Sociologist: ‘Internet/games/porn causing demise of guys’

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This video has been out for close to a year, but we’ve never posted about it until now, so forgive us if it’s “old” to you. Maybe if you got out and talked to another human being every once and a while, you wouldn’t have seen it already!

That was a joke, though Dr. Philip Zimbardo (of the famous Stanford Prison Experiment) probably wouldn’t find it funny. He’s very serious about the idea that the internet is ruining the way we socialize. He’s collected plenty of research on the decline of male performance in both school and at the workplace, and the stats are looking pretty grim. His take on the data is that with increase use of virtual means of arousal like internet communication, videogames, and pornography, men are less bound to be attracted to seeking out “real” sources of arousal, such as success at school, work, and in finding a mate. He calls this phenomena The Demise of Guys, a social “malady” that sounds a lot like the Hikikiomori trend that’s “plaguing” Japan.

Personally, my guess is that virtual forms arousal only become a problem for men who are predisposed to those kinds of issues. The same goes for excessive book reading, alcohol drinking, guitar playing and basketball practice. The difference is, the internet can offer some men a closer facsimile than those other pursuits to the particular stimuli that they are instinctively drawn to in order to keep the species, and society, moving forward.

My question to you is, would it be such a bad thing that some percentage of the male population left their real lives behind in favor of virtual existences? Last time I checked, it was guys who commit most of the violent crimes, start the most wars, and cause the most problems in the world. If online videogames and porn are holding these kinds of men back from finding positions of power, then the internet may end up saving millions of lives.

Would we have had a World War 2 if Brazzers and World of Warcraft existed in 1900’s Germany?


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Jonathan Holmes
Destructoid Contributor - Jonathan Holmes has been a media star since the Road Rules days, and spends his time covering oddities and indies for Destructoid, with over a decade of industry experience "Where do dreams end and reality begin? Videogames, I suppose."- Gainax, FLCL Vol. 1 "The beach, the trees, even the clouds in the sky... everything is build from little tiny pieces of stuff. Just like in a Gameboy game... a nice tight little world... and all its inhabitants... made out of little building blocks... Why can't these little pixels be the building blocks for love..? For loss... for understanding"- James Kochalka, Reinventing Everything part 1 "I wonder if James Kolchalka has played Mother 3 yet?" Jonathan Holmes