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Commentary Oregon Daily Emerald Thursday, June 2, 2005 NEWS STAFF (541)346-5511 JEN SUD1CK EDITOR IN CHIEF STEVEN R. NEUMAN MANAGING EDITOR JARED PABEN AYISHA YAHYA NEWS EDITORS MEGHANN CUNIFF PARKER HOWELL SENIOR NEWS REPORTERS MORIAH BAUNGIT ADAM CHERRY BR1TTN1 McCLENAHAN EMILY SMITH EVASYLWESTER SHELDON TRAVER NEWS REPORTERS CLAYTON JONES SPORTS EDITOR JON ROETMAN SENIOR SPORTS REPORTER STEPHEN MILLER BRIAN SMITH SPORTS REPORTERS RYAN NYBURG PULSE EDITOR AMY UCHTY SENIOR PULSE REPORTER JOSHUA LINTEREUR PULSE REPORTER CAT BALDWIN JOHN PALMER PULSE CARTOONISTS AILEE SLATER COMMENTARY EDITOR GABE BRADLEY ANNF.MARIE KNF.PPER CHUCK SLOTHOWER JENNIFER MCBRIDE COLUMNISTS ASHLEY GRIFFIN SUPPLEMENT FREELANCE EDITOR DANIELLE HICKEY PHOTO EDITOR LAUREN WIMER SENIOR PHOTOGRAPHER NICOLE BARKER TIM BOBOSKY PHOTOGRAPHERS KATE HORTON ZANE R1TT PART-TIME PHOTOGRAPHERS BRET FURTWANGLER GRAPHIC ARTIST DUSTIN REESE SENIOR DESIGNER ELLIOTT ASBURY WENDY KJEFFER AMANDA LEE JONAH SCHROGIN DESIGNERS SHADRA BEESLEY JEANNIE EVERS COPY CHIEFS KIMBERLY BLACKFIELD JOSH NORRIS SPORTS COPY EDITORS GREG BILSLAND AMBER LINDROS NEWS COPY EDITORS JENNY GERWICK PULSE COPY EDITOR ADRIENNE NELSON ONLINE EDITOR WEBMASTER (541) 346-5511 IUDY R1EDI. 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The Emerald operates independently of the University with offices in Suite 300 of the Erb Memorial Union. The Emerald is pnvate property. Unlawful removal or use of papers is prosecutable by law. ■ In my opinion A o drug ‘Don’t knock video games just be cause you’re not good at them,” a friend recently said to me. I don’t know whether I’m good at them because I don’t play them. In my experience, video games are like coffee: When peo ple get used to having it constantly, they start acting a little crazy when they can’t get it. I don’t want to go down that road. The 1950s youth had cigarettes and alcohol: the 60s, hallucinogenic drugs; the 70s and 80s brought speed; the 90s gave us meth. So what’s the drug of choice for today’s young person? For many, video games. Aside from its use as a highly effective girlfriend repellent, more and more peo ple in their 20s are utilizing video games in a way psychologists describe as “de pendency.” Despite nearly two decades of video game use, the effects are only now being studied Some early results are in, and the message is shocking, sad and at times horrifying. People are be coming depressed to the point of suicide, work and children are being neglected and marriages are ending, all because of video game addiction. While I would consider video gam ing of any sort to be at least moderately anti-social, advances in game play have forged a gaming community in which gamers interact with others so cially (albeit through the conduit of a machine) either side by side or via the Internet. Users establish a complete online identity, with a name, appear ance, hobbies, weapons, etc. that are entirely fictional. What are real: the so cial circles that form as a result. Gamers “know” each other by their gaming names and choose to play with the same people regularly. Things can get ugly when one person wants to leave the group. People feel rejected and genuinely want that person to re main a part of their (Internet) life. The leaver feels guilty and often endures even when he or she would prefer to be interacting with actual, tangible people, possibly even outdoors. ANNEMARIE KNEPPER WORKS ON PAPER Many children and adults become sedentary, eat junk food and become irritable after prolonged video game use. Poor posture and repetitive strain injury may also result. Some effects of video game overuse are visible: weight gain and lethargy for example. But it’s the gradual psychological effects that are the most insidious. Some people don’t realize the depth of their addiction until it’s too late. Like an alcoholic or drug addict, they want to keep using it no matter what they lose or who they hurt. These people continue to game, even when their friends and loved ones ask them, plead with them, to come back to the real world. One definition of addiction is contin uing to take part in an activity that has consistently resulted in negative conse quences in the past. Failing classes, los ing your job, or having your significant other leave you are all consequences that some gamers ignore or fail to con nect to their addiction. It’s that failure to comprehend the depth of their com pulsion that can and does sometimes lead to depression, alienation or death. Several tragic cases have centered on the fantasy role-playing game, EverQuest (often referred to as Ever Crack for its addictive potential). A woman in Arkansas left her 3-year-old daughter in a closed car in the parking lot of their apartment complex on a hot summer day in 2003 while she played EverQuest. Au thorities believe the mother was so obsessed with the game that she neg lected her child. The baby died and the mother now faces manslaughter. In 2001, a father was sentenced to 15 years in prison for the death of his 9-month-old son. He had squeezed the child’s chest in an effort to make him stop crying while playing EverQuest. The baby’s heart had been punctured and his ribs and collarbone were bro ken. The undernourished infant bled to death. The father didn’t notice until 24 hours later. One of the most terrifying aspects of these extreme examples is that the per petrators were adults. Children and teens are at an even greater risk as their still developing minds and social pat terns can be more easily warped into thinking that a life devoted to gaming is normal and healthy. Research indicates that children en ter the video game arena at about the age of 7. Most of it is harmless, but even at such a young age some show signs of addiction. By middle school, some kids log 30 hours per week in video game play. A decade ago, video games were so simple that they offered little threat to a child’s imaginative and social develop ment. Now games are so complex and realistic that the child can be dangerous ly over-stimulated, making other activi ties like school work and family time seem relatively boring. Research con ducted to see whether kids who play vi olent video games become more aggres sive in real life has been inconclusive. What has been proven is that the antiso cial behavior that sometimes develops from video game addiction can be dead ly. Like all vices, not everyone will be come addicted. Not everyone will face negative consequences. I simply suggest one be aware of the potentially life-alter ing consequences some gamers have faced before he or she sits down to an other all-night session of Halo, World of Warcraft, EverQuest, Dark Age of Camelot, City of Heroes, RuneScape or Final Fantasy XI. annemarieknepper@dailyemercdd.com ■ Guest commentary Debate's failure results from lack of dialogue about achieving peace In response to the guest commen tary written May 31, (“Allegations of in tolerance should not prevent educated discussion," ODE) we, the opposing debaters, would like to clarify two gross inaccuracies that appeared in the opinion written by Brett Seyler. First, Seyler twice asserted that we were “students representing the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and Hillel,” implying that the views we up held in the debate were those of the aforementioned organization. This is not true. At no time during the debate or prior did we ever speak officially for either of these organizations. In fact, the three of us participated in the de bate on an unofficial basis and were in troduced by our first names only. Hillel represents the University’s entire Jew ish community on a nonpolitical basis, while AIPAC is a lobbying group that promotes awareness about Israel-relat ed issues. When Brett identified us as representatives of Hillel, he essentially labeled us as representatives of the entire Jewish campus community. The Jewish community consists of a di verse spectrum of opinions concerning the Israel issue. Second, Seyler writes: “This week, I am an Anti-Semite, or so it seems I am being told." We would like to clar ify that at no point in our conversa tions with Mr. Seyler did we accuse him or anyone else of being anti-Se mitic. The debate ended with respect for both sides and, to our knowledge, no hostile feelings. The reasons for declining a second debate were carefully communicated to Seyler and his colleagues as follows: The first debate was polarizing and did not address the issue of how to achieve peace in the Middle East; the hostile environment, which included a stu dent dressed as Yasser Arafat, detracted from the academic and educational purpose of the debate. While we commend Seyler for “reading dozens of books, chosen for their scholarly and journalistic merits,” we do not believe that his one para graph summary of the Palestine/Israel conflict to be an accurate or scholarly approach to the situation. The Pales tine/Israel conflict is an unusually sen sitive and complex issue, requiring an understanding of all sides in addition to a strong historical context. In conclusion, we in the pro-Israel community are by no means opposed to open, constructive dialogue. We actually encourage it. Dialogue must be about how to achieve peace, and we feel that the debate did not contribute to this goal. Seyler’s com mentary also did not serve to promote this goal. Daniel Rosove is a political science major. Jonathan Rosenberg is a music and political science major Jonah Fruchter is a psychology and political science major ■ Editorial Army video game sets dangerous precedent These days the United States seems to easily rally for eradicating violent video games from our culture. Many consider vi olent crimes, shootings and murders per petrated by young Americans, such as the Columbine High School shootings, to be prompted in part by the ease and fun of on-screen violence. While lobbyists have wrung their hands and Congress has de cried violent video games, one govern mental organization takes a drastically dif ferent approach: Last month, officials from the U.S. Army admitted that their on line computer game “America’s Army” was created to “lure teenagers into Army culture ... and spark interest in volunteer ing to serve,” according to a Washington Post article published this week. The Army game was long suspected of being nothing more than a recruiting tool. Although the Army previously denied such allegations (claiming that “America’s Army” is more about information than re cruitment) , the game is now lauded by the military for its potential to excite players about training to use weapons and work ing in a team to complete militaristic ac tion. Already, about 5.4 million players are registered on the game’s Web site; many young men happily proclaim themselves addicted to the high-quality graphics and other gaming nuances found within “America’s Army. ” As with most combative video games, the main idea is to kill any and all enemy soldiers in sight. Images of the characters, the scenery, the guns and bloody deaths are all just a little too real, but that’s the way the Army creators claim to want it: They wish to give future soldiers a realistic view of what it’s like to serve in the mili tary, with a final result of convincing teens to join the armed forces. The only thing missing are online psy chotherapy sessions to deal with the ef fects of post-traumatic stress disorder. Making combat fun is nothing new to the gaming industry, but one would hope that world powers such as the U.S. Army would not promote such unrealistic ideas of what battle is. Encouraging teenagers to treat death like a game sets a disturbing ideal to be held by future Army members, as well as citizens in general. As long as war is simply a game to win or lose, non militaristic solutions to world diplomacy will never become viable options. The “America’s Army” Web site de scribes the game as an “authentic U.S. Army experience,” with “realistic depic tion of the values ... that make the Army the world’s premiere land force." It en courages users to “join thousands of virtu al soldiers online defending freedom.” Ap parently, those values necessary to defend the American way of life are based on a dangerously unrealistic sense of what world conflict should look like. A wave of new recruits who believe that they can kill others and stay invincible behind a com puter screen is exactly what this country does not need. Enemy soldiers are not characters in a computer game, and the Army needs to stop preaching an ideal of war in which taking a human life is as physically, mentally and emotionally easy as pressing a button.
