Disapproving Article – Rebuttal of @fakire1sadaka “Games Are Evil” Article... They Are Mere Tools

Importance of speaking up

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One of the Steemit’s biggest strengths, in contradiction to traditional medias, is complete freedom of speech. It is even more important to speak up against plain subjectively misleading articles, because we all are our own judges here. I was to target of such a criticism here and I had to listen to reason and change several sentences that were obviously biased and completely subjective.

Today I have read an article of a @sndbox co-worker @fakire1sadaka. I think that up until now it was by far the most misleading article I have ever encountered here on Steemit and as an ex-professional gamer I feel the need to try to objectively correct what has been said there. This is the original pt.1 and pt.2

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I do not know what is your situation at home, what problems with your child you have and it is none of my business. No harm is intended! All I want is to oppose something that I deem as anti-propaganda with the only argument being assumptions and “professional told me”. Reactions with valid arguments are welcome.

A bit of history

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I have been a gamer since I received my first computer (8 years old). I have been playing Age of Empires and Prince of Persia back then. Those games were so good that they kinda got me hooked up to gaming for the rest of my life (I guess…hard to say now when I’m 23:D). I soon extended the electronic gadgets I owned for PS2 and Gameboy. We have also had internet from the very beginning and children from my surroundings have also had access to very similar stuff like I had, thus said I know thousands of gamers through the internet and hundreds of them personally (that I met in school, got to know them through gamming either directly, or on online tournaments).
There is only 1 thing I remember from the really early stages of my life. School in first and second grade was way too easy and I was disrupting the class because I was bored. We made a deal back then with my teacher. When I finish the tasks at hand, I’m going to stay calmly in my seat and I can play on my Gameboy till the end of the class…pretty good deal right?

I have been trying to become a professional gamer ever since in three different games. I stopped pursuing the dream after partly succeeding at the age of 19. I have spent about 9000 thousands hours in-game.

What have games taught me and what have they taken away from me

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I have tried to objectively contemplate about what I gained and lost because of gamming continuously since I was like 15. Here is the list.

Gains:

• My English would never be on its level otherwise (it isn’t anything special, but hey, I can speak)
• I have met number of awesome people online and some of them I call friends till now. And just so you know I have about 10 friends in total (I DO NOT use the word lightly)
• Extremely fast decision making (playing DOTA at highest levels will teach you that)
• Extremely fast reflexes (and Team Fortress at highest Czech level too)
• Leadership skills (I have been a captain of almost all the teams I have been part of…such an unique experience cannot be acquired elsewhere)
• I benefit from those after the switch from e-sport to physical sport and have almost instantly made it into National team, while Im actively helping our coaches with my pieces of knowledge.
• I have witnessed awesome stories, which were interactive, unlike for example movies
• I have learned the importance of Game theory, how to be effective in such an environemnt and how its implementation into real-world can change the world completely (for example crypto)
• I have learned how to be better at controling my impulsive nature
• I have learned how to lose
• Gaming (and weed) was the only reason why I managed to finally turn off my brain during the most extensive studying time
• I have had SOOO MUCH FUN!

Losses

• I have lost 1 year of my life (about 9000 hours of playing), but it rather was an exchange for what I described in gains.
• I have been shouting quite a lot before I learned how to control myself
• I have never succeeded against the best teams, so lot of the effort put into it was lost in a void
• I have spent quite some money for games
• Being a professional gamer has cost me my girlfriend (even though it was only a part of the problem…being professional Ultimate Frisbee player would though lead to the same outcome – I still wouldn’t have too much free time)
• I could have started learning on my own sooner (even though I believe that it was my natural evolution)
• I will always want some time for playing (even though I keep it at minimum right now, I would still be sad if I couldn’t play at all)

Games are tools…don’t blame the tools. My criticism of what I wouldn’t fear to call anti-propaganda.

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Serious hyperactivity behaviors can occur in children who spend their time looking at images and movements constantly flowing at the computer, or following a series of violent acts. Such immobility in the period when children are the most active and energetic causes their inability to evacuate their energy to lead to more aggressive and destructive actions against their environment.

Major problems that may arise Hyperactivity Behaviors: Children who have been dormant for hours on the computer can not discharge their energy. Their inability to evacuate their energy and a number of items in the game make children more aggressive and aggressive.

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This is only an assumption. Something like “energy accumulation” in a person doesn’t exist. Energy is there absorbed from various sources and we use it to power our body and mind. When a person is playing games, he IS USING the energy. The better reaction time one has to have for the game, the more brain processes one has to make, the more energy is consumed in the process. Human body does not accumulate energy while one is playing games (if they are at least slightly challenging, or if you have to think about what to do in them). It of course can happen that one stops playing games and he still has plenty of energy left, the younger one is the more energy overall he has. Sometimes it’s impossible to deplete energy resources of a child even after the whole day spent outside. In other words if one is hyperactive, computer games have nothing to do with the matter, genes do. When children play all day long outside no one cares to call such a child hyperactive right? But he still is.

Having spare energy in the body does not make you aggressive either. By that logic, every time one wakes up and have breakfast, one should start wreaking havoc, destroying and killing wherever one goes, because he is full of energy. That is obviously not the case. Aggressiveness is by nature locked in our gene too. Everyone is aggressive to some extent at some occasions. If it was not the case our gene would be probably long dead. Millions of people play computer games. Do we see more dead bodies than in medieval ages? Do we see people walking the streets with guns and knives playing “real Counter-Strike”?

Violence in games causes the child to see it as normal in real life. The influence of these games should be considered in the recent increase in the number of juvenile delinquents.

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I don’t know how ordinary life goes on in all the parts of the worlds, but I seriously doubt that “juvenile delinquents” have taken over and are planning to destroy our civilizations in “Civilization – Real Life”. I am pretty positive that the number of “juvenile delinquents” is connected to access to the information. The bigger access to objective information (the later stages of humanity), the less delinquents. We now only hear about them from the media. Of course such people will always be part of any given civilization, but thinking that they exist due to gaming? It’s like believing that internet was the cause of the fall of Roman Empire. Its impossible to measure how many delinquents there used to be prior gamming and how many there are now, but there surely are not millions of people walking with knifes on streets taking hostages…

Another major harm that computers give is damages caused by teenage brains whose children have not yet completed development. The rays that your screen cast can cause epileptic seizures in children.

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Epileptic seizure is an ordinary malfunction of an organism. I cannot prove that computer can’t somehow boost the affinity to epileptic seizures, but on the other hand I can’t blindly state that it does. All I can do from my perspective is use a rule of thumb here and count how many of those players that I have personally met during my life (I should repeat that it was hundreds) and that have been playing computer games for their whole life have epilepsy. The number is 0. If one does have frequent epileptic seizures, than I recommend avoiding blinking light as much as possible – computers included of course).

especially sexual images increase the inconvenience of children by multiplying them and lead to sexual behavior at an early age

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If computer games are the reason why I started to be sexually active since I was 15 with women that were even older than 25 then thanks god I played PC games! No really. So children nowadays know what sex is from VERY VERY early stages of life. That is due to the internet. That is a fact. The only thing one can do is to educate the children about safe sex. It is sooo important to do it early now, but hey, the more years the children spend fucking the better for them I guess. It’s fun and we all love it right? It doesn’t matter whether you are 14 or 56.

Of course, this addiction is not normal, and we need to know the factors that cause this addiction.

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There is no such thing as “normal”. What people do changes with every generation. 20 years ago it was not normal to listen to rave music, and nowadays it even is mainstream. Few hundred years ago it was normal marry who you were told you should marry. Well and today it is not normal to play PC games I guess. E-sport thought is rising and I know for sure that in 10-20 years it will be an ordinary sport…will it be normal then? I guess so…

Of course it shouldn’t be the only activity, but I do understand that the enjoyment one gets from playing games is huge. Believe me when I say that even the hard-core players I know for more than 10 years have reduced their time spent playing. It will come naturally…no need to force it. And those that have not are making money by playing up until now. Still better job than being a wage-slave right?

Since most of the computer games are violent games and their negative effects, I will explain this subject without going through the research.

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This can only be said by someone who has never played PC games and only know like 4 of them right? What about sports games, simulators (not serial-killer simulators of course:D), building strategies, educative games, card games, various survival games, etc.

I tried to be as objective as I could…hope I handled it…

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