Therapist Repeats "Gaming is Like Snorting Cocaine" Claim

[ShadowsofHope]

Addendum: Over opinionated moral crusader is over opinionated.

Ignore the morons whom don't even engage in a single activity of what they are so vehemently against, people.

 

[Jim-a-Lim]

Go into your living room and turn off the TV whilst people are watching it, it will piss them off as well. Or take a book off them whilst theyre reading it... Scary stuff eh?

This just so much this. Honestly what a load of bull. I can't believe people take this as reputable. Man skip ahead 20 years already when gaming has become an acceptable past time already...

 

[GeneWard]

My... how the mainstream media are like dungbeetles, always pushing their bullshit around

 

[Zyphonee]

I play games regularly, however, as evidenced by my avatar, I'm a dedicated reader too. Many times I've skipped school, meals or nights of sleep so I could keep on reading, same with films, and sometimes even music (I didn't go to school the day Radiohead's new album came out). Does that mark literature, cinematography and music as brain-killers?

 

[sean360h]

If someone came into my room and turned off my tv while i was watching a movie id be pretty pissed or if somone yanked my headphones off my head while im listing to music
so therefor watching inception and listing to hans zimmer has the same effect as snorting cocaine and gaming

 

[Fuselage]

"WOAH, Who let this mental patient into my office?"
"Di-did you let him interview someone?"

 

[Captain_M]

I run into the "game rage" situation all the time. You see, I work in an elementary school. the things I take away aren't video games but small toys, crayons, potentially dangerous objects like rocks or pointed sticks. The kids react just as badly whatever it is, because they're trying to assert themselves over your authority. They're not mad that the game is going off as much as they're mad that you're being a killjoy, and their first reaction to my action is always going to be an attempt to get the rock or stick back, just as if you take away a video game it would be to turn it back on.

There's even a psycological term for it. It's called a "Power Struggle." I've read up on it several times as part of my training as a teaching assistant. It's kinda sad that a fully awarded psychologist seems to know very little about it.

 

[Deskimus Prime]

Well, someone better start playing "Lux Aeterna" from the Requiem for a Dream soundtrack, cause I've been using & abusing the stuff since day one...

Is it just me, or does anyone else get offended when people like this with their fancy "degrees" and such start talking about us gamers not being able to differentiate between fantasy and reality? I mean, one of the things I pride myself on is that I enjoy this kind of escapism because I am fully aware that it isn't realistic in the slightest. I know full well that reality is not like this; THAT'S WHY I ENJOY IT. I'm sure I'm not alone here; I may wish for fantasy lands and laser-space-fights to happen, but that doesn't mean I confuse this with reality. I'm getting pretty ticked off by this constant condescending tone from these folks. I guess they picked it up from a few radical cases, but I thought the idea behind therapists and psychiatrists was to get to know the individual as opposed to buying into stereotypes.

Or maybe this guy's just a media attention whore playing right into exactly what the media wants to hear.

 

[Nouw]

If you pull X out of anyone's hand they will get annoyed.
Going to say something good sir?

"What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort."

 

[wrecker77]

Well, he is a therapist. That automatically makes him right, because he is a professional.

What a moron.

 

[Venereus]

If you pull X out of anyone's hand they will get annoyed.
Going to say something good sir?

"What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort."

I want to see that scene ending on this "therapist".

 

[Matthew Wilson]

It's a fuckin annoyance when people jump all over video games to get noticed. Yes people get addicted to video games and yes people have died from this but that's barely even a minority of gamers the other 99.9% know when to stop and how to control ourselves. What really annoys me is the fact that these so-called 'experts' just attack the violent and sexual games like GTA and Bulletstorm but what about apparent kiddie games like Spyro, I played that for years since I was 6 but I haven't set sheep on fire likewise I've played GTA since I was 12 and I've never beaten a prostitute to death. Now who's more impressionably a 6 or a 12 year old. Now what game is more hated by the haters.

This is by no means me giving the 'experts' more ammo to attack kiddie games like Spyro - I'm 18 now and I still love it - what this is is telling the bastards that attacking a knowingly violent game doesn't make you an expert it makes you a ignorant ****.

 

[Nouw]

If you pull X out of anyone's hand they will get annoyed.
Going to say something good sir?

"What's the matter? Oh, you were finished! Well, allow me to retort."

I want to see that scene ending on this "therapist".

As does everyone else.

"Do gamers look like a *****? No? Then why are you trying to fuck us up!"

 

[Daverson]

Yeah, maybe it does sort of have a similar effect to Cocaine, I've never taken cocaine, so I won't even try to argue with that one.

However, I do know, snorting Cocaine isn't illegal because it just makes you feel all warm'n'tingly inside...

(Read the title as "The rapist repeats..." at first glance, looking at the picture of this guy, I'm not too sure this isn't a typo D= )

 

[DarkenedWolfEye]

Wow, cocaine must be a pretty tame drug if you can recreate the sensation by playing fucking Prototype.
Or maybe this guy's just full of shit.

 

[SelectivelyEvil13]

And watching the news is like being injected with heroin. You end up a hopelessly paranoid addict who will switch personalities at the drop of a buzz word that conflicts with their own views. Try changing the station when a news-watcher has MSNBC, Fox, CNN, or any other news channel on. They'll react violently like you just tricked them into an intervention while throwing away their stash. Scary

I especially love how the "try taking away the controller!" line assumes that if anyone tried to take anything out of your hands that you would not react the same bloody way!

I hope to meet this guy in a restaurant so that I can nab his fork in the middle of dining as an "experiment."

 

[teebeeohh]

why do i spend all my money on coke, i just have to play more

 

[Captain_M]

I've been a gamer for years. I've played video games since about age 8 (I'm nearly 29), and when I'm done gaming I go to college and work part time.

You ask that of a cokehead and he'll tell you that he's been doing coke for 3 years, it's ruined his life and he's a homeless, foaming at the mouth, addict. He doesn't even care that he's starving, he just needs more coke.

I played my PS3 for 30 minutes before I came into work today. I turned off the system in the middle of a level of Castle Crashers so I could leave my house with enough time to get to work. Good for me.

 

[Baneat]

Oh I get it

They heard me shout "I'm Winning!" whilst playing a computer game

Charlie Sheen shouted "I'm Winning!" and he's addicted to heroine

Therefore it's an addiction, QED

 

[Twilight_guy]

Actually if I were reading a really good book and somebody snatched it from my hands, I'd be pretty upset. If was build a model and someone grabbed it away, I'd be upset. For pretty much anything I'm engrossed in if somebody comes in and snatches it away, I'd be upset. I'd don' think that's a very good exercise because it doesn't demonstrate a specific addition so much as "people get upset when their doing something and you interrupt" especially when they could use potentially up to half an hour worth of work in you doing so. I imagine someone taking control of the wheel of a moving vehicle and calling the driver a driving addict when he tries to get it back, only in a far smaller way.

I can acknowledge that gaming may leave the mind active and be negatively impactful on sleep (so parents might not want to let kids play games before bed) and parents need to control when there kids play games and how often though. I don't know about comparing it to a crack hit and I'd like to take some hard numbers to compare the brain activity and then cross compare it with other types of activity. I am interested though in how people tell me that gaming and TV are passive a activates that slow brain activity while this guy claims the opposite.

Gaming addiction is bad but considering how ill defined it is he's going to need to give a definition which I assume he does somewhere else (assuming he isn't a full blown hack) so I can't say anything about that aside from it sounding suspicious.