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Junior Seau is dead. For the non-American Football fans here on TL, Seau was a top-notch defensive player (linebacker) for many years in the NFL, very good and very famous.
He killed himself with a shotgun by shooting himself in the chest. It seems likely he did this for the same reason as Dave Duerson did a few years ago (another famous ex-player suicide) -- to preserve his brain for autopsy so that it could be examined for signs of chronic damage related to head trauma from playing American Football.
The data have been coming in for the past few years about the stunning amount of brain damage that these athletes are acquiring during playing. The consequenes are depression and other psychiatric problems, and early onset of Alzheimer's and/or Parkinson's disease.
I used to be a big football fan. Watched the games on Sunday, ran a few Fantasy Football leagues. But it got too hard to watch and I gave it up about a year or so ago. I'm not the only one who feels this way. Ta-Nehisi Coates is an excellent blogger for Atlantic magazine, a lifelong football fan and has written about wrestling with this issue (today and also previously):
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2012/05/junior-seau-is-dead/256664/
Myself, I moved on to watching e-sports instead and never looked back. I can tell you the names of most of the players in the GSL and how they play, but when I tried to check in on the Super Bowl a few months ago, I didn't recognize hardly anybody. But I'm not watching brain damage in action anymore. Playing Starcraft is not going to damage your brain (possibly the opposite). Playing videogames sometimes seem to crowd out other important things like getting good exercise or getting your homework done, but at least they are not killing brain cells permanently.
My son plays a lot of SC2. I have to remind him to do his homework pretty often, but I cannot tell you how happy I am to deal with that instead of brain damage -- there is evidence the damage can already be seen in high school and college players. Fit in some regular exercise and healthy eating and I'm pretty sure videogame "training" is probably a pretty good thing.
As a neuroscientist, I can tell you for sure that football is bad for your brain. The data are promising that videogames may be good for some aspects of brain function, but we're still working on that. As a parent, I worry about some of those teenage kids who seem to be playing SC2 professionally instead of going to school (e.g., in Korea). But that happens in a lot of sports and I'll hold out hope that those kids will get the education they need eventually.
But here's my point: other people are going to be slowly becoming aware that some of the standard "entertainment" they are used to enjoying has a darker side than we used to think. Tell them about e-sports. Turn on the MLG, NASL, GSL, IPL, etc., and see what they thing. Our videogames are technically violent, but they are a lot less violent than some other kinds of entertainment. I wouldn't go around telling people not to watch football. But if you overhear somebody also wondering/worrying about watching young men destroy their brains in the NFL, you might try finding out if they have even heard about the world of e-sports as an alternative.
  
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I clicked this blog fully prepared to swiftly leave a "too many eSports threads lately, go contribute to other blogs instead of creating your own drama" but this is certainly a read I didn't anticipate.
Other than watching professional video gaming (and playing a bit myself), I am an avid hockey fan (hurray Canada) and I watch NHL games on a regular basis. Hockey, like football, has its share of concussions and brain problems. There has been numerous suicides, particularly amongst those "enforcer" characters in the business, who deal with more fighting and rough edges of the sport than anybody else. I don't have any kids yet (not married), and I don't know if I'll encourage my children to play the sport, but I'm sure I'll be taking them out regularly to the home games (goddam Toronto Maple Leafs better be... better by then).
In regards to eSports, I'm sure I'll continue to enjoy it as a hobby, and maybe my children too! I believe that the current generation of young adults are well fit to share the entertainment with the future generation, because we grew up knowing and living the pros and cons of video games. My parents didn't know how to deal with video game rage or addiction; when I become a parent, I think I'll have a better idea of how to deal with those when it comes to my children.
*edit: 5/5, thank you for a good read!
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Your title is a little misleading. You are comparing Starcraft 2 to football and make points about how football causes brain damage, but your title seems to imply a comparison to all pro sports. Most sports don't cause brain damage, and starcraft has its effects on wrists.
Also I'm not saying you are trying to make the point, but I hate how so many people in esports go for the us and them mentality. People enjoy esports and sports for similar reasons. People like build up, competition, and excitement. For those reasons I find it enjoyable to watch both. If anything real sports is significantly more enjoyable to watch in my opinion, but I don't try to claim one is better than the other. They are both enjoyable!
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Thanks for the feedback. If you figure out how to deal with video game rage, let me know. My son has it worse than me (not really surprising) but I find myself suprisingly at a loss for giving advice about it. I do know that once you're raging, it's not very helpful for somebody to tell you to get up and take a walk, unless you were already going to do that. My best current guess is to try to plan regular exercise to clear the stress hormones (glucocorticoids) without waiting for the rage to hit.
I really wish we had better data on videogame addiction. I've seen people who play way too much (back in the WoW days). I definitely noticed that some people with that problem had also previously had problems with alcohol, smoking, etc. Addiction seems to work that way -- if you are the type to get addicted to things, you get addicted to many things. It's not at all clear if videogames are worse. Or, as we used to semi-joke back then, is a videogame a good addiction to have if if subsitutes for drugs/alcohol.
OTOH, the parts of the brain that support skill learning are close to or overlap with systems highly involved in reward processing. It's not inconceivable that excessive play affects reward processing in a way that could be related to addiction or even mood disorders.
It's tricky to get people to give honest answers when you are trying to collect data on this kind of topic. Sadly, that means even subtle experimenter bias can easily affect the data. Eventually we'll see some good epidemiological data from groups that don't go into the study with the preconception that "videogames are bad" and we'll get a clearer picture of what might be happening here.
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Cool blog. I have also thought that they injuries acquired in contact sports are not worth the game. Even not considering brain damage, there are a lot of other physical ailments which lower the quality of life quite a bit. Especially in macho sports where the whole game is about hitting each other... There's some injuries to be had in StarCraft, but it seems like almost none for amateur, and pretty rarely for pros and only if they are too demanding of their bodies.
I would suspect the more intellectually demanding the video game (such as Brood War), the more productive for your mental ability, whereas simplistic games just serve as gluttonous reward that hopefully you get bored of before you become a mindless slot machine drone :O
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I don't understand the condescension. So since I like watching football I'm somehow 'uneducated'. You 'saw the light' and now you know better? This is how I feel about a few vegans I know personally who, perhaps unconsciously, look down on me when I order a burger or a steak in their presence. I know that wasn't exactly what your blog was about but you sure brought it up enough.
I agree that esports is a great thing, I don't think I'd go so far as to say I'd rather have my son watching/playing video games instead of doing sports or whatever outside even though it may be more dangerous. He sure would be a lot safer if he never left the house but come on, that cannot be your argument for why esports is so great. I also don't happen to think that esports doesn't have a darker side. What about injuries and physical issues that come with sitting and staring at a computer or tv for hours on end, or the stress on wrists and elbows, or the match fixing scandal in BW - I imagine there was quite a bit of emotional and mental issues associated with that.
I guess I just don't understand what the point of this blog is. It's great you like esports. I do too. You don't enjoy watching football. Ok, I do.
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On May 04 2012 04:48 BearStorm wrote:
Your title is a little misleading. You are comparing Starcraft 2 to football and make points about how football causes brain damage, but your title seems to imply a comparison to all pro sports. Most sports don't cause brain damage, and starcraft has its effects on wrists.
Also I'm not saying you are trying to make the point, but I hate how so many people in esports go for the us and them mentality. People enjoy esports and sports for similar reasons. People like build up, competition, and excitement. For those reasons I find it enjoyable to watch both. If anything real sports is significantly more enjoyable to watch in my opinion, but I don't try to claim one is better than the other. They are both enjoyable!
What I was shooting for in the title is more what you say in your second point -- they are both enojyable ways to watch competition. Maybe the "versus" was misleading.
The main point is that I think some people are going to be moving away from the NFL. Some of them might be open to learning about the world of esports, so it's a good time to keep an eye out for them.
FWIW, there's also some data about potential head injuries in other sports as well, such as soccer (a lot less and I'm not sure how high quality the data are). But I'm still not recommending giving up sports you enjoy watching and certainly not ones you enjoy playing. I just think sports fans in general have a chance of turning into esports fans because they are similarly enjoyable in a lot of ways.
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On May 04 2012 05:00 Charger wrote:
I don't understand the condescension. So since I like watching football I'm somehow 'uneducated'.
Sorry you took it that way. It wasn't intended to be condescending. Until recently nobody was educated about the brain damage being done in the NFL, so nobody worried about it. For me, when I learned, it was hard to watch. However, I also don't watch boxing and lots of people do and know exactly what they are doing. Many people have taken exactly that approach to football -- as long as everybody knows and the players are being paid well, it's on the level.
Maybe it's hard on me as a parent now that I have teenage kids, I don't know. My choice wasn't doesn't mean it ought to be your choice.
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On May 04 2012 05:08 Drlemur wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 05:00 Charger wrote:
I don't understand the condescension. So since I like watching football I'm somehow 'uneducated'. Sorry you took it that way. It wasn't intended to be condescending. Until recently nobody was educated about the brain damage being done in the NFL, so nobody worried about it. For me, when I learned, it was hard to watch. However, I also don't watch boxing and lots of people do and know exactly what they are doing. Many people have taken exactly that approach to football -- as long as everybody knows and the players are being paid well, it's on the level. Maybe it's hard on me as a parent now that I have teenage kids, I don't know. My choice wasn't doesn't mean it ought to be your choice.
I didn't mean to be a dick, it sounds like I just misunderstood your OP.
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Well really any sport that has a risk of concussions may lead to brain damage lol.
Maybe its not as obvious as it should be?
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On May 04 2012 04:48 BearStorm wrote:
Your title is a little misleading. You are comparing Starcraft 2 to football and make points about how football causes brain damage, but your title seems to imply a comparison to all pro sports. Most sports don't cause brain damage, and starcraft has its effects on wrists.
most contact sports have a history of brain damage, obviously non contact ones generally wouldn't but if we're talking about major sports, football, baseball, soccer, basketball, baseball, then yes there is evidence of concussions in all of them
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On May 04 2012 08:00 Coramoor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 04:48 BearStorm wrote:
Your title is a little misleading. You are comparing Starcraft 2 to football and make points about how football causes brain damage, but your title seems to imply a comparison to all pro sports. Most sports don't cause brain damage, and starcraft has its effects on wrists.
most contact sports have a history of brain damage, obviously non contact ones generally wouldn't but if we're talking about major sports, football, baseball, soccer, basketball, baseball, then yes there is evidence of concussions in all of them
But you can't really compare the risk of brain damage in american football/MMA/hockey with the same risk in sports like basketball/football/etc. The damage is diferent, of course it is not healthy, no activity played at extreme levels is and that includes Starcraft. Those sports can really ruin your knees, wrists, etc, and bring a lot of pain, but at least it's something visible and most people that face the risk know a lot more about it. Brain damage is scary on another level, the issues it brings are diferent and we really don't know that much about exactly how much danger athletes are putting themselfs into.
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On May 04 2012 08:00 Coramoor wrote:Show nested quote +On May 04 2012 04:48 BearStorm wrote:
Your title is a little misleading. You are comparing Starcraft 2 to football and make points about how football causes brain damage, but your title seems to imply a comparison to all pro sports. Most sports don't cause brain damage, and starcraft has its effects on wrists.
most contact sports have a history of brain damage, obviously non contact ones generally wouldn't but if we're talking about major sports, football, baseball, soccer, basketball, baseball, then yes there is evidence of concussions in all of them
You're right, most major sports do have a history of concussions. I interpreted the argument as "I find it hard to watch pro sports because of the brain damage that occurs to the players" (the OP has clarified that this was not his argument). I made the point that brain damage does not occur in all sports so the comparison should not be made into a general one, but you are saying that concussions occur in most major sports (and you are right). However I think it is hard to imagine someone has a hard time watching baseball because of the small chance of a concussion occurring and on top of that be specifically concerned about the possibility of brain damage. I can understand someone having this issue with watching football/rugby/hockey, but I think it's hard to extend that fear to other major sports to the point that it is hard to watch.
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