Commentary
Oregon Daily Emerald
Thursday, June 2, 2005
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■ 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.