CoD4 kills teen

The competition adds to someone playing a game for a long period of time, but I doubt many people seriously get addicted to the competition element of the game. At least not nearly as much as the social world that gets generated within it.

I asked my brother to show me his "friends" list and point out to me all the gamertags of the people he knows in real life. I'm plotting to delete everyone on that list except for the select people he knows. I don't care if he gets pissed off, he can bitch, fight, cry all he wants, the reaction means nothing to me as long as he let's go of this stupid addiction. Hopefully I can draw attention to how much he's reacting to it to prove to himself that he really is addicted.

JohnnyRancid said:

I'm plotting to delete everyone on that list except for the select people he knows. I don't care if he gets pissed off, he can bitch, fight, cry all he wants, the reaction means nothing to me as long as he let's go of this stupid addiction.

Great plan dude, maybe he'll run away and freeze to death!

He won't. he still has his xbox live, and he can still add them all back. It will be difficult, but if he's willing to put up with the effort of trying to find his "friends" again then there is something wrong with him, and he'll know it.

Looks like it was gravity that killed him: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081108/national/missing_teen

JohnnyRancid said:

I'm plotting to delete everyone on that list except for the select people he knows.

NEVER DELETE ANYTHING. Especially if it belongs to someone else. You don't know when something will be needed, for any possible good reason.

It's up to your friend to grow up (learn), not up to you or anyone else to control or censor him.

Yeah, you probably don't want to give him any legitimate reasons to feel persecuted. Just keep bombarding him with reason, I'd say.

Skeletor said:

if you were to do a brain scan you would see that the areas that light up the brain when doing "uppers" type drugs like coke and meth are the same areas that light up when certain individuals are addicted to games.

Very interesting. You know, considering how many similarities exist between drug addictions and game/internet addictions, I can't help but wonder how long it will take for addicted gamers to get the same level of "addiction cred" given to smokers, alcoholics, etc. By that I mean that in the current cultural context, it's understood that smokers and alcoholics are struggling under a huge burden, but, if you tell someone you're a recovering gameaholic, the most natural reaction is "NEEEEEERRRRRD!"

printz said:

NEVER DELETE ANYTHING. Especially if it belongs to someone else. You don't know when something will be needed, for any possible good reason.

It's up to your friend to grow up (learn), not up to you or anyone else to control or censor him.

It's my brother, who is beginning to become dangerously addicted to Xbox Live and Halo 3. He only 'feels' he needs those other Halo addicts to be his friends, when in reality he doesn't. I don't need em, No one else in my household needs them, my brother definitely doesn't need them. I'm rehabilitating him. I'm worried that he doesn't have to mental capacity to let go of this by himself. The kid in this article certainly didn't, and he's not far from my brother's age and maturity at all.

He is certainly allowed to play Xbox Live. I'm not concerned about that. It's the stupid fake relationships he is establishing with people he doesn't know. The fact that he plays Halo is little to none of my concern, but the more he isolates himself from his real friends and family, the more I feel like I am losing an important person in my life.

POTGIESSER said:

Looks like it was gravity that killed him: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/capress/081108/national/missing_teen

I bet he tried to sleep in the tree.

JohnnyRancid said:
The kid in this article certainly didn't, and he's not far from my brother's age and maturity at all.

Maybe he would have, had his parents not hounded him about it. It looks like he fell (jumped?) off a tree and wasn't in a condition to survive in the cold.

Did you stop being a "Runescape addict" by personal choice or because some holier-than-thou person started meddling with you? Perhaps your brother moves into these not-so-deep gaming friendships because he finds the people around him to be annoying or unsatisfying.

I'm worried that he doesn't have to mental capacity to let go of this by himself.

Helpful or friendly suggestions are one thing, "helping" others without having faith in their abilities is another.

JohnnyRancid said:

It's my brother, who is beginning to become dangerously addicted to Xbox Live and Halo 3. He only 'feels' he needs those other Halo addicts to be his friends, when in reality he doesn't. I don't need em, No one else in my household needs them, my brother definitely doesn't need them. I'm rehabilitating him. I'm worried that he doesn't have to mental capacity to let go of this by himself. The kid in this article certainly didn't, and he's not far from my brother's age and maturity at all.

He is certainly allowed to play Xbox Live. I'm not concerned about that. It's the stupid fake relationships he is establishing with people he doesn't know. The fact that he plays Halo is little to none of my concern, but the more he isolates himself from his real friends and family, the more I feel like I am losing an important person in my life.

You are a judgmental prick. You're not concerned about the well being of your brother. You're concerned about instilling your own personal idea of "proper" and "improper" interpersonal interaction on him. You go on and on about how his online friends are "not real" and somehow you've convinced yourself that this is unacceptable and that it will have terrifying and devastating consequences. Oh no, he's forming relationships with TCP/IP packets; how can that possibly be healthy? It's pretend and therefore a cancer in his life, right? What if he eventually dates a girl with silicon breasts? Will you sabotage that as well? Uh oh, he's driving to McDonalds to eat petroleum food every day so you'd better let the air out of his tires? If you were my brother then you would do well to lock up any possessions of value.

Danarchy said:

Yeah, my roommate does next to nothing aside from playing WoW. He doesn't clean or leave the house aside from work or anything. I used to be a bit of a WoW addict myself. I spent most of my free time playing the game. Sure, I'd go to hang out with friends whenever they called, but I played the game in lieu of anything productive like cleaning my room or practicing guitar or going for walks.

As I grow older, I'm finding less and less room for games in my life. Kind of sad, but I'm having more fun these days than I ever did.

My roommate as well is a WoW addict. He claims he has friends back in his home land of Mexico but while he's up here me and my buddy are continually trying to include him in fun but he simply shrugs us off. He also does not do any dishes or housework and it's hard for me to keep the place clean with two people messing it up.

Yet another casualty of the evil video game industries hideous murder simulators. Don't these sick bastards realize that if Rockstar games and Bill Gates had never invented video games, this poor kid would never have wandered into the woods and fallen out of a tree and died?

When will people learn that we need to kill the people who work for the video game industries if we are to ever stop this violence from corrupting our children?

AndrewB said:

You are a judgmental prick.

The pot said:

Nigger.

Apparently that game is rated 17+. I wonder how he got the game and if his parents only cared that he was playing it because he was skipping school. And wtf at the dad telling his son that he better bring a warm coat.

TimeOfDeath said:

Apparently that game is rated 17+. I wonder how he got the game and if his parents only cared that he was playing it because he was skipping school. And wtf at the dad telling his son that he better bring a warm coat.

A lot of parents are stupid or just don't know any better.

Creaphis said:

He should take it from one who knows.

I was addicted to WoW a while back.
Wish I still was. RL is shit.

myk said:

Did you stop being a "Runescape addict" by personal choice or because some holier-than-thou person started meddling with you? Perhaps your brother moves into these not-so-deep gaming friendships because he finds the people around him to be annoying or unsatisfying.

Good question. It was a personal choice, but it took me a loooong time to realize that I was actually addicted to it and that I would have been way better off if I never knew about it in the first place. The thing is, the brevity of this sort of online gaming addiction has just been occurring to me recently. I used to stray away from meeting new people because I wasn't good at introducing myself, especially because it was embarrassing to tell people that all I do is play video games all day, and I wasn't clever enough to lie about the things I do in my life to make myself seem more interesting. I made a pretty boring friend because gaming tended to suck my interest out of everything else in the world, so whenever someone asked "What did you do over the weekend?" or "What are you doing this Friday?" or whatever, I unremittingly replied "nothin." because every single thing seemed so bland compared to games.

I'm going on my senior year of high school and it's becoming dangerously clear the lack of friends I have, and how easy it is to make some new ones. High school and Middle School are the biggest oppurtunities to new friends I may ever have, and it's becoming apparent that I blew off 90% of the time I have left with the "friends" I made online. I'm over 100x more satisfied with my friends being REAL PEOPLE instead of some simulation of a person who lives 100 miles away. I'm lucky enough that it's become clear to me now, instead of 20 years from now where I'd be stuck living somewhere I don't want to be, having no girlfriend, no friends to hang with, and the rest of my lifetime with nothing to look forward to.

I know for sure. This is certainly in his best interest.

It sounds like having friends is really important to you. But think about it: if you'd rather be alone, you wouldn't have to rely on the company of others to enjoy yourself.

JohnnyRancid said:
High school and Middle School are the biggest oppurtunities to new friends I may ever have, and it's becoming apparent that I blew off 90% of the time I have left with the "friends" I made online.

If you enjoy making friends and put store in your ability to make the right ones, there are possibilities all the way. Not many keep more than two or three school friends when reaching adulthood because once people grow up they go after rather diverse interests. I'm in touch with one high school friend, although we were talking about getting in touch with a couple others (which live farther away).

I'm going on my senior year of high school and it's becoming dangerously clear the lack of friends I have, and how easy it is to make some new ones.

Make friends, if it is enjoyable, but not just to avoid being a friendless nerd. Make friends, when you feel inspired to do so, not just when your older brother starts saying how much cooler it is than playing online games (sabotaging your game account in the process).

lol, AndrewB is gay

I look at the game of Golf. Now I can appreciate the sheer hard work and skill that someone like Tiger Woods puts into being the best in the world, and the society we live in puts enough value on those skills to pay Mr. Woods millions of dollars a year to play golf.

Now I look at golf and what I see is a bunch of people in funny pants belting a little ball around a park trying to get it into a little hole. They are creating a false problem (The ball is not in the hole) and then pay people to engineer a wierd solution (Putting the ball in the hole, usually from a great distance)

And I ask myself, is what Mr. Woods does for a living really any more (or less) valuable than what people do everyday on WoW or CoD4 etc etc. To be good at these games is a genuine skillset in itself, though (probably) not one that will earn you a sponsorship deal with a major sporting brand..

There are probably a lot of famous sporting people out there who are so dedicated to their sport that they have no friends either.

And perhaps more relevant to this thread, is playing CoD4 more damaging to your health (and potentially life threatening) than playing golf?

It is all in the way that computer games are perceived.

Or something like that.

"Golf is a good walk spoiled" - Mark Twain

Golf is not a "false problem" it's a challenge, CoD4 involves fighting ficticious opponents in wars that haven't happened - I'd describe that as a "false problem". Mastering golfs skillset is potentially far more lucrative than being a talented online gamer and unless you happen to be living in South Korea there aren't all that many opportunities to earn a living as a professional video game player. Golfing provides more opportunities for social interaction than online gaming - chances to meet people who's interests don't start and stop with the game. Then again, players who are totally dedicated to the game/sport tend to make poor company.

Unless you drown in a water hazard, are killed by a swarm of bees or spend too much time at the 19th hole I'd rate golf as a better way to spend your time than CoD4 - that's coming from someone who doesn't play either.

Don't forget lightning. Aka Golfer's Bane.

Yes, the CoD made him fall out of a tree.......

What the Hell

JohnnyRancid said:

I don't need em, No one else in my household needs them, my brother definitely doesn't need them.

Who knows, maybe the other Halo addicts are good at programming or there are quite some knowledgeable, helpful geeks. You may yet have use of them.

Note that video games aren't the only ones that "destroy" your social life :) Anything similar can do. For example I've been spending the last few weeks solving exercises for college. Since I find its domains really appealing (like maths, physics) I really became a nerd talking all about them but becoming awkward and clumsy under casual circumstances :|

Kyka said:

And perhaps more relevant to this thread, is playing CoD4 more damaging to your health (and potentially life threatening) than playing golf?

I'm not sure if this is a reply to what I've been saying, but playing the game is nothing I'm worried about. I know that my brother is playing xbox daily for long hours to talk to the people on his friends list, not so much for the love of the game. The game alone is just a mild time killer, but his "friends" are really what's making him feel like he has a mission to spend as much time communicating with them as possible.

We were in North Carolina for the Thanksgiving break, and my brother jumped to the xbox immediately when we got back, and started talking to his fake friend, who was whining about how he said he was going to be back on friday, not saturday. My brother anxiously feeling sorry for him and putting the blame on himself "I know, man, I'm sorry I really thought I was gonna be back sooner."

It's difficult to understand the dangers of a dependency on online friends if it isn't something you've experienced yourself. When you have friends both off and online, then your need for direct human contact is satisfied and your time with online friends is just a bit of additional fun. But, online friendships alone cannot make you happy. Please trust me on this, as I've experienced all of it - when online friends are all that you have, there is no point at which your social needs are fulfilled. There is no point at which you suddenly feel like that was enough, you've had enough human contact, you can move on with your day. You can (and will) play games with your imaginary internet friends for the entire day, trying to scratch that itch, without ever feeling ready to return to reality.

Some of you are arguing that this is a matter of preference - that someone may just prefer online relationships to offline relationships. Perhaps this is true for some people, but not for many. After my experiences, the idea seems ludicrous. Saying that some people prefer online relationships is like saying that some people smoke a pack every day because they just like the flavour. It's like saying that people who get hammered in solitude every night know how to appreciate a good whiskey. It's like saying that the last teen who overdosed on ecstasy just took the tabs because it would have been impolite to refuse.

Despite all this, I don't know what JohnnyRancid should do. We both quit under our own power, so his brother probably will too (eventually). I'm not sure that direct interference can help things, though I'm pretty sure that wise words can. (I was once told that, later in life, I would never be proud of the time I spent online, and this stuck with me.) However, I also believe that many people in this generation will carry this addiction into adulthood, and it will eventually be seen similarly to chemical addictions. We'll see, I guess.

Creaphis might as well have said:

It's difficult to understand the dangers of homosexuality if it isn't something you've experienced yourself. When you have a spouse of the opposite sex, then your need for direct human contact is satisfied and your time with same-sex friends is just a bit of additional fun. But, homosexuality alone cannot make you happy. Please trust me on this, as I've experienced all of it - when homosexual partners are all that you have, there is no point at which your sexual needs are fulfilled. There is no point at which you suddenly feel like that was enough, you've had enough human contact, you can move on with your day. You can (and will) have sex with your same sex partner for the entire day, trying to scratch that itch, without ever feeling ready to return to reality.

Some of you are arguing that this is a matter of preference - that someone may just prefer homosexual relationships to heterosexual relationships. Perhaps this is true for some people, but not for many. After my experiences, the idea seems ludicrous. Saying that some people prefer gay sex is like saying that some people smoke a pack every day because they just like the flavour. It's like saying that people who get hammered in solitude every night know how to appreciate a good whiskey. It's like saying that the last teen who overdosed on ecstasy just took the tabs because it would have been impolite to refuse.

Despite all this, I don't know what JohnnyRancid should do. We both quit under our own power, so his brother probably will too (eventually). I'm not sure that direct interference can help things, though I'm pretty sure that wise words can. (I was once told that, later in life, I would never be proud of the time I spent with another man, and this stuck with me.) However, I also believe that many people in this generation will carry this addiction into adulthood, and it will eventually be seen similarly to chemical addictions. We'll see, I guess.

My picture has no relevance in this context.

Thank you for not changing it to one that does.