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Way before video games were a thing people often lived in multi generational housing out of necessity without riots.
Riots happen when people are starving.
If people are in the basement playing video games it’s because they aren’t starving. It’s the not the video games preventing the riots, it’s the Doritos.
Hey hun, new Doritos slogan just dropped
Women escape reality with youtube, tabloids, tiktok, instagram, and more. They don't need gaming to be distracted and yet, they are. Guys would just find another thing to be distracted by.
There's another article (thread) saying there is no loneliness epidemic but a poverty epidemic. And yes, that's the problem: the uber-rich just have taken as much as they could and will continue to take more. They bought up our apartments, our debt, our third places, are playgrounds, and more. They own the media to tell us that the problems are all due to minorities that have no power and want us to look down or be distracted by services that we give all our information too, and allow them to find more ways to hook us into distractive crap so that we don't look up.
Want to solve loneliness, childlessness, poverty, etc? !twnw@fedia.io #TaxWealthNow #TaxWealth
I think there are more media-related distractions available, such as movies, tv shows, porn, sports, social media (though sm can also be used to incite/organize protests/riots). But yeah, all these distractions definitely help. It's like Rome's Bread And Circus.
I think social media and video games are in a class of their own, because they are something you can put EFFORT in and get REWARD out. Movies and TV just kill time without rewarding you with any senses of accomplishment.
I think SM is a net negative, too. Hear rumors that research shows that people engaged in twitter combat are less likely to do anything actually effective.
I think you're kind of on to something, and I think your ideas cohere with C. Thi Nguyen's research (for an easy intro, listen to his interviews with Ezra Klein or Adam Connover).
I'm not sure I agree with everything though.. I think games and social media are different in lots of ways. E.g. games simulate agency, and it can feel like video games are giving you choices, when really you're quite tightly constrained by the developer's ideas of how the world works mechanically and narratively.
Social Media is different in that you're not constrained by narrative options, but your experience has massive feedback loops with ideas from others you interact with and algorithms (the latter strongly constraining the former). I don't think social media gives agency-vibes, but it gives other forms of catharsis and other emotion triggers.
IDK, stuff like online petitions, online arguments and general virtue signaling behavior (which isn't inherently bad TBF) can sure feel like you're doing something without actually accomplishing much if you're not also doing concrete things like rioting, striking etc.
I'd say video games play a very minor role in this. Distractions have always existed and video games is far from the only one existing now. And it's not like we haven't seen huge protest movements by young people recently, for example in Nepal.
Ok so first of all, it's not than just young men who play video games, so it's kinda shitty to imply that it's only young men.
It's also shitty to imply young men are the people who are obligated to riot, or the only people who do riot.
We've noticed a trend of less violence from people over the last several decades, which started before video games, so video games might be unrelated.
There's always been something that feels like accomplishment but isn't. Reading about how to do something tricks your brain into thinking it's done that or is making progress on a project, but education only goes so far.
So imo it's probably a combination of things. Video games might be one of those things but people feeling like they are rebelling by just reading about countercultural things may also be a factor, as well as humans being less violent and also maybe people are just scared and don't want to die.
Bread and Circus. They take different shapes over the ages, but the core remains the same.
Yes.
When we were kids in the 60's, we were perpetually bored and getting in to trouble.
Its not that we were socially active, we just had nothing to do, and wanted to impress girls.
Uprising because of lack of games? Seriously? Most people won't overthrow the power of capitalists because no one has provided a working theory without capitalists. And changing some for others just doesn't make sense. And this is not about games at all. Moreover, you are not even close to the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. In my 18 years I couldn't have something to eat. That is bottom, not live with parents.
As if a person swinging a sledgehammer at work for 10 hours and then going into their favorite shooter for an hour will immediately go to protests if they don't have a shooter. Of course not.
uhh, i don't go out and riot because i don't have the emotional energy to do that. i play computer games because that's free (in case of luanti, mindustry etc) and i can actually feel good while doing it.
i would go out more if it was easier to meet people in non-profit places, i.e. places where you don't have to spend money just to exist.
i still wouldn't riot though because harm has never helped anything, it just makes things worse. we need constructive criticism instead.
Desperate people don't riot.
Revolutions are started by the "middle class" (or at least someone that can afford to miss a few paychecks).
Desperate people will fight to the death to defend a rich person tossing a couple crumbs off the table for them, because those crumbs are what keeps them from starving.
Could also be that poor people are much more easily thrown in prison or murdered by police.
Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn't have video games to pacify them?
No, because humans have been around for thousands of years and video games have been around for less then 100.
Young men have historically rioted in the streets several times since the invention of streets.
Yes, but not to the level of anarchy OP is implying.
Not on a daily basis, but civilizations have definitely fallen to social unrest.
Have you seen the movie "The Matrix"?
Yes, without so many distracting screens, all people would be much more awake, much more alive.
And here you are averaging 170 comments/month?
