Which is why i follow them. Just a few minutes of entertainment every few days, for the most part. I rarely get the 20 page slogs you can find on the other social media offering. It’s a quick look at someone’s views or humor or both. I mean you can get through twenty tweets in a couple of mintues unless you follow a link or something
For sure - some people view the 140 character limit as a weakness of the medium, but is definitely one of its main strengths, and why even some interesting people aren’t very good at it (and vice versa).
If Twitter ever went ahead with its plans to increase the size of posts to more characters (or an unlimited number) I would just abandon it. Then it would just be like subscribing to a bunch of websites. The bite-sized hot takes is an important aspect of its appeal, to me, both when making tweets and reading them.
The problem is, we seem to be at a point with social media and various other reach out and communicate type devices or software where everyone wants to be everything to everyone at all times… except why is that necessary? Why can’t we have one social media for snippets and another for longer pieces? Who says we should only use one?
Twitter is being run into the ground right now. Management doesn’t seem to understand what people like about the platform, and is spending just an absurd amount of money on crap nobody wants, like new algorithms to order your tweets, and additional screening filters (even though you can already either mute or block people).
It will never be Facebook and shouldn’t be - management should be emphasizing the strengths of the platform - real-time event participation and reporting, etc.
Well I am fully in support of them trying to tackle the harassment campaign they have, but yeah I too think the short messages fit right in for what it can and should be used for.
Not dumb at all. I used to use it. I saw it diminish in value so rapidly I just gave up. Happily I dont see any barriers to a replacement service coming along some day.
The Economist decides to tread some well-worn ground.
[quote]
Many gamers (Guillaume among them) report that they are happy with the decision to work less and game more. Yet economists like Hurst fret about the long-run consequences. Although digital-entertainment experiences are both amazingly enjoyable and relatively cheap, other important consumer goods – like houses and medical care, furniture and food – still cost money, sometimes quite a lot of it. People’s tastes change as they age. Young men content to remain outside the labour force and play video games – while their parents provide food, shelter and health insurance – may begin to desire something else as the years pass. But, having been out of employment during a crucial period of life – early adulthood, when friendships and contacts are made, experience and skills cultivated – such gamers may find themselves unable to build the lives they come to realise they want.
One hears this regret in talking to older gamers. “Of course gaming has interfered with any attempt to look for or do any serious work,” says Arturo, 29, who reckons he has spent 600 hours playing Kerbal Space Program, a space-flight simulator, and possibly more at Starcraft II, a strategy game. He doesn’t just miss the forgone income and opportunities; he could have been reading, he laments. But those hours are gone for ever. Between the game reviews and player tips, online forums for gamers are thick with discussions among those who worry their lives are passing them by but cannot find the will to put down their controllers.[/quote]
Those gaddanged lazy millenials ruin sumpin else! Back in my day, we played Pong for five minutes, snorted some crack off a hooker’s ass, and then deregulated a bank! All before lunch downtown!
No one here is successful, it’s true. You’re all a bunch of losers! Stop playing games and get out there and have families, guys!
Isn’t this just another version of “It’s not our economy’s fault, you just had to try harder”?
Suddenly being a DINK household has given me economic whiplash. And I played all sorts of games as a teen!
I thought that was a pretty good article. It may take a few leaps tying the reduction in workforce solely to young men playing video games, but it doesn’t castigate games as the devil or a complete waste of time. For some yeah, but there are also folks who used games as a coping mechanism.
I also liked the shoutout to Dads of Destiny, which I also joined for a while to get in on some of the raids in Destiny. I found them to be generally a friendly and helpful bunch, who didn’t hold my lack of skill against me.
Right now, the economy is pretty tough on unskilled laborers. We’re oversupplied, with no change to that status in sight. But the Economist will fix all that by blaming the cause on the effect.
Step 1) Eliminate video games
Step 2) ???
Step 3) Productivity!
Heck, from what I’m seeing, the next 20+ years will be pretty tough on the merely average. I know I’m telling my kids to make sure they have skills that can’t be easily automated.
The cognitive elites seem pretty unsympathetic to the displaced folks so far. But at some point we may need to consider government subsidies on weed and xboxes.
Look at this stuff:
[quote]
One of the most important variables to consider in designing a video game is its difficulty. If a game is too simple, players will quickly get bored and the game will flop. If it is too difficult, gamers will grow frustrated, and the game will likewise prove a failure. Life, for many people, is a big game: the ultimate place to accumulate points and work one’s way up the leaderboard. The economists who worry about the seductive power of gaming fear that gamers who miss the scheduled step away from virtual play and into a proper adulthood will never “level up” to that truly immersive competitive experience. Instead, they become stuck at a phase of the game which no longer satisfies, yet which they cannot move beyond.
The designers of the game of life, such as they are, may have erred in structuring the game in a way that encourages young people to seek an alternate reality. They have spread the thrills and valuable items too thinly and have tweaked the settings to reward special skills that cannot be mastered easily even by those prepared to spend long hours doing so. Unsurprisingly, some players are giving up, while others are filling the time not taken up in rewarding, well-compensated work with games painstakingly designed to make them feel good.[/quote]
Deep, man. Deep.
Look, man. Clouds don’t yell at themselves.
Sorry not to jump on the band-wagon here but if you read the article, they’re not pulling things out of left field here. We know a large group of millenials are staying home, some out of choice but many because they can’t afford to live on their own. You can see that in articles and data not about video games and then you look at this:
Many gamers (Guillaume among them) report that they are happy with the decision to work less and game more.
If you have a choice between working a low wage job where management and customers treat you poorly, you have no chance for advancement, and a good chance of being let go on a whim or play a video game… not a hard choice if you have basic necessities taken care of by your parents. it can be about coping it it’s also a lack of opportunity elsewhere. The underemployment bit here is important and it’s not often reported at the same level as unemployment.
I wonder if women are ever blamed for watching house/cooking shows and consumerist TV series?
Next up: The Economist blows the lid off all that time wasted on The Bachelor and Facebook.
Because we don’t… game? What?
I think it has something to do with the article blurb:
[quote]
As video games get better and job prospects worse, more young men are dropping out of the job market to spend their time in an alternate reality. Ryan Avent suspects this is the beginning of something big.[/quote]
Edit: Yay! I was right!