Video Games Make You Less Manly?

Off Topic
1

I thought this article was interesting about the link between video games and manliness. William Bennett thinks video games are making men basically pussies. What do you think?

I think it’s complete bullshit personally. I do; however, think less males are real men in this day and age, but it isn’t because of video games, but how our society has evolved. Evey day manliness is look down upon so my generation doesn’t know how to change from young men to real men.

I do think because of the wars and the economic collapse that we will see young men find their way to manhood early like generations before us.

I also think it’s funny and not surprising that the nearly 70 year old Bennett doesn’t think highly of video games.

Has our idea about manliness changed in this country?

Chris

2

Tell the old man to play a real game.

Here are some suggestions:

Battlefield 3
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Although to be fair, he is attacking those who spend excessive amounts of time playing games instead of say… finding a job.

3

[quote]Makavali wrote:
Tell the old man to play a real game.

Here are some suggestions:

Battlefield 3
Deus Ex: Human Revolution

Although to be fair, he is attacking those who spend excessive amounts of time playing games instead of say… finding a job.[/quote]

That’s true. I thought it was pretty funny how he threw all these numbers around about how women are catching up to men in education and in the workforce. I;m thinkin the whole time, “okay so we are actually reaching equality in the work place. That’s fine with me.”

Have you played the battlefield Beta? It’s pretty fun I think.

4

I think it can be true. Sitting on your ass with snack food for hours and hours and hours makes a boy soft, squishy and probably retarded.

I will say I am the OG videogame generation. I was too young for atari but I had an NES, Sega Genesis, PS2 and I do have a PS3 which I play Madden games and watch netflix on.

I don’t think the games themselves are the problem, they are games and way more fun than board games. The amount of time spent playing them is the issue.

When I was a kid we definitely killed some Saturday afternoons in front of the tv. We being my neighborhood buddies and I.

We also got bored and went to a treehouse we built in the second grade (was quite a feat pulling all those boards that were ginourmous at the time up a tree)

We replaced out own flat tires and broken chains on our bikes, shot bb guns, played sports in real life, got in some squabbles with kids from a different neighborhood using our empty lots and fields for touch football, fished at the local bayou, spent TONS of time in backyard and community pools et cetera.

These days it’s like all kids do is play video games and with few exceptions everything else is an inconvenience.

Ask a kid if he wants to play some basketball and he’ll say “PS3 or Xbox?”.

Videogames themselves are not the issue but when they replace the Cub Scouts, BB Guns, treehouses, pocket knives, real live sports et cetera they certainly are an issue and yes, sitting on the couch pushing buttons for “football” while drinking cokes and eating ho-ho’s is breeding a generation of up and coming softies with no noticeable masculine traits or experiences.

As much as I like Madden, take a madden tournament champ to a backyard and throw a perfect spiral at him. He will undoubtedly make a funky face, turn his head, throw his hands out in a very girly manner and get thumped in the chest, losing his breath.

He will have no idea he just got his ass kicked by a perfectly thrown, real football.

Sad.

5

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
I think it can be true. Sitting on your ass with snack food for hours and hours and hours makes a boy soft, squishy and probably retarded.

I will say I am the OG videogame generation. I was too young for atari but I had an NES, Sega Genesis, PS2 and I do have a PS3 which I play Madden games and watch netflix on.

I don’t think the games themselves are the problem, they are games and way more fun than board games. The amount of time spent playing them is the issue.

When I was a kid we definitely killed some Saturday afternoons in front of the tv. We being my neighborhood buddies and I.

We also got bored and went to a treehouse we built in the second grade (was quite a feat pulling all those boards that were ginourmous at the time up a tree)

We replaced out own flat tires and broken chains on our bikes, shot bb guns, played sports in real life, got in some squabbles with kids from a different neighborhood using our empty lots and fields for touch football, fished at the local bayou, spent TONS of time in backyard and community pools et cetera.

These days it’s like all kids do is play video games and with few exceptions everything else is an inconvenience.

Ask a kid if he wants to play some basketball and he’ll say “PS3 or Xbox?”.

Videogames themselves are not the issue but when they replace the Cub Scouts, BB Guns, treehouses, pocket knives, real live sports et cetera they certainly are an issue and yes, sitting on the couch pushing buttons for “football” while drinking cokes and eating ho-ho’s is breeding a generation of up and coming softies with no noticeable masculine traits or experiences.

As much as I like Madden, take a madden tournament champ to a backyard and throw a perfect spiral at him. He will undoubtedly make a funky face, turn his head, throw his hands out in a very girly manner and get thumped in the chest, losing his breath.

He will have no idea he just got his ass kicked by a perfectly thrown, real football.

Sad.[/quote]

I definitely agree. It’s too bad today if a kid has a pocket knife, and god forbid takes it to school, he’ll be expelled (give me a break). Being a boy is looked down upon by society today. It just is and its a terrible thing. What about if two boys get in a fight? You’ve got suspensions and in some cases even police involvement. It’s just a fight let it be and move on. That I think is the real problems. Boy’s aren’t allowed to be boys so they never become men.

6

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[quote]HoustonGuy wrote:
I think it can be true. Sitting on your ass with snack food for hours and hours and hours makes a boy soft, squishy and probably retarded.

I will say I am the OG videogame generation. I was too young for atari but I had an NES, Sega Genesis, PS2 and I do have a PS3 which I play Madden games and watch netflix on.

I don’t think the games themselves are the problem, they are games and way more fun than board games. The amount of time spent playing them is the issue.

When I was a kid we definitely killed some Saturday afternoons in front of the tv. We being my neighborhood buddies and I.

We also got bored and went to a treehouse we built in the second grade (was quite a feat pulling all those boards that were ginourmous at the time up a tree)

We replaced out own flat tires and broken chains on our bikes, shot bb guns, played sports in real life, got in some squabbles with kids from a different neighborhood using our empty lots and fields for touch football, fished at the local bayou, spent TONS of time in backyard and community pools et cetera.

These days it’s like all kids do is play video games and with few exceptions everything else is an inconvenience.

Ask a kid if he wants to play some basketball and he’ll say “PS3 or Xbox?”.

Videogames themselves are not the issue but when they replace the Cub Scouts, BB Guns, treehouses, pocket knives, real live sports et cetera they certainly are an issue and yes, sitting on the couch pushing buttons for “football” while drinking cokes and eating ho-ho’s is breeding a generation of up and coming softies with no noticeable masculine traits or experiences.

As much as I like Madden, take a madden tournament champ to a backyard and throw a perfect spiral at him. He will undoubtedly make a funky face, turn his head, throw his hands out in a very girly manner and get thumped in the chest, losing his breath.

He will have no idea he just got his ass kicked by a perfectly thrown, real football.

Sad.[/quote]

I definitely agree. It’s too bad today if a kid has a pocket knife, and god forbid takes it to school, he’ll be expelled (give me a break). Being a boy is looked down upon by society today. It just is and its a terrible thing. What about if two boys get in a fight? You’ve got suspensions and in some cases even police involvement. It’s just a fight let it be and move on. That I think is the real problems. Boy’s aren’t allowed to be boys so they never become men.
[/quote]

I know. I’m not even old and I went to a huge school in a suburb of a huge city and when I was a kid knives were not allowed but if you accidently had one in your pocket or backpack (which carried books during the day but was an adventure survival kit in the evening) they just told you to pick it up at the principals office after school where it would be held for safekeeping.

In HS, during hunting season, there were guns all over the parking lot. As long as you didn’t take them out of your car it didn’t really matter. I think it was technically a felony to have them but no one really cared at the time.

And fights were a 30 minute detention.

I do know what you are saying. There is still no excuse for a kid to spend more of his free time on games than life though.

They can still build treehouses, have pocket knives at home and bb guns too, a fist fight usually doesn’t escalate to the police if its not on state property and the fact that killing an imaginary monster with an imaginary weapon in an imaginary future is more appealing then heading down to the local pool to see all the classmate cuties in bikinis and hopefully steal a kiss is just sad.

It’s just sad to see so much time go to absolute bullshit with no meaning. They don’t even know how much better childhood can be.

None of my best memories are of beating a videogame. Zero. I know it was fun at the time but I look back fondly at my treehouse and all the other things I’ve mentioned.

Plus Rachelle’s boobs, the first pair I ever saw or felt. It happened behind the playground at the local country club while hanging out at the pool. I can’t help but think that had I been that age today I would have been pressing “x, x, square, triangle” instead of playing with nipples.

7

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

[/quote]

Old people suck. He needs to STFU and go back to burning crosses and slapping women around.

8

But first you have to define manliness.

Some badass/hardcore dudes in prison, but a lot of them walked out on their families and chose the life of drug dealing and criminal behavior. Does that make them manlier than a “nerd” who works 10-12 hours a day but takes care of his family?

Also, looking to other people to confirm your manliness is weak.

I understand the article references the dead beat kids who at 25 still live in their parents basements and have no jobs, but still, who is to say what manliness is?

9

[quote]usmccds423 wrote:

That’s true. I thought it was pretty funny how he threw all these numbers around about how women are catching up to men in education and in the workforce. I;m thinkin the whole time, “okay so we are actually reaching equality in the work place. That’s fine with me.”

[/quote]

LOL. Well, that’s one way to look at it…the other is, it means tons of young men are no longer even trying to get a career meaning there will be a rather large social shift if men become the “Housemothers” while women earn more.

10

video games suck anyway…

11

[quote]Ct. Rockula wrote:
video games suck anyway…

[/quote]

No you suck. :stuck_out_tongue:

12

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]Ct. Rockula wrote:
video games suck anyway…

[/quote]

No you suck. :P[/quote]

this is very tue.

13

[quote]B.L.U. Ninja wrote:
But first you have to define manliness.

Some badass/hardcore dudes in prison, but a lot of them walked out on their families and chose the life of drug dealing and criminal behavior. Does that make them manlier than a “nerd” who works 10-12 hours a day but takes care of his family?

Also, looking to other people to confirm your manliness is weak.

I understand the article references the dead beat kids who at 25 still live in their parents basements and have no jobs, but still, who is to say what manliness is?[/quote]

Seriously.

We have a thread like this at least once a month. For a bunch of alpha T Men, a lot of guys here spend way too much time worrying about this shit.

14

A number of studies found that prolonged TV watching (and this probably applies to working on the PC) changes the structure of the brain and changes the brainwave pattern to alpha… and in time causes lower willpower, and apathy.

This especially affects children, because their brains are not yet fully formed (yada yada the brain keeps modifying itself until death. Yes, but the brains of children are much more sensitive to stimuli)

Apathy + laziness + lack of willpower = less manliness (then again, less woman, for girls)

15

[quote]Sterneneisen wrote:
A number of studies found that prolonged TV watching (and this probably applies to working on the PC) changes the structure of the brain and changes the brainwave pattern to alpha… and in time causes lower willpower, and apathy.

This especially affects children, because their brains are not yet fully formed (yada yada the brain keeps modifying itself until death. Yes, but the brains of children are much more sensitive to stimuli)

Apathy + laziness + lack of willpower = less manliness (then again, less woman, for girls)[/quote]

Links please.

I did a research about the effects of video games recently for a mental health class. There are some effects on the brain, most of them positive - improved visual perception and spacial cognition, for example. But this is news to me.

16

LOL at another thread where the older generation comes in with their infinite fucking knowledge. God today’s youth is just so lost.

What’s funny is I have been playing videogames for 22 years now. I recently graduated with my Bachelor’s, am going back to school for my Masters’ and am doing pretty well for myself.

So I guess videogames aren’t all that bad.

Fucking generalizations are a bitch. Did you guys know all weight lifters have small dicks too?

17

[quote]SSC wrote:
LOL at another thread where the older generation comes in with their infinite fucking knowledge. God today’s youth is just so lost.

What’s funny is I have been playing videogames for 22 years now. I recently graduated with my Bachelor’s, am going back to school for my Masters’ and am doing pretty well for myself.

So I guess videogames aren’t all that bad.

Fucking generalizations are a bitch. Did you guys know all weight lifters have small dicks too?[/quote]

Hey, hey, hey I am one of those old guys and did you read my post?

You started playing in the womb?

18

The average age of most game players is now over 30. Who gives a shit what people over 50 think if the majority of the people on the planet would hear the word “Halo” and not think “angels” but video games?

19

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:
LOL at another thread where the older generation comes in with their infinite fucking knowledge. God today’s youth is just so lost.

What’s funny is I have been playing videogames for 22 years now. I recently graduated with my Bachelor’s, am going back to school for my Masters’ and am doing pretty well for myself.

So I guess videogames aren’t all that bad.

Fucking generalizations are a bitch. Did you guys know all weight lifters have small dicks too?[/quote]

Hey, hey, hey I am one of those old guys and did you read my post?

You started playing in the womb?[/quote]

I’m not even sure who he was directing that at. I play video games more than I ever watch tv. Most of the guys I know under 40 play video games.

20

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]Derek542 wrote:

[quote]SSC wrote:
LOL at another thread where the older generation comes in with their infinite fucking knowledge. God today’s youth is just so lost.

What’s funny is I have been playing videogames for 22 years now. I recently graduated with my Bachelor’s, am going back to school for my Masters’ and am doing pretty well for myself.

So I guess videogames aren’t all that bad.

Fucking generalizations are a bitch. Did you guys know all weight lifters have small dicks too?[/quote]

Hey, hey, hey I am one of those old guys and did you read my post?

You started playing in the womb?[/quote]

I’m not even sure who he was directing that at. I play video games more than I ever watch tv. Most of the guys I know under 40 play video games.[/quote]

Lol, I definitely need to thoroughly read responses before I get so pissed… been working on that. It wasn’t directed at either of you, but someone else above who I just flat-out misinterpreted.

And no Derek, not in the womb, but pretty darn close. :slight_smile: