hang on a minute, is this a strawman in the making

[Quigglebert]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/newsbeat/15002820

basicly, this artical states that gamers are becoming so immersed in games that they attempt to act out in game actions in real life such as "use a gravity gun to pick up food" and "reaching for a search button to find someone in a real crowd."
i dont want to blow this out of proportion cause it seems that not much other than that is being said, however the point here is that there are 6 people claiming that they are affected as such including one girl saying "Grand Theft Auto 4 came out and I got it for my birthday. I was playing it for about 15 days straight. I came home from school and I would just play it constantly. I went outside one day and I had this sudden urge to punch everyone and steal all their money and cars and stuff.", realisticly speaking yes there are people who would act out their in game actions in the real world, and research has proven that those who have have been mentally unbalanced, gaming hasnt helped but hasnt been the cause.
but enough from me, your views on the articles please

 

[Fiz_The_Toaster]

To be honest I couldn't help but wonder if those people making those comments were just saying them to mess with them.

I couldn't take the article seriously, and I don't see the purpose for the article other than to prove some point about the horrors of gaming, whatever that means.

 

[DeadlyYellow]

Playing Grand Theft Auto, then going outside and assaulting someone is not the game's fault.

However playing Grand Theft Auto, the going outside and driving slightly more erratic than usual is. But this is more an effect of the game slightly altering your instinctual patterns, not you know... making you loony.

 

[baconsarnie]

one girl saying "Grand Theft Auto 4 came out and I got it for my birthday. I was playing it for about 15 days straight. I came home from school and I would just play it constantly. I went outside one day and I had this sudden urge to punch everyone and steal all their money and cars and stuff."

I get crazy urges all the time "i wonder how far i could throw my phone off this bridge" or "if i beat this person round the head could i escape this room full of people"
I think part of it is just the irrational part of the brain musing, partially enhanced by what we have seen happen in games that the subconscious mixes with reality.

 

[Zyst]

I think it's an exaggeration, but I totally know what they mean.

It REALLY REALLY sucked when I played Portal, since I was all like "Oh if I open a portal here then one there I would..." Then I'd get sad, because I still had to walk.

 

[Rin Little]

That's... um... Geez, I don't know what to make of that... Sounds kind of weird and not real though

 

[Lord Mountbatten Reborn]

So? It does happen. Also a lot of the comments were fairly interesting and varied, rather than just showcasing how gaming is evil and will make you kill everything.

 

[Stall]

Ah ha ha! So the good old Tetris Effect is getting some lovin', eh?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetris_Effect

The Tetris effect occurs when people devote sufficient time and attention to an activity that it begins to overshadow their thoughts, mental images, and dreams. It is named after the video game Tetris.

People who play Tetris for a prolonged amount of time may then find themselves thinking about ways different shapes in the real world can fit together, such as the boxes on a supermarket shelf or the buildings on a street.[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of habit. They might also dream about falling Tetris shapes when drifting off to sleep or see images of falling Tetris shapes at the edges of their visual fields or when they close their eyes.[1] In this sense, the Tetris effect is a form of hallucination or hypnagogic imagery.

It's been around for ages really. It's nothing new. Video games have always had this effect on people, as far back as Tetris.

Also, the OP needs to learn what a straw man is because his thread shows absolutely no grasp on the word.

 

[Quigglebert]

snip

Also, the OP needs to learn what a straw man is because his thread shows absolutely no grasp on the word.

for all intents and purpouses yeah i used the wrong word there, but its 4am here so forgive me, the point i was mearly trying to make is that it just looks like a weak back hander at gaming, with one guy saying some people might but he doesnt in an attempt to balance it out, now im not saying its about the evilness of gaming.

also a strawman is building a crappy defence to smash it down in a debate to give a inflated sense of superiority to your cause

 

[Avistew]

I do get very frustrated when I can't use a search engine to find something I've misplaced.

 

[Draconalis]

I've really wanted to use my hearthstone to avoid the drive home after a long day at work before.

 

[Quigglebert]

i must say though, after angry birds i seem to wish to hurl pidgions into my local cattle market

 

[DanielBrown]

I once thought I should save before entering the subway, just in case something would happen.
Had probably been gaming like crazy before that, but I play a lot every day and that's the only time I recall something like that ever happening.

 

[Frungy]

I know that after a couple of hours on forums I feel the strong desire to kill some of the other users... but I don't ... although if I had your addresses, and you lived reasonably close to my house, and if I wasn't busy, and ... oh bugger it who am I kidding, I'm simply too lazy to commit homocide, the entire idea of chopping you up, fiddling with duct tape and garbage bags and then dragging your corpse all the way down to the docks or into the forest to bury is just way too much effort.

Um... what was I talking about? Oh yes, the media is once again trying to generalise from a small sample of people who are probably already nuts and believe that their toilet is the back entrance to Narnia to the general population. Most of us aren't nuts. Lazy? Yes (I did "research" on this, I asked myself, I was too lazy to answer and I came to the conclusion that 100% of gamers surveyed are lazy). Nuts? Cashews please.

 

[Stall]

also a strawman is building a crappy defence to smash it down in a debate to give a inflated sense of superiority to your cause

That's not what a straw man is either -_-. A straw man is where you replace the point your opponent's central argument with a superficially related yet nonequivalent point, and reject that point instead of their central argument. Basically, you attack the straw man instead of the actual person's argument.

For example:
Person A) "We should encourage net neutrality. Being able to spread information freely and quickly across the internet can only stand to benefit our society"
Person B) "No. An unrestricted internet would result in rampant piracy and widespread lack of respect for IP and copyright laws".

The argument Person B used is a straw man.

 

[Quigglebert]

my bad there, i bow to your superior terminology knowledge