[Physltest] [Phys-L] Computer Games (was Mac vs. PC )

[Michael Edmiston <edmiston@BLUFFTON.EDU>]

Hugh Haskell said,

> [Games are the] absolute opiate of the masses and as a civilization,
> we would be much better off without them.

Amen.

It's an epidemic among students.  They are doing gaming rather than
completing assignments, rather than sleeping, and often rather than
going to class.  It's far worse among the male students, but games are
beginning to gain popularity in the female population as well.

As a faculty member I don't get into the dorms very often.  However, our
Buildings and Grounds people do, and some of our Technology people do.
Of course the Admissions staff take prospective student tours into the
dorms.  The Resident Advisors are in the dorms all the time.

All of these people have said that when you walk through the dorms it is
easy to notice that...

(a) most male students are playing a computer game, but some are
watching movies on DVD, some are watching sports
(b) most female students are watching a soap opera, but some are
watching movies on DVD
(c) there is an increase from none to some of females playing computer
games
(d) "reality TV" is gaining a foothold, especially among females.

Soap operas, DVD movies, reality TV are bad, but they at least have
ending points.  True, there is a steady stream of soaps, but there seems
to be a limit to how many different soaps any one student can follow.
There is a limit to how many DVDs are available, but some students do
have the capacity to watch some movies over and over.

However... Computer games have no particular ending time.  Like the
Energizer Bunny, they just keep going and going.

We have also had the problem in the dorms, as will as various clusters
of "computer labs," where the "gaming students" get a group of people
playing the games that involve more than one person on more than one
computer connected through the Internet.  This not only sucks up student
time, it is beginning to eat network bandwidth as badly or worse than
downloads of music, movies, and pictures (which have caused bandwidth
problems for several years).  How many T1 lines can we afford just to
preserve bandwidth as more and more students play games?  Our network
guru is trying to segment the networks so gaming competes mostly with
gaming and not with other network use, but this is a constant battle.

At least there are antivirus programs for fending off viruses.  How can
we fend off addictions?

Michael D. Edmiston, Ph.D.
Professor of Physics and Chemistry
Bluffton University
Bluffton, OH 45817
(419)-358-3270
edmiston@bluffton.edu
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