Gaming, athletics, and other activities

[Alatar]

Note: I split this topic off from the thread about the California shooting. If anyone feels their post was moved or not moved in error, let me know - VtF

I don't think there is an analogy between athletic training and gaming (or any other form of consumer-based entertainment), any more than there is an analogy between someone who spends at least 30 hours a week gainfully employed and someone who spends the same amount of time on gaming. They are two qualitatively different activities.

But to the extent you are saying that addiction is on a sliding scale - in which someone who "compulsively" plays for 20-30 hours a week, every week (which I'd say is of at least moderate concern) is not as addicted as someone who (as with this shooter) describes spending every waking moment when not at school playing a single game - I certainly agree. This is like saying that someone who consistently has three drinks a night may have a low-ish level addiction, but is not on the same plane as someone who consumes two bottles of wine (i.e. ten drinks) a night. Both are engaging in unhealthy behaviors, but one is considerably further along in their addiction than the other.

I disagree with this. I don't think there's any point in trying to convince you otherwise, but I don't want you to take my silence as agreement, so I'm just putting that out there. The assumption that all gaming is "unhealthy behaviour" is repellent to me. I don't believe that, any more than I believe having a glass of wine with a meal is "unhealthy behaviour". Anything taken to excess is unhealthy, even exercise or sport. Your measure of excess will be different to mine, and I don't accept your judgement as being superior to mine.

[nerdanel]

I disagree with this. I don't think there's any point in trying to convince you otherwise, but I don't want you to take my silence as agreement, so I'm just putting that out there. The assumption that all gaming is "unhealthy behaviour" is repellent to me. I don't believe that, any more than I believe having a glass of wine with a meal is "unhealthy behaviour". Anything taken to excess is unhealthy, even exercise or sport. Your measure of excess will be different to mine, and I don't accept your judgement as being superior to mine.

I said nothing of the sort, either about all gaming being unhealthy behavior or a glass of wine with a meal as being unhealthy behavior. I do not think gaming (or wine-drinking) is as healthy or applause-worthy as athletic endeavors. I think that most athletic endeavors are serious and typically healthy pursuits, although I acknowledge the dangers of overtraining and also think that certain athletic endeavors are physically dangerous and socially undesirable (e.g., activities that put participants at severe risk of head injury/brain damage, as one example). On the other hand, gaming and wine-drinking are forms of entertainment, to be consumed in moderation rather than indulged as full-time activities. This does NOT mean that I think they are unhealthy as occasional activities.

My point was that both can cross the line from occasional entertainment (healthy) to unhealthy addiction, and that addiction itself is on a sliding scale, whether the difference between 4 and 10 glasses of wine every night or 30 and 80 hours of gaming every week.* I certainly accept your point that where addiction begins is a judgment call, and I agree that you and I will perceive the starting point with respect to gaming differently. But it seems that we do agree that there IS a starting point: that playing beyond a certain percentage of waking hours is an addiction and is unhealthy. And it further seems that we agree that the SoCal shooter was well over that line.

*Also obviously, I also want to point out that anyone can overindulge "once in a while" without it being a sign of long-term addiction, even if it's not the most healthy thing. Certainly someone who has four glasses of wine at their best friend's wedding reception, or a gamer who enthusiastically delves into an exciting new game for 30 hours on release, is not an addict, if these things don't fit into a broader pattern of behavior.

[Dave_LF]

Athletic activity has no intrinsic value either beyond entertainment, teamwork, and camaraderie. Human physiology demands we do it if we want to not die, but that's a bug. Someday with any luck we'll engineer that bug out, and our decedents will pity us for having to waste our precious time and energy running on hamster wheels.

[Túrin Turambar]

Further to nel’s point, I think it is fair to acknowledge that some activities have a higher risk of physically- or socially-harmful addiction than others. There are probably people out there who are addicted to athletics, work, cooking, or the like, but they are not exactly common enough to cause concern in broader society.

[Griffon64]

Further to nel’s point, I think it is fair to acknowledge that some activities have a higher risk of physically- or socially-harmful addiction than others. There are probably people out there who are addicted to athletics, work, cooking, or the like, but they are not exactly common enough to cause concern in broader society.

I think broader society probably worries more about addictions that they perceive ( correctly or not ) to be potentially harmful - to themselves, not to the addicted, that is. Regardless of how common the addiction is. Hence concern for excessive video game playing, especially by people who do not play the games themselves but have heard that they are violent, or concern for socially withdrawn people who might "go postal", and other stereotyped examples. Lesser concern for workaholics ( their excessive output probably benefits me somehow, right? ) or other kinds of addicts.

On the topic of athletics, I have known two addicts - an aunt and the daughter of our neighbor across the street when I was a growing up. Running, in both cases. Certainly too small a sample size to be meaningful, but I have encountered it and seen the detrimental effects of it. As a kid it sure seemed common to me! Yet I still ran middle distances for my school's athletic team. Guess I didn't correlate my own running, born from a mix of duty and inertia ( once you're on the team ... ), with theirs at all.

[nerdanel]

(sorry for the below osgiliation)

Athletic activity has no intrinsic value either beyond entertainment, teamwork, and camaraderie. Human physiology demands we do it if we want to not die, but that's a bug. Someday with any luck we'll engineer that bug out, and our decedents will pity us for having to waste our precious time and energy running on hamster wheels.

Sorry, I just have to point out that your first and second sentences are in direct contradiction to each other. It is difficult to imagine activities with more intrinsic value than those that contribute to "not dying" - and more fundamentally, keeping one's body in fit, healthy shape and avoiding any number of non-terminal conditions for which people who are not in shape are at heightened risk.

I've been chewing on this for several days now: why I feel strongly that some activities are applause-worthy endeavors, whereas others are mere entertainment, to be enjoyed sparingly and in moderation. I think the key for me is that activities that fall into the latter category involve passively consuming a product that someone else has made - drinking wine or eating food, watching a television show or movie, playing a video game, watching other people play sports, etc. Other activities, including learning to hone one's (full-time/paid or volunteer/pro bono) craft, creating new works (writing books, music, screenplays, poems, etc.), striving to push one's body to be the best it can be (sports), and creating products that will sweeten other people's lives, including those listed in the previous sentence (e.g., writing video games, creating delicious meals, producing wine, etc.) - all of these are active endeavors that to me are much worthier than the former set.

Now all of us need a good mix of both, don't get me wrong. But when people start spending their time disproportionately on passive consumption relative to active/creation-oriented endeavors, I do think there's a problem there - or as Prim suggests, at least a symptom of other problems.

Griffy, FWIW, I was thinking purely of Rodger (and others like him) rather than any harm to society in referring to his video game addiction as a problem. I guess I usually think of addiction in terms of the harm to the individual rather than to society - e.g., if I was thinking about alcoholism, I'd be thinking about the long-term consequences to the alcoholic's liver and brain more so than the potential collateral damage of the addiction to others (e.g., DUI, possible genetic consequences to offspring, etc.) Still, thinking through that analogy makes me realize it is legitimate for society to consider the harm to innocent members of individuals' addictions and to prioritize concern for addictions that will harm not only the affected individual (who at least usually has some initial degree of volitional choice with respect to the future addiction) but additional innocents. Your post seems to suggest that you might not agree with this, but I am not sure I am reading it correctly.

[Dave_LF]

I was being careful with what I wrote, and I do not consider the two statements to be in contradiction. A thing whose only value is to keep you alive can never be more than a necessary evil. Some people derive genuine enjoyment from exercise, and good for them, but I ain't one of 'em. Forgive me for going all Dead Poet's, but the thought that there are still more game worlds out there to explore, on the other hand; that's the sort of thing that's worth staying alive for*. For someone with my kind of alignment, there's no question which activity has more value.

*but not in the top 10

[Frelga]

I don't even play video games, but from what I've seen, they are no more a "consumption" activity than running along the roads someone else built.

But that, perhaps, is another thread?

[Voronwë the Faithful]

It is difficult to imagine activities with more intrinsic value than those that contribute to "not dying" - and more fundamentally, keeping one's body in fit, healthy shape and avoiding any number of non-terminal conditions for which people who are not in shape are at heightened risk.

Amen.

[nerdanel]

I don't even play video games, but from what I've seen, they are no more a "consumption" activity than running along the roads someone else built.

I'm fine with splitting the thread, and I'll do this soon absent any objection.

I definitely am not going to agree with any analogy between gaming and athletic activity; in fact, this osgiliation began because I find that analogy so objectionable and even ironic. But I am interested in your spelling out the analogy more, or just more generally speaking to why video games are not a consumption-based activity.

I'll add that I think that many entertainment-related activities can be primarily consumption-based even if they require some degree of creativity or intellectual thought. As examples, many people I know in the food and wine scene (and myself to some extent) are very actively engaged in food exploration, tasting, etc. - taking notes, writing reviews, hosting events. But that's still fundamentally a consumption-based activity (no pun intended) - enjoying what someone else has created. Similarly, many non-electronic board games can require a great deal of thought, ingenuity, strategy, etc. - but you're still entertaining yourself by spending time engaged with someone else's creation. A third, more controversial example might be fandom-related activities. Many do involve some degree of independent creativity, usually associated with making (copyright infringing ) derivative works - fan fiction, vidding, graphic creation, etc. It's a close call, but I still see them as within the consumption bailiwick: engaging with and appreciating (even if creatively) characters and worlds that were conceived of and brought to life by someone else.

I deny any analogy between these things and independently creative activities. There is no analogy to running because someone else created the road, to painting because someone else manufactured the canvas, to playing an instrument that was hand-crafted by another, to typing a manuscript with original characters on a computer that someone else built, to preparing an exquisite tasting menu using ingredients that someone else grew and harvested. In almost every case of active creation, the creator uses raw materials that were prepared by others. That does not put these endeavors on an equal plane with entertaining oneself with the creations of others - whether video games, regular games, or otherwise.

[River]

I'm not sure what's creative about athletics as most people do them (not talking about elite gymnasts who invent signature moves). Breaking a record for time isn't so much a creative act as it is a display of prowess. Finding bike nirvana on a perfect spring day isn't creative either. And there are certainly people who take their athletic endeavours to a self-destructive level. If your running, biking, triathlonning, swimming, footballing, baseballing, and so on are hurting you and/or those around you, if you're having a hard time doing your job/functioning in society because or your athletic endeavour, it's a problem. The fact that it's much more socially acceptable to devote yourself to sports than to WoW or drinking doesn't change the fact that this sort of behavior is problematic.

[Faramond]

I've been chewing on this for several days now: why I feel strongly that some activities are applause-worthy endeavors, whereas others are mere entertainment, to be enjoyed sparingly and in moderation. I think the key for me is that activities that fall into the latter category involve passively consuming a product that someone else has made - drinking wine or eating food, watching a television show or movie, playing a video game, watching other people play sports, etc. Other activities, including learning to hone one's (full-time/paid or volunteer/pro bono) craft, creating new works (writing books, music, screenplays, poems, etc.), striving to push one's body to be the best it can be (sports), and creating products that will sweeten other people's lives, including those listed in the previous sentence (e.g., writing video games, creating delicious meals, producing wine, etc.) - all of these are active endeavors that to me are much worthier than the former set.

I think this is really a brilliant way to categorize human activity.

[Frelga]

I don't even play video games, but from what I've seen, they are no more a "consumption" activity than running along the roads someone else built.

I'm fine with splitting the thread, and I'll do this soon absent any objection.

I'd like that. I honestly don't feel comfortable discussing leisure activities in a thread about multiple murder.

I definitely am not going to agree with any analogy between gaming and athletic activity; in fact, this osgiliation began because I find that analogy so objectionable and even ironic. But I am interested in your spelling out the analogy more, or just more generally speaking to why video games are not a consumption-based activity.

First, I want to say that I appreciate your ability to disagree while being attentive to the digressing points of view. Rare thing on the intertubes.

Second. Subjectively, I find running a pretty mindless activity in general. More objectively, my comment was based on observing my son both play sports and video games with his friends. While basketball is arguably is better for developing his body than Halo (the reservation being that he did not get a chipped tooth playing Halo), both activities are mostly about bonding, belonging, and friendly competition.

I will be happy to expand on that, but please, a new thread.

A third, more controversial example might be fandom-related activities. Many do involve some degree of independent creativity, usually associated with making (copyright infringing ) derivative works - fan fiction, vidding, graphic creation, etc. It's a close call, but I still see them as within the consumption bailiwick: engaging with and appreciating (even if creatively) characters and worlds that were conceived of and brought to life by someone else.

That, I think, is a matter of degree and of the relative talent (and I don't write fanfiction, either, at least not in years). Are we to discard Shakespeare's plays that were reworkings of earlier works as fan fiction? Is Waterhouse's Lady of Shalottnot a creative work because it's an illustration of Tennyson's poem, which itself is fanfiction to Italian fanfiction of Arthurian legend, with probably a few more degrees of fanfiction thrown in?

[Frelga]

Sorry, dp, got an error the first time.

[Alatar]

More to the point, is Voronwë's book of no intrinsic value because it is derivative of Tolkien's work? If there were no Tolkien, "Arda Reconstructed" would not exist. In fact, many people on this board spend/spent a large chunk of their leisure time devoted to his works. Apart from anything else, I would not know or have met so many of you without TORC/B77/HOF. While that makes me applaud Tolkien, it doesn't make me feel inferior because I have chosen not to spend my life buried in a study inventing languages (an activity many people would have considered a wasted life).

I actually have a huge problem with your separation of the world into creators and consumers and the suggestion that consumers are less "worthy" than creators. We all enjoy what we enjoy. Am I "better" than the stage hands in my musical because I'm out in front acting and singing while they are moving boxes? Is the first violin more "worthy" than me because s/he plays to professional standard while I am an amateur? Or are either of our performances in any way creative or of intrinsic value, since we didn't write the pieces we're performing?

[JewelSong]

I think what it boils down to is that we ALL make judgements about the intrinsic worth of other people's activities, hobbies and pursuits. We make them based on our own experiences, our own likes/dislikes/passions/habits (or obsessions) and maybe, our upbringing. We do this judging both consciously and unconsciously, even when we try not to.

I think the important thing is for people to - well - to do what they like to do and do what they find gives them the most fulfilment, excitement and pleasure. To follow their bliss, so to speak. And it would be nice for people to be able to find and follow their passion without fear of judgement by others.

I love to read for pleasure and have been known to skip meals and sleep to finish a particularly engrossing book. How is that different than someone who stays up all night getting to the next level of a complex on-line game?

My brother is a musician who obsessively plays through the (horridly boring) Hanon exercises 30 minutes every day, without fail. Is that "worth more" than someone who collects matchbook covers or beer cans and spends time every day arranging and cataloging them? And if it IS…then the question becomes: "worth more to WHO?"

I believe that almost any passion/interest/hobby can be a doorway into further learning and knowledge. And people should be encouraged to find their own and once they have found it, to expand on it and grow with it.

I would not know or have met so many of you without TORC/B77/HOF. While that makes me applaud Tolkien, it doesn't make me feel inferior because I have chosen not to spend my life buried in a study inventing languages (an activity many people would have considered a wasted life).

Indeed.

[JewelSong]

Dp

[yovargas]

I'd like that. I honestly don't feel comfortable discussing leisure activities in a thread about multiple murder.

This.

[Voronwë the Faithful]

Second. Subjectively, I find running a pretty mindless activity in general.

That's because you don't understand it. Most runners observe that they do their best thinking when they are running. I find the same for when I am biking.

[Dave_LF]

If you get that as a side-effect, wonderful. But it still doesn't mean running and biking have intrinsic value; just that they facilitate the achievement of something that does. Playing games and having fun, by contrast, are ends in themselves. Again, if some (lucky other) person is able to derive pure enjoyment from exercise, that would elevate the activity to something with intrinsic value for him/her. But if the only purpose of exercise is to keep yourself healthy so you can enjoy other things; then it is a mere means to an end instead of an end in itself, and it drops down a step or two on the totem pole.