by this absorptive food product, turning you into a soggy, gooey bread-pudding person.
15. Newborn babies can choke on bread.
16. Bread is baked at temperatures as high as 400 degrees Fahrenheit! That kind of heat can kill an adult in less than one minute.
17. Most bread eaters are utterly unable to distinguish between significant scientific fact and meaningless statistical babbling.
In light of these frightening statistics, we propose the following bread restrictions:
1. No sale of bread to minors.
2. A nationwide “Just Say No To Toast” campaign complete celebrity TV spots and bumper stickers.
3. A 300 percent federal tax on all bread to pay for all the societal ills we might associate with bread.
4. No animal or human images, nor any primary colors (which may appeal to children) may be used to promote bread usage.
5. The establishment of “Bread-free” zones around schools.
This reminds me an awefully lot of a certain song from the South Park movie: Blame Canada.
It’s always fun to listen to these Jack Thompson’ish types ramble on and on about how their personal nemesis is the root of all evil.
1. When playing a videogame, ones reflexes are being used more than ever, thus activating Adrenaline. So yeah, it does temporarily raise bloodpressure.
2. You could say the two first ones are connected, because when adrenaline hits the blood, people tend to get more competetive.
3. I think they ran out of ideas and added the common “drug-factor” to this. I play videogames whenever I can and I’ve never touched any drugs. And call me weird, but I despise the taste of alcohol.
When push comes to shove, video games have nothing to do with it. But if they want something to blame for all “bad” happenings, just let them. One of the fmost ridiculous scapegoats of our time, hurts me to say, is live Roleplay. Some kid from Sweden cut off another persons head and drank his blood. The parrents and police then had nobody else to blame than the rubber sword wielding nerds. I have to find another group now I remember it. Roleplay is another thing that can answer the “evidence” you’ve noted.
1. Playing live RPG get’s your heart pounding and your palms sweating as the adrenaline hits the veins. When that happens, it’s rarely that a person can control how hard he hits another person.
2. Roleplay is a bit violent and, yes, you do get competetive. But it’s you having to wait till the next round, so what’s there to not get competetive about?
3. Again, that has nothing to do with it.
Videogames aren’t the only things that get people to act that way is what I’m saying.
People will do anything these days to demonize anything that younger folk like, unless it directly relates to Jesus or any fictional “god” character like so…because then it’s nothing but songs of priase (no pun intended). If reading the newspaper became the new HUGELY popular way for kids to pass time – inevitably after everyone got over the euphoria that kids like to read now the “researchers” will post all their new “statistics” about how reading the news paper every day is making people think too deeply, seeing articles about drugs makes them want to use them…Reading about violence makes them violent. blah blah all that BS. I don’t think they want the 18-25 demographic to have any kind of harmless fun anymore.