Forked Thread: "The Death of the Imagination" re: World of Warcraft

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

And Vampire causes brain damage. I don't like X, therefore it's bad for you.

If you say that with a baseball bat in your hand standing behind me, I would believe you.

...

Though I might consider to change the "you standing behind me with a baseball bat" before I change my gaming preference. Though the latter might be easier.

 

[Steely Dan]

People have been trying to prove that video games are bad for you for a long time now.

They enlarge your thumbs and shrink your brain!


…But you know what they say about a guy with big thumbs…

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

…But you know what they say about a guy with big thumbs…

They have no more trouble hitting the space bar then anyone else?

 

[ThirdWizard]

Looking for scientific or psychological evidence here is far, far beyond the scope of these boards. The thread would close if anyone required data or a degree in psychology or any of the major sciences.

I think one of the problems is that the topic of this thread has been hotly debating in scientific circles. It's controversial, and there have been study after study about the effects of video games on the psyche. Regardless of what those findings have said in the past, they exist and people have informed opinions on these topics. To come in proclaiming victory for one side while ignoring all prior research on a topic full of research is disingenuous.

 

[Steely Dan]

They have no more trouble hitting the space bar then anyone else?

Nope, big feet.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Nope, big feet.

An der Länge der Nase eines Mannes
erkennt man die Länge seines Johannes

At the length of a mans nose
You can see the length of a mans jones

With jones and Johannes being stand-ins for ... something else. You know what.

Well, my nose is said to be big.
And indeed, a long time friend of mine with the name of Johannes is fairly big (6'3'' ft?)...

 

[Celtavian]

re

Timesink or not, please note that I have posted the effects on my own creativity before, during, and after. They were *real* effects on my imagination no matter what the driving force in the game may have been, time waster or not. This is something that cannot be argued with me I'm afraid. It was a first hand account, it happened in my case, end of story.

I also explicitly noted that I didn't blame the game itself. In moderation games such as this are just fine, and don't have any effect on me personally, at least. I can log onto Team Fortress, for instance, and play for an hour or two, and come away just fine and dandy.

However as I have stated: In MY case, it DID suppress my imagination to a degree where it became a problem. Hours of sitting there clicking on buttons does not lead to any creation, or activity in my case. It actively started to wipe out any need for me to imagine because it was all just laid out before me. Even at its most 'creative' Warcraft boils down to a button masher at most and a time-waster at least. Those times when you are down to your last bits of mana and Moroes is at 6% health lead to little creative thinking outside "Which spell button should I push to drop this corpsley annoyance".

The only excitement I ever truly had in WoW was killing a boss for the first time, or successfully getting my Rhok'Delar bow (any hunter pre-BC will know just what a pain in the rear quest that is, and how awesome you feel when you complete it).

And I do completely agree with you on one point. Its an excellent way to just shut down your mind and relax. I used to work loading docks for a retail outlet and the only thing I wanted after a day of dealing with retail idiocy of all makes and sizes was to just sit and shut my mind off. Its cathartic when played in moderation. It was fantastic until I burned out on it by overdoing it.

Again, its just my toss of the copper. I'm not decrying Warcraft (Believe me, I could), and I'm certainly not decrying people who play sane levels of the game. Sometimes we all just need to run around killin' stuff in its most colourful or epic fashion.

You quit games when you are no longer having fun and they affect you in a way you don't like. The thing is if it weren't video games, people would find some other activity such as watching T.V. or playing cards or whatever they can find to pass the time. It isn't like every human being is some highly imaginative person that becomes dull once they start playing video games. Many of my friends were just as dull before the video games. LOL.

 

[apoptosis]

First, the plural of "anecdote" isn't "data".

.

Being a scientist I would say that this is absolutely not correct. Anecdotal evidence is data. It might not be compelling data, but it is data. The genesis of a lot of studies is anecdotal evidence as initial data (this is the entire point of publishing case studies in medical literature).

Sorry..i just HATE this particular quip.

 

[apoptosis]

I think one of the problems is that the topic of this thread has been hotly debating in scientific circles. It's controversial, and there have been study after study about the effects of video games on the psyche. Regardless of what those findings have said in the past, they exist and people have informed opinions on these topics. To come in proclaiming victory for one side while ignoring all prior research on a topic full of research is disingenuous.

Unfortunately the amount of data is limited though online games are associated with negative effects (health, "real-life" socialization, sleep quality, academic performance, potential increased risk for seizures). But with little data available and lack of strong repeated results make the interpretations more tenuous; association/epidemiologic studies can be problematic to begin with.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

I think one of the problems is that the topic of this thread has been hotly debating in scientific circles. It's controversial, and there have been study after study about the effects of video games on the psyche. Regardless of what those findings have said in the past, they exist and people have informed opinions on these topics. To come in proclaiming victory for one side while ignoring all prior research on a topic full of research is disingenuous.

We once made a workshop on computer games at my university.

Here's what I took from it:
Computer games can be "unhealthy" if kids spend most of their time with them instead of friends. To become a "social" being, you need social contact, especially in your formative years. Playing and talking with people teaches you empathy. If you never train in that, you might lose something. The big question might be if online contact can train empathy too, and if books and TV are just as bad.

That dosen't tell us anything about adults. And it doesn't say that computer games are purely bad. They have positive side effects as well. Like everything, it must be taken in moderation.

(And as a side note, I wonder if a lot of our "problems" hail from the fact that there just aren't as many kids around as there used to be - before the invention of the baby pill, families were larger, and kids had their siblins to play with it. Well, there are always advantages and disadvantages to a new "technology".)