Way before video games were a thing people often lived in multi generational housing out of necessity without riots.

Riots happen when people are starving.

If people are in the basement playing video games it’s because they aren’t starving. It’s the not the video games preventing the riots, it’s the Doritos.

I'd say video games play a very minor role in this. Distractions have always existed and video games is far from the only one existing now. And it's not like we haven't seen huge protest movements by young people recently, for example in Nepal.

Women escape reality with youtube, tabloids, tiktok, instagram, and more. They don't need gaming to be distracted and yet, they are. Guys would just find another thing to be distracted by.

There's another article (thread) saying there is no loneliness epidemic but a poverty epidemic. And yes, that's the problem: the uber-rich just have taken as much as they could and will continue to take more. They bought up our apartments, our debt, our third places, are playgrounds, and more. They own the media to tell us that the problems are all due to minorities that have no power and want us to look down or be distracted by services that we give all our information too, and allow them to find more ways to hook us into distractive crap so that we don't look up.

Want to solve loneliness, childlessness, poverty, etc? !twnw@fedia.io #TaxWealthNow #TaxWealth

I often wonder if gaming may also be responsible to the drop in violent crime seen over the last 30 years.

Ok so first of all, it's not than just young men who play video games, so it's kinda shitty to imply that it's only young men.

It's also shitty to imply young men are the people who are obligated to riot, or the only people who do riot.

We've noticed a trend of less violence from people over the last several decades, which started before video games, so video games might be unrelated.

There's always been something that feels like accomplishment but isn't. Reading about how to do something tricks your brain into thinking it's done that or is making progress on a project, but education only goes so far.

So imo it's probably a combination of things. Video games might be one of those things but people feeling like they are rebelling by just reading about countercultural things may also be a factor, as well as humans being less violent and also maybe people are just scared and don't want to die.

Yes.

When we were kids in the 60's, we were perpetually bored and getting in to trouble.

Its not that we were socially active, we just had nothing to do, and wanted to impress girls.

Escapism is a thing for a long time before we were born. Alcohol or drugs is an escape. At one point you realize that the world is full of pieces of shits that are also in control of everything.

Desperate people don't riot.

Revolutions are started by the "middle class" (or at least someone that can afford to miss a few paychecks).

Desperate people will fight to the death to defend a rich person tossing a couple crumbs off the table for them, because those crumbs are what keeps them from starving.

I would personally blame actual reason to be "government tracks everyone now." Or at least something along those lines.

Most likely, a combination of different factors (videogames included) that each make up a smaller portion than we think.

Probably going to be an unpopular take online but... A lot of the most chronically single people I know are very into videogames. Not sure which way the causation runs or maybe it's a self reinforcing cycle but there does seem to be a relationship.

The folks I know tend not to be the angry incel type but I could very easily see a pathway that goes something like: video games are cheaper and easier than putting yourself out there, thus you isolate, but isolation kind of sucks and no one likes to blame themselves, so the "manosphere" and it's precursors are there to tell you it's actually women/wokeness/the Libs that are responsible for your angry singledom..." To me, I see them at least partially a factor in the hard gender split in politics these days.

The timing also kind of maps out. Video games have moved from niche to one of the most lucrative entertainment industries. The generation of young men raised by really quality games was coming to electoral age just about 2016 and boy, did things start going g off the rails.

I'm not blaming everything on videogames and do play some myself but I do wonder if they've contributed to the problem.

Would young men be rioting in the streets if they didn't have video games to pacify them?

No, because humans have been around for thousands of years and video games have been around for less then 100.

I vaguely recall some old psychology/sociology research which suggest that violent video games actually decrease violent crime rates (I did find articles like this); one possible explanation is that ppl with violent tendencies might be distracting themselves with video games. So... maybe yes to a certain extent? I don't know by how much compared to other media though, we also have the likes of TV drama, pop music, sports, celebrity worship, ...

I wouldn't call it empty accomplishments though. In my belief system anything that leads to a healthier state-of-mind is inherently healthy

For the question itself, I mean people (at least in Europe) are very much rioting in the streets for the reasons you mentioned

I'd credit the global reduction of lead exposure

Uprising because of lack of games? Seriously? Most people won't overthrow the power of capitalists because no one has provided a working theory without capitalists. And changing some for others just doesn't make sense. And this is not about games at all. Moreover, you are not even close to the bottom of Maslow's pyramid. In my 18 years I couldn't have something to eat. That is bottom, not live with parents.

As if a person swinging a sledgehammer at work for 10 hours and then going into their favorite shooter for an hour will immediately go to protests if they don't have a shooter. Of course not.

Lemmy ahh thread

I would argue they are a great distraction but ultimately it falls apart when individuals come to realize that you really only have so much time to spend on stuff that doesn't really provide much value to your life or other people you care about. The real problem is how addicting they are

I suppose its a perspective of priorities. I would much rather grind out a promotion or a financial plan rather than play video games because it provides greater overall value, and more importantly for consistency, a greater sense of satisfaction in the progress and put-togethered-ness of my life. But more paramount is the issue that with the friction-less society that we have built around consumerism it makes it really hard to even think about what we actually want and properly take the time to consider the cost-benefit analysis of our decisions.

Now with AI, I fear the offloading of cognitive function and friction will worsen this further in the short term (20ish years)