Not fundamentally different than anyone else spending their time before they die. Could be doing a lot more with your time, like learning essential life skills, but there are worse things you could be doing. Depending on the game you could learn critical thinking or become better at problem solving.
The stigma from playing games is pretty bad, though. They're rapidly declining in quality aswell, probably since 2002 or 2005 depending on your tastes. Doesn't help when people call themselves 'Gamers' though. What's with this stereotype that their supposed to be an intelligent "bunch"?
In reality smart people aren't attracted to hours of repetitive digitally induced stimuli as lifestyle. Everyone claiming to be "hardcore" that I've come across is unemployed, lives with his (there is no her) parents, awkward, unfit, socially inept and can barley string together a grammatically correct sentence while maintaining eye contact.
Possibly the most entertaining activity one can partake in while sitting down. You can tell a lot about the nature of people by playing games with them that have no real consequence. That being said, the majority of chronic gamers are pathetic wastes of potential.
It's not a hobby, just like watching movies isn't a hobby. It IS a fun activity to participate in with friends. Anyone who identifies themselves as this just wants a label to identify their escapism with. It's just back-warming collectivism to make their addiction seem OK. Like people who smoke marijuana identifying themselves as "Stoners".
People that game and only game are a problem and are pathetic. They just take up space. Some more than others. Comparable to any addict. Who thinks they're intelligent? Maybe some say that about RTS players; being good mostly involves brainless repetition for years. Some of the best strategists and thinkers in the world have logged over 9000 days honing their skills. Stay away from the FPS freaks- those are the ones that will be able to kill you in 20 seconds with a remoted controlled robot in 30 years.
It's hard not to correlate intelligence with specific genres when you see so many of one type of people into a specific genre. If there are no intelligence differences, then for sure their are other mental diffrences. People who play CoD religiously probably have very quick reaction time, but little to no critical thinking.
You know what, I'll tell the story that I have never told anybody, out of fear of being labeled crazy, autistic, etc.
ReplyDeleteI started playing "computer games" when I was 6. That would have made the year 1997. I would wake my brother up to hop on his computer and play Counter-Strike 1.5.
It seems like Counter-Strike 1.5 is the... beginning of my life, so it seems haha. I was introduced to the internet as such a young age, and gaming even moreso.
At 7 I was playing counter-strike 1.5 every day. By 8 years old I went professional and played for Team 3D and Mouseport. I subbed in some SK matches for Christensen and I also subbed in many other professional matches.
I pretended I was 16 years old, but I was 8.
When 1.6 came out, we all shifted paradigms. Different hit boxes, same mechanics. We stayed pro and by this time I was 10 years old. School seemed retarded to me because I learned very, very advanced algebra, geometry, and even some aspects of calc... at 7.
I made money off of it. A lot of money. At 10.
Damnit, I didn't know I would get emotional talking about this, tears down my face at the moment
At 11 I started playing MMOs. Rappelz, Perfect World, Rakion, Aion, all of em. I was always one of the top ranked personas in the game. It was the same in WoW... Yes... I got sucked into WoW. I was ranked 1 on silverspire for a very long time. In PvP, I was #1. Xenocloud. Its a surreal feeling... until you realize that you haven't actually accomplished anything... and thats where my life started looking...
Completely useless. I became that kid that looked like he would shoot up the school. I envied people because I saw and knew the worst of them from such an early age. I could never relate to any other individuals throughout school nor in my neighborhood.
In highschool I was 310 lbs. 5'6" 50+% bf, at severe risk for self-induced type-2 diabetes, my freshman year.
Funny thing that one girl changed all of that.