Grow up: Gamers over 20 are labelled 'Child-men'

tonny from belgiumJan 30th, 2008 - 08:28:07

Appently Hymowitz is describing something without understanding the causes .Men in the sixties lived in a totaly different society,not so much because the lack of computers but because the family tissue was very different .Role modelling was pretty much what it had been for the last hundred thousand years with men going out to work ,bring in the money,strive for a career and a future for his family .THe ethics of the industry were also different,you joined a company ,provided it with yout labor and productivity and as a reward you got a salary and a future in the company,based on your merits and experience .Most of that has vanished too,nothing is stable anymore.More than half of weddings end in the garbage bin,men are competing with women on the job market,experience doesn't count for much in a job ,productivity is stretched out until all the fun has disappeared out of working.On the work floor modern man is nothing but an extention to the machines .
Due all of that there are remnants of earlier ages,atavisms thet need to be filled in .When we were kids we played knights liberating damsels in distress,cowboys and indians preparing gor manhood,defending one's family against the evils of the outside world .All that has vanished ,the woman we protected is either our competitor ot our boss,our wife is out at work,no ordinary family can function on a single salary anymore .Our kids are left on themselves more than in earlier times .The average day of media warchings azccounts for at least ten people shot on TV or in the streets .
So does it wonder anubody if a lot of adults escape all that in a virtual world .It grants perhaps only virtual satisafaction,but the outside world has even less to offer .

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T-BoyJan 30th, 2008 - 12:57:12

You know, I keep wondering; where, exactly, are the signs of underachieving that Hymowitz says young men are doing? In comparison to their sixties counterpart, that young man today is probably better educated, makes more money, is relatively financially independent, and does not feel pressured to marry.

A woman his age, you could argue, could also be working in a similar field, an may spend her free time shopping, dining out with her friends, engaging in casual liaisons and yes, maybe, gaming (because OF COURSE only MEN play video games, and even then it'd be SOCIALLY and EMOTIONALLY retarded men-children, not REAL manly men).

And yet what that woman is doing is 'joining an international New Girl Order', while what the man is doing is 'underachieving'.

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DaveJan 30th, 2008 - 13:11:57

This is just the usual sweeping statement that it is easy for the soft- sciences- educated to make from the safety of their ivory towers.

I notice that a key element that is not addressed in this article is whether men are happy or not. Essentially her definition of 'adult' is 'compliant with the wishes of a ruling fem-ocracy'. Failing to fulfil a woman's requirements in terms of nest building results in being labelled as 'immature' or 'under-achieving'.

Let me just add on a personal note that I am very successful indeed in my chosen field, have a wife and several pets (though no children, through choice) and a kill ratio of 1.41 on Call of Duty 4.

You, madam, are amusingly wrong in almost every way.

Try playing on a computer it might improve your decision making skills, reaction time, attention span, understanding of cause/effect, hand to eye coordination, spatial awareness and above all - might help you unclench.

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36 Year Old Hardcore GamerJan 30th, 2008 - 13:29:39

Women in the 1960s would have stayed at home to look after the kids and do the housework :)

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JohnJan 30th, 2008 - 19:36:53

This is just another attempt to degrade men. Have you ever noticed how much women hate anything that takes our attention away from them? Stop the madness! I wonder if I am the oldest man child. I am 47yrs young thanks to video games. Everyone needs some kind of stress relief in life, and for me it's gaming. I am happly married and have grown children and step-children as well as grandchildren. I don't think too many people in the 60's were grandparents at age 47. I have a son in the United States Air Force and a daughter in college. By trade I am a Broadcast Engineer for a Media Hub serving 14 cities. I guess I'm successful according to most peoples standards. My interest in electronics was peaked by video gaming. You mean something good came from gaming? In my case it did!

I've been a gamer from the very beginning: Pong, Colecovision, Mattel Intelevision, Commodore VIC20, Commodore 64, Atari 400, 600, 800, 1200, Timex Sinclair, Texas Instruments TI-99/4A, Sega Genesis and Dreamcast, original xbox and 360 w/red ring of death and my latest purchase Playstation 3. With the proper equipment I can repair these systems. Pretty good for a man child.

Well enough for now. Me and my 51yr old Systems Analyst Wife are going to play Rock Band on PS3. Maybe today our children and grandchildren will rock it out with us again. The name of our band is ThE BuCkEt LiSt for obvious reasons (-:

P.S. That senior living center better have a Sony Playstation PS10 for US to play when we get there or else somebody's going to be fragged!!!!!!!!

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Gamertag: SmokingTooMuchFeb 7th, 2008 - 21:15:10

I wonder what she has to say about all the girls and women out there playing Halo3? It seams lately that there's not a game that goes by that doesn't have at least one female Spartan out there. What with the players online count at around 400,000, that one female on in a game of eight indicates there are around 50,000 females online at that time.

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Gamertag: SmokingTooMuchFeb 8th, 2008 - 02:11:14

Oh, and I just turned 48, have been retired since 2002, and have a family of gamers (wife, boy, and girl)...

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