Video games and Unemployment

[kuddlesworth9419]

I'm unemployed and I play video games. But I'm looking for work just not lucky enough I guess. 

[Tiz]

These things are always so fun. Of course video games can cause addiction, also sugar, alcohol, smoking, watching TV shows (some crazy people there). That should be the end of the topic. If you want to do something worth with your life, do it, if not, then fucking play videogames, have sex with everyone and smoke and drink until you pass out. Now let me get back to gaming work...

[sof006]

Please fix topic, this thread does not meet the posting requirements for Tech News & Reviews

 

 

[cluelessgenius]

well i would be lying if i said i dont see any links.

i wouldnt go as far to say something like "all gamers...blablabla" but from my own experience id say staying up until 2 or 3 in the morning gaming during the week is not really managable. even though you might think im fine it work out yesterday. do that some days in a row and soon coworkers will notice how tired you look.

also if i was unemployed id defenitly see myself gaming way more. i think it gives you a feeling of accomplishment that if you dont get it irl can be used as a substitute. today if you see me getting really into a game thats probably the reason for me. feeling accomplished when life doesnt give you that. be it social life, love life, or work life.

 

P.S.: im getting really into CROSSOUT right now

[JAKEBAB]

Go play xbox/PS online in Aus and majority are dole bludging bums that sound like they've never worked a day in their life. Are video games the cause? Doubtful, these people would probably still be unemployed possibly even doing illegal things or more of. Do video games help the situation? Purely in the unemployement situation, No. I'd say they enable it.

[treeroy]

well it's certainly true that if you're unemployed you have more time to play games. I had a period of 6 months between leaving high school and starting work, and during those 6 months I did nothing but watch Netflix and play games.

 

on the other hand, there are plenty of games that tend to try to take over your life (MMOs etc) and if you're deep into those sorts of games it may be hard to stop playing them.

[Taf the Ghost]

Since it's The Economist, there's generally one of two things they're up to.

 

1. Tut-tutting the lower classes.
2. Shaping a Narrative for future expected use to ban/limit/control something.

 

This seems a lot more of a Tut-tut piece. Gaming is already a bigger business than Movies, so there's nothing much there to capture from the perspective of business interests. Thus this is a "oh, look at the hoi polloi and their games!" instinct they're working off.

 

The Economist is the absolute top of the Western Media Infrastructure, so it's important to keep an eye on them when they're talking about your area of interest. It's a signal of support to at least the interests that would like to limit gaming, but those don't exist in enough of a cohesive group to matter. Thus it leads me to assume they're just done a report on a worthless study.

[GoodBytes]

Moved out of Tech News section because this entry doesn't meet the posting guidelines:

 

[LooneyJuice]

7 hours ago, AshleyAshes said:

The study really only shows coloration but not causation.  While 'Video games leads to living at home and being unemployed' is a sexy conclusion that gets you headlines, the inverse, 'Unemployment leads to living at home and playing video games' yields only a 'No, duh.' in response.

Was coloration on purpose? 'Cause I'm totally cool with coloration.

[The Owl]

Videogames lead to my employment actually

[TidaLWaveZ]

No offense to the OP for bringing up good conversation but the source is based on pure assumption.  

 

They just take employment statistics(without providing a source) and conclude that there's a correlation.

 

I could say between 2000-2015 the average height of a woman increased by .5 inches and in the same time frame women consumed increasing amounts of Coca Cola. Does this provide any true evidence that Coca Cola causes women to grow taller?

 

Article is fluff, stats are probably inaccurate or bogus, but who knows as they don't bother to provide a source. If I had to guess I would say that maybe they used census data, which I don't consider very accurate in relation to gauging the activities of males in their 20s. 

[Archertwin]

8 hours ago, TidaLWaveZ said:

No offense to the OP for bringing up good conversation but the source is based on pure assumption.  

 

They just take employment statistics(without providing a source) and conclude that there's a correlation.

 

I could say between 2000-2015 the average height of a woman increased by .5 inches and in the same time frame women consumed increasing amounts of Coca Cola. Does this provide any true evidence that Coca Cola causes women to grow taller?

 

Article is fluff, stats are probably inaccurate or bogus, but who knows as they don't bother to provide a source. If I had to guess I would say that maybe they used census data, which I don't consider very accurate in relation to gauging the activities of males in their 20s. 

None take. I posted this to get all your ideas on this topic. 

You were correct, they did seem to use census data for the study.

 

As many of you have pointed out, it seems to be a decrease in employment leads to an increase in gaming. 

 

Here is a link to the actual paper. At the time of OP I couldn't find the study not behind a paywall. 

http://eml.berkeley.edu//~webfac/card/draftberkeleyhurst.pdf

[AshleyAshes]

18 minutes ago, Archertwin said:

As many of you have pointed out, it seems to be a decrease in employment leads to an increase in gaming. 

Which makes sense since, well, what ELSE are you going to do?  Even a 'full time' job hunt doesn't take 40hrs a week.  Heck, in the year 2017, everything except the interviews are just done on the internet.  My GROCERY STORE was hiring and the signs in the store were a QR code and shortened URL to apply online.  You're left with spare time that you can either spend on 'affordable entertainment' like movies and video games, or staring at the wall.

[LAwLz]

Geez... A lot of people hate on MSM these days but I think a bigger problem is people just reading headlines and then jumping to conclusions, without reading the rest of the article. It's not even one A4 page long. It only takes a couple of minutes to read.

 

This is an extract from the article:

Quote

To draw a firm conclusion, however, would take a clearer understanding of the direction of causation.

[...]

For people unable to find demanding, full-time work (or any work at all) gaming is often a way to spend some of one’s unwanted downtime, rather than a lure out of work; it is much more a symptom of other economic ills than a cause.

 

[MadModder]

Some people will get addicted to almost anything. They have a show on TV called My Strange Addiction. It's strange what some people get addicted to. People eat dirt, dryer sheets, liquid soap. I'm sure you could find some people who get addicted to gaming. But to say that gaming, for the majority of people, causes unemployment is absurd.

[lFaust]

I'd sure as hell be playing a lot more if I wasn't employed. I mean what else would I be doing with my time?

[grimreeper132]

I don't think I have ever seen read or heard a positive story about gaming yet in the mainstream media even though I have researched it and when you look into it they do more good than harm

[DnFx91]

this is just a lack of understanding, stemming from the fact that there are now enough people playing videogames in the world that you can make statistics like this.

 

You could easily say that breathing air causes cancer, because everyone breathes air, and lots of people get cancer, doesn't mean there is a correlation.

 

As others have also pointed out, its more logical to say that unemployed people play more games because they are unemployed, not the other way round.

[yathis]

It is because video gaming is an addiction, just like any other addiction.

There becomes no balance in life.

The unemployed will tend to spend more time wasting time then actually looking for a job.

[MEC-777]

I know someone who was and still is employed but due to a medical situation is currently off-work. he's been off work for months and eventhough his medical condition has improved, he has shown little interest in getting rehabilitated and going back to work. He mostly stays at home and plays some MMO (I'm not sure which). I can't help thinking he is partially addicted to this game and that could very well be one of the reasons he doesn't want to go back to work.