In our survey, both sexes weighed in on the effects these attitudes have:
[Male] I believe these behaviors may “raise the bar” for pursuing relationships—instead of being “just what you do” as a young man, there begins to exist a cost/benefit sort of analysis. If you can get your entertainment and sexual needs met via video games and porn, without the “baggage” and “drama” that often accompanies intimate relationships, young men may not be as motivated to seek those relationships out.
[Male] Some sexism in society plays a role. Boys are taught to NOT respect women, because that is what they see in media . . . the interactions of their role models. If a man does not respect a woman, why should he go out of his comfort zone to talk to her or get involved in a romantic relationship?
[Female] Hands down, not one man I know who uses porn has a healthy, respectful relationship with women. They may be able to “behave” appropriately for a limited amount of time in social situations, but it ALWAYS affects their attitudes and underlying values. There are ALWAYS diffident attitudes and remarks that are evident to the women who live and work with men who use porn. There is an old phrase, “sys in, sys out” [in this context, similar to “garbage in, garbage out”]. No human brain can feed on the self-gratifying consumer habits of pornography and also pursue a mature, complex, comprehensive, enduring relationship with another human.
Since the joy of romantic connection doesn't lie in prefabricated interaction, what do males who use these methods really want? In the world of young men, the desire for happiness and fulfillment has somehow morphed into the need for stimulation, amusement, and control.
Tucker Max, bestselling author of I Hope They Serve Beer in Hell and Assholes Finish First, posted a dating application online that received many responses. His multiple-choice form asked potential dates questions such as, “What will my friends say when they see you?” Below are some of the options responders could choose for that question:
“Another tall, hot blonde with no self-esteem—he's getting laid tonight.”
“Tonight's forecast calls for scattered clothes, with a significant chance of intense, passionate humping.”
“My Lord—she smells like the fish market.”
“Well, she's too ugly for him to date . . . $10 says he sleeps with her anyway.”
“I wouldn't call her fat, but he's gonna need the Jaws of Life to get out of this.”
“She's just a cheap hooker. I wonder how much smack she cost him.”
“Should have been a blow job.”51
On one level, it's a joke. But it makes you wonder why Max's writing turned into a number one New York Times bestselling book in a time when many people are embarrassed to buy condoms or don't know how to have an honest conversation about sex—with anyone.
We see sex everywhere, so why is it so hard to talk about? Is being crude—thus lowbrow and easily dismissible—the only way to make it acceptable? A lot of young men in the Westernized world have developed a Madonna–Whore Complex in part because of this strange divergence. Described as love without sex and sex without love, these men want a wholesome woman as their mate and a whorish woman as their lover. When they come across a woman in the real world who is nice and sexual, they become anxious and often push her away—for them, sex must be impersonal. This creates hugely challenging intimacy problems for everyone involved.
We spoke with one woman in her early twenties who described a recent three-year relationship with a young man that embodied this internal struggle:
After about seven months of dating we moved in together. Our sex life was never good. He had problems maintaining an erection throughout the relationship. Sometimes he would get an erection, but when it was obvious we were about to have intercourse his erection would go away. He said he had these problems with every girl he had been with. In the morning he had “morning wood” and he was able to successfully masturbate—clearly the problem was in his mind. He enjoyed cuddling and holding me, and we got along great otherwise. We talked pretty candidly about everything. He had a massive porn collection on his computer. The collection itself didn't really bother me except there is no doubt in my mind that all the pornography influenced his perceptions on sex in a really negative way—he had major performance anxiety and could never get into the moment. In middle and high school he went to a boarding school and stayed in a dorm with all boys; he said they watched A LOT of porn there. And this is before any of them actually had any real-life sexual experiences. I think that is the key in why he has had erection problems (and performance anxiety) his whole life—the fact that he was exposed to hard-core porn before he experienced what sex was like in reality totally confused him. He said it was difficult for him to perceive me sexually (that is he couldn't reconcile the idea of someone he loved being his sexual partner too); he saw sex as something that happened with someone he didn't care about, a sexual object rather than a real person. By the end of the relationship we were living like roommates.
Relationships used to be viewed as a precursor to setting up a family together, and people treated their potential partners as such. But today, with fewer reasons to become romantically committed, young men are no longer looking beyond women as temporary, interchangeable sex objects.
Dynamics of Video Games
Several decades ago, if you had glasses you were called “four-eyes,” and kids with too many books were hurled other vintage insults. For baby boomers, the smart kids were only cool just before exams, and showing an interest in good grades or electronics meant you were a nerd, and nerds were in a league of their own—at the bottom of the social hierarchy.
In the old days, prior to pinball machines and arcades, Donkey Kong and Doom, and long before Call of Duty, when teenage guys got together they would play sports, ride their bicycles, drive around aimlessly, and play cards. They drank and smoked and nearly died running around with BB guns and building rafts to float down rivers that would fill up after heavy rains. This was an era when neighbors knew each other's names, families ate dinner together, you couldn't live too far beyond your means, and people had to entertain themselves.
Everything changed in the 1970s and 1980s. The nerds were busy doing what nerds do best: designing innovative technologies and pioneering new ways to control and explore the known universe. The first arcade games, gaming consoles, and general-purpose computers were created by nerdy guys for nerdy guys. Most of them knew more about technology than social graces, and not much attention was paid to style. Some nerds were just passionate about building things; others were socially awkward and needed something to do. They were not designed by the men who could get women, because those men were out chasing them. But when gaming companies became legitimate businesses with stronger capabilities, better graphics, and improved usability, nerds suddenly had the opportunity to become geeks, and geeks were cool. Go to the launch party of any game or electronic device nowadays and you'll see beautiful models and sexy go-go dancers as the sideshow attraction.
It could be said that this dramatic transition happened in 1977, when the first Star Wars movie came out. That same year, the Apple II was debuted at the first West Coast Computer Faire held in San Francisco, an event some refer to as the birth of the personal computer industry. A year later, Midway released Space Invaders, in 1979 Atari released Asteroids, then in 1980 Namco released Pac-Man, the most popular arcade game of all time. In 1981 the first magazine about video games, Electronic Games, was published. There was a brief hiccup experienced by the video game industry in the early 1980s, but Nintendo overcame it several years later. All the while Jack Tramiel, founder of Commodore International, was producing simple but economical computers for the “masses, not the classes.”52 The availability of computers, the Internet, touch screens, and motion control revolutionized the way people were able to interact with each other and play video games.
After the prices became more affordable, the power of technology was realized in mainstream society, there was rapid innovatio
n, and the world ate it up. Electronic consumerism stimulated tech growth, and as Intel's “Sponsors of Tomorrow” ad demonstrated, a new form of rock star emerged. Those pocket-protector-wearing nerds the baby boomers made fun of probably have many people answering to them today. Hence the scene from the new 21 Jump Street movie, where the undercover cops (played by Jonah Hill and Channing Tatum) are met with scorn when they try to get in with the popular crowd by parking in the handicapped spot, projecting a blasé attitude, and punching a gay student. They were playing by the old rules; little did they know the bad boy attitude no longer sent quite the same message. When we stop and reflect on the exponential growth in the last few decades, we can appreciate “the crazy ones, the misfits, the rebels, the trouble-makers, the round pegs in the square holes . . . the ones who see things differently,” as Apple visionary Steve Jobs so eloquently put it.53 The underdog has been our mascot since.
There are a lot of benefits to playing video games—mainly, they are a lot of fun, and there can be a fair amount of social bonding, problem solving, strategy, and even exercise involved. Online games provide the opportunity to become more computer literate too, a skill that should not be underestimated in the future job market. Many online games also allow people to interact with other people around the world, providing an opportunity to learn about other cultures. But these benefits extend only up to a point, and a large portion of people don't take advantage of these positive features.
As mentioned earlier, we're mostly concerned about people who play video games excessively and in social isolation. In a Pew Research poll, 82 percent of gamers reported playing alone sometimes, while 24 percent said they only played games alone. Four out of five gamers who use Mature (M) or Adults Only (AO) rated games are male, and twelve-year-old boys are just as likely to play these games as their seventeen-year-old older brothers.54
The disadvantage of playing video games, especially a lot of exciting video games, is that it can make other people and real life seem boring and not worthwhile in comparison. Compared with gamers that play with others in the room, lone gamers are less likely to seek information about politics or current events, raise money for charity, or be committed to civic participation.55 Not surprisingly, compared with teenagers who don't play video games, adolescent gamers spend about 30 percent less time reading and 34 percent less time doing homework.56 One 2010 study published in Psychological Science found that when six- to nine-year-old boys received a gaming system, their reading and writing scores decreased while teacher-reported learning problems went up.57 Essentially, too much gaming is associated with decreased school performance, desensitization to violence, and potentially influencing how a person learns and socializes due to a lack of balance between time spent playing and engaging in other activities.58
Recall Gabe from earlier in this chapter, who told us that at twenty-three years old he estimated that if he were to average it out, he played four hours of video games a day since the day he was born. If that estimate is correct, that's over 33,000 hours of gaming (almost seven bachelor's degrees)!
Looking back on my childhood, I can see now that video games and porn not only desensitized me to normal pleasures of life, but also won me over due to the supernormal stimulation they provide and ended up replacing my real world desires and passions for virtual ones. The levels of excitement and stimulation I could achieve in a video game eventually made real-life sports seem boring.
In my opinion, the way games today are made are a recipe for addiction. With leader-boards that take countless hours and skill to be at the top, and constant releases of “bonus packs” to add on to the game (novelty), they keep a guy hooked and once you feel as if you might be getting bored with the game they add more levels or an ability to improve your rank even more. Over time the real world around me just could not keep my attention because all I could think about was when I was going to be able to get back home and game.59
Neils Clark and P. Shavaun Scott suggest reasons why games have the ability to draw players in, unlike slower and more introspective forms of entertainment:
Games aren't as passive as other media . . . they connect us to other living people . . . this word “game” no longer really does justice to what's happening in today's digital living room. Whether you want to call it interactivity, agency, autonomy, or anything else, the most painfully obvious advancement is that games have taken us past passively watching television and reading books. You can watch a car chase on television, but it's kind of different when you're the one going 150 MPH and outrunning the cops in your red Ferrari. With games we're in the driver's seat. That level of control changes things, making them look and feel different to the brain . . . Stories on a television screen can inform us, but short of reality, a game is what teaches. Being able to see what happens when we make those dangerous choices, being able to then make our own spontaneous choices has made history's games inviting, exciting, and lasting.60
The question is, how do these imaginative fantasy adventures feel different to the brain? In Boys Adrift, Leonard Sax points out that video games actually can affect the brain in ways that compromise motivation. The nucleus accumbens operates in conjunction with another area of the brain called the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (DLPFC); the nucleus accumbens is responsible for directing drive and motivation, and the DLPFC provides context for that drive:
A recent brain imaging study of boys between the ages of seven and fourteen years found that playing video games puts this system seriously out of kilter. It seems to shut off blood flow to the DLPFC . . . Playing these games engorges the nucleus accumbens with blood, while diverting blood away from the balancing area of the brain. The net result is that playing video games gives boys the reward associated with achieving a great objective, but without any connection to the real world, without any sense of a need to contextualize the story.61
It's not just the brain that is suffering either. Some teachers have remarked that some older children have difficulty finishing traditional pen-and-paper tests because their memories had deteriorated from overexposure to screen-based technology. Some young children had lost dexterity in their fingers because of how much time they spent using a touch-screen tablet. A four-year-old who had been exposed to digital devices since birth even required therapy for compulsive behavior.62
There is increasing evidence of bidirectional causality between gaming, attention problems, and impulsiveness. Child psychologists Douglas Gentile, Edward Swing, Choon Guan Lim, and Angeline Khoo recently examined the effects these variables have on each other in more than 3,000 youths in Singapore over a three-year period. They found that even when sex, ethnicity, age, socioeconomic status, and earlier attention problems were statistically controlled, the kids who spent more time gaming later had more attention problems. They also noted that even when the initial time spent gaming was statistically controlled, the kids who were more impulsive or had some level of attention problems to begin with would spend more time playing video games, exacerbating the problems.63 This data could help explain why boys are more likely than girls to be diagnosed with ADHD and spend more time playing video games; it also suggests attention problems could be altered by environmental factors and might be reduced by less game time, or by playing different kinds of games.
Several years ago, Allan Reiss and his colleagues at Stanford used fMRI imaging to look at what happens inside people's brains during a gaming session. They discovered that males get greater feelings of reward during video game play than females, and are two to three times more likely to feel addicted to video games. The game Reiss tested involved gaining territory by eliminating balls from the screen before they approached a vertical line called the “wall.” Although the female participants understood the game and appeared motivated to do well, “the males were just a lot more motivated to succeed,” said Reiss.
Their research revealed that the male participants had far more activation in the brain's mesocorticolimbic center, a region that includes the
nucleus accumbens, amygdala, and orbitofrontal cortex, and that the activation was correlated with how much territory was gained. Those parts of the brain were also shown to influence each other during the gaming session much more in the men's brains than in the women's brains, and the better connected that circuit was, the more the men excelled in the game.64 The findings could explain why games that involve conquering or acquiring territory are more popular with males, and why they are motivated to play more hours than women. Male brain structure promotes connectivity between perception and coordinated action, while female brain structure promotes communication between analytical and intuitive processing.65 Perhaps we'd see greater female brain activity in games with different objectives. As one young woman from our survey commented, “If there were more female-targeted games, we might purchase them and play them more than males.”
We would like to see more brain imaging studies done that measure the internal rewards for more neutral or female-oriented video games. We also think it would be interesting to measure the possible effect puberty has on competitiveness in various themed games, as the amount of time girls spend gaming drops significantly by the time they reach their teen years.66
When Video Games Go Right
Play is the answer to how anything new comes about.
—Jean Piaget, Swiss developmental psychologist
There's a reason why video games are so popular—they make challenges fun and interesting. When video games go right, they provide a stimulating environment for learning, triumph, offer some social bonding, and rewards are derived in the process of playing. Players in MMORPG (massively multiplayer online role-playing games) also develop reputations, allowing them to build trust with other players, something that may not be as easy for them to find or build with people in the real world. Games like World of Warcraft and Second Life are very social, even if players are in the guise of an avatar. Positive gaming may also take the form of learning or training programs and make real-world impacts.
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