- 6 November 2011
- Step 1
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You played how many hours of COD today?
6 November 2011 Posted By Drew
Okay, so this doesn’t really have all that much to do with LEARNING Japanese or getting to Japan directly per say… wait or does it?
I just stumbled across this image the other day and had to get my opinion out about it because all I thought was “man, this is so damn true!” I really think the greatest thing that ever happened to me to help advance my Japanese and my goals in life was QUITTING GAMING. I was just planning on sending this pic to my brother and a few friends and leaving it at that, but I figured why not post my thoughts here about how quitting gaming has helped me, and how I’ve seen it destroy some really good people with great ambitions.
Like many of us in this generation, I grew up on NES, SNES, Saturn, N64, PSX, Dreamcast, Gameboy, hell you name it. The better half of my high school years were honestly not spent in class, but in net cafes from 9am – 3pm (because that was the cheapest time and there was 1 bus that took me and my delinquent video gaming squad right to the net cafe) playing hours upon hours of Counter Strike, and Star Craft. How I passed high school is still a mystery to me. But when I look back and think about it, I was as much on track as anyone else to be caught up in this constantly deepening world of gaming. Thank whatever power above me that I did not have any interest in MMO’s past Ragnarok Online (which is still the best MMO imho!)
Something I have noticed, having stepped back from the gaming world to pursue my dreams of living in Japan since the age of 19, is that literally NOTHING HAS CHANGED since I stopped gaming. I remember games that had substance, depth, an enriched storyline and fascinating characters (Legend of Zelda, Metal Gear Solid, Final Fantasy, Rez Evil, to name a few). As well, games that were so simplistic that you could play for a couple hours and put them down and feel refreshed (they are games, forms of entertainment, after all). Now, none of the above mentioned qualities are apparent, but instead, super steroid-injected graphics, weak or non-existent plots, characters that look better on the outside rather than on the inside (the amount of attention paid to their appearance versus their substance as a living, breathing character), and to top off all the nonsense: highly, HIGHLY addictive “ranking systems,” “award/trophy systems,” and loads of meaningless “side quests” to give you the illusion you have accomplished something, when really, all you have been doing the whole time has been sitting on your ******* *** doing absolutely nothing.
I mean really, can you put on your resume you completed all the side quests in Assassins Creed? Forget about your job resume, what about your life resume? Let’s think deep for a second, shall we? Do you control games or do they control you? Really think about that. Do you push the power button when you want to? Or do you push it after you have accomplished X amount of trophies or frags or whatever?
I’m fortunate I got out when I did, but I just want to share some statistics that might turn some heads and open some eyes.
During high school, I probably averaged about 5 hours of gaming a day. If I actually went to class and didn’t game, it would certainly be the first thing I’d do once I got home until late at night, so this is actually a very forgiving statistic. Adding in weekends I’d say about roughly 6 hours a day on weekends.
That’s about 37 hours a week (About 1 day in a 7 day week).
Which is about 148 hours a month (Almost a weeks-worth of time in 1 month)
Which is about 1,776 hours a year (74 days in a 365 day year, OVER TWO MONTHS A YEAR… WASTED)
Sometimes putting these things into perspective really helps to see the bigger picture. If I actually invested all the time into something worthwhile, like studying Japanese, I would have been fluent by the time I hit 21.
Imagine how these stats would continue to grow year by year (and these aren’t even nearly as bad as some people). I’ve really seen gaming destroy a lot of good people. Every time I see a “so-and-so has unlocked so-and-so trophy in so-and-so game” on facebook, it literally almost makes me sick to my stomach.
Getting back to Japanese a bit more, of course there are benefits of gaming IN Japanese that will help you improve your Japanese. I will definitely write more about such games in the future. Until then however, I’d challenge anyone out there reading this to really think how much time they are “investing” in video games, and what pay off they are receiving from it?
There is a much grander stage out there to live an exciting life beyond our television screens and dimly lit living rooms. Video games are meant to be nothing more than a simple pastime to relieve stress, not to be the source of stress. Yeah, I know you swear at your tv and smack that control. Pretty primitive, huh? When you stop and think about it. Put that **** down son. Just put it down.
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6 Responses to “You played how many hours of COD today?”
I thought the exact same thing a few months ago. I used to play for about the same time as you did, but after starting learning Japanese I figured that my time could be used much better. I do however still play computer games pretty much every day, but studying always gets a higher priority, which has led to me getting a few more A+ than I did last sememster
Since Battlefield 3 came out I have played 25 hours. That is right about 2h a day. Considering how much I have been looking forward to the game I don’t think it is bad at all. 2h might actually be my avarage gaming time, but I don’t think it is bad at all compared to how much I played earlier… I use games to relax, and actually never watch TV anymore, since I find gaming much more entertaining.
Maybe I should quit completly, I mean
2h a day = around 700h a year = 29 days = 4 weeks = 1 months = 1/12 year
Actually is an amazing ammount of time! Who knows where I could be if I spend that on studying 0.o?
On the other hand, what woul I be doing insted? I can’t be studying all the time, I need something to relieve stress and have fun with…
How about enjoying your life a little bit without thinking about the consequences? No question, it is important, just neccessary to stay focused on things that are important in your life. But wouldn’t it be a very unattractive life if you couldn’t just “go offline” and enjoy something that doesn’t bring you forward in life, but gives you a fun time. Because after that you still can resume your life. In this article you do make a mistake that manye people do when criticizing something. You paint it mainly black and white. Wether you do game and waste and extreme amount of time or you do not game and have the same amount extra to improve your life. I really think that there should be a right balance in life. A big part will be the goals in life and the things you want to achieve and the work that takes. A big part will probably be family one day. At least a small part you should reserve for just being careless. But telling from your words you seem to have lost the “carelessness” long time ago. But these careless times are the times when you can really feel free and not always think about tomorrow. At least I had probably my most beautiful moments in life when I was not thinking about tomorrow. Only thinking about tomorrow and later times is one of the most dangerous things in life you can do, in my opinion. It might lead to the probably biggest disaster in life, it probably will not, but it might. ….. I just read the article again, and it makes me almost sad, this way of only focusing about further achievements and goals and the “real life” and never having the feeling of letting go and just enjoy things, wether they are games or whatever. Let me tell you something son: Be focused, work hard, AND enjoy without trying to be correct and efficient during you “enjoying-time” just be. Otherwise, when about 85 years old, you will sit on your bed waiting to leave this life and wondering why you always tried to achieve higher goals, but never really enjoyed, carelessly and freely enjoyed the substance of life.
Mark>
I see no harm in 2 hours a day. And the improvement in school and life shows you that cutting the gaming to no more than it needs to be and focusing on other things has given you more balance. Ultimately making you more in control of your own life. Slowly, you are going to start to notice, just as I did, that even 2 hours a day is too much. It’s not because you don’t like gaming, but because you are going to slowly start to realize there are much more important things in life that are so much more worth your time. Funnily enough, I actually quit gaming after living in Japan for just 1 month. Although I quit hardcore gaming by the age of 19 to focus on studies (cause I just enjoyed them more and they brought me more value), I still gamed casually with friends from time to time. However, once I got to Japan, basically the the gaming capital of the universe, I quit completely. Strange? maybe. But if you look at the context, there was just so much more for me to do and discover about Japan that gaming just fizzled out into the background. That’s how much meaning it REALLY had in my life. If it was truly important to me, then it would have probably still stayed, no?
Although my post sounds pretty extreme, it is just to turn heads and make people see gaming a little more clearly. I’m not advocating a cold, hard, zero gaming from here on out policy. Like you said, you wouldn’t know what to do with all that extra time! But over time, you will find new things to replace that void. It will happen naturally, but it all starts with the conscious effort of actually grasping how much time you are spending on one activity alone.
David>
I’m sorry that the harshness of my post has lead you to label me as some sort of mindless, efficiency-crazed drone bent on productivity and success, who doesn’t see the simple pleasures in life (truth be told, it’s a very personal topic to me, so I get heated about it very easily). I am a big advocator of “here and now” and I believe there is no better time than the present, but ignoring the consequences of our actions is pretty bad karma, don’t you think?
Also, it is funny that you mention balance as well, because anyone that knows me personally, knows that I am all about balance. I believe there is an appropriate amount for anything, and that even “medicine in excessive quantity turns into poison.” Or as I say “too much of a good thing, is too much of a good thing.” I have made no mistake in my critique of video gaming, as I have picked my position and stuck to it. There is no such thing as an unbiased critique, and I am simply making my bias known.
I respect some of your points, and agree with most. But I don’t believe a lot of them are really related to my post, especially since you have said you read it through two times. I’m not telling people HOW to spend their time, but simply my opinion on how gaming has, frankly, gone to utter **** and we are being made to believe that by spending 6, 7, 8+ hours a day on it is taking away from having a more fulfilling life. I’m looking at gaming from the point of it’s increased addictive qualities, I’m not preaching to people how they should live their life or spend their time. I think you have it a bit twisted.
Nonetheless, I appreciate your comment, and thanks for taking the time to shed some light on it.
Cheers
Ok, so the message of the article up there is not that gaming is basically a bad, maybe even dangerous thing? I read it again now, and in my opinion it sounds really “warning”. You talking about “good people” getting destroyed by games and you got the “quitting gaming” in bold letters and so on. Anyways, of course it is absolutely fine to criticize games and gaming and think about the negative impacts. But what I don’t like about your article – and this is just my opinion – is that it carries a latent (ideological) message, that gaming is bad, is dangerous, and on top of that makes you speak bad Japanese because you don’t study much.
And no I do not think that not thinking about consequences is bad karma. Most of the time we have to think about any possible consequences anyways. So, when I sometimes grab my controller and play or when I do other stuff that lets me forget some futures problems or goals or whatever, it is absolutley fine and no bad karma. If I neglect thinking about consequences completely, of course that is bad karma, if you wanna label it like that.
And two more points of criticism.
I think the relationship between gaming and japanese is maybe a little bit too random.
The point where you talk about if you control games or if the games control you… is interesting. (And without a doubt there are probably some people who really are controlled by games, and they should do something about it). But this is kind of random again. Because I could ask you, and I guess you are a smart and pretty ambitious person (no, I do not think that you are dumb and mindless, kind of like you wrote in your reply, because I do not know you) I could ask you if you are controlling your life or if your life is controlling you? Are you controlling your path in this world, or is the economy just shaping your way? And if you like, we could get really deep into this who is controlling who discussion.
David>
Again, very good and valid points. At first I wasn’t too sure if you were just putting up a general argument or defending gaming. Through your last comment though it becomes rather apparent that you are in fact defending gaming. We both have our inherent biases out on the table, and it’d be rather difficult to reach any sort of conclusion. The only thing that will really shine through is results, and I don’t mean that in a controlling, mechanical way. I mean that at the end of it all, you feel that all the time spent gaming was worth it. For me personally, there isn’t a day I regret giving it up, and I do feel my life has changed for the better significantly.
You call it a random relation, and maybe that is true to some degree. But this website, and this blog (as laid out in the about us section) is about our experiences, and what we feel has lead us to where we currently are in life. We are not telling or preaching to ANYONE that they have to follow what we are saying step by step and word for word. If they want to do that, it is their choice, and we are glad to help them to the best of our abilities. So if I think that a significant part of my success in the Japanese language and being able to live in Japan is a direct result of all the time I put into my studies rather than into gaming, I’m going to share that opinion. Take it or leave it for what it is, it worked for me. If you have another method to accomplishing all the things we have, I’d be glad if you would share it with all those that are so unwilling to sacrifice games for something greater in life.
When you ask if I am controlling my life or it is controlling me, and if the economy is simply manipulating my decisions and shaping my way of life, I think you need to spin that question around and direct it to yourself. Video games are one of the highest luxuries of a commodified lifestyle. The luxury to sit on your *** and do nothing for hours at a time and still consider it an accomplishment. To think that you are investing in yourself when you are really just investing in these big name corporations that clearly give two-**** about you. They are marketed in an addictive nature, and millions are spent on advertisements alone just to get you to feel OK for playing them, like it’s a natural thing to do. I can’t remember the last time I saw a billboard telling me to study Japanese or go live in Japan (in fact, I don’t think I’ve ever seen one). Although I can never be certain, I do always try to make the best choices for myself, and always ensure they come from a place very deep within my heart, or soul, or wherever you choose to believe that “gut feeling” comes from. Maybe I’m not in control, but at least I’m choosing to get off my *** and do something about it.
I’m sorry, but I went off again despite telling myself not to. As I said, this is somewhat of a personal and very touchy topic to me (hence the “good people” getting destroyed and such). We are going back and forth with our opinions, and in this sort of scenario, neither of us will win, and neither of us will lose. I understand you are a friend of Fab’s? If the chance arose, I’d certainly like to meet with you in the future (in Japan I’d hope), and continue this discussion after some time has passed and our opinions have had time to sit. For now though I am (and I’m sure you are as well) very busy with my final semester of studies, as well as several other things. Going any further with this would waste far too much precious time at the moment.
Later days, friend. Hope you keep reading and commenting in the future.