The Economist and Reason Magazine recently wrote about a disturbing phenomenon that probably deserves national crisis-level attention: A significant percentage of young men seem to be giving up on the real world to live in a virtual one. Trouble is, we don't know how many, but the numbers seem to be in the millions:
Over the last 15 years there has been a steady and disconcerting leak of young people away from the labour force in America. Between 2000 and 2015, the employment rate for men in their 20s without a college education dropped ten percentage points, from 82% to 72%. In 2015, remarkably, 22% of men in this group – a cohort of people in the most consequential years of their working lives – reported to surveyors that they had not worked at all in the prior 12 months. That was in 2015: when the unemployment rate nationwide fell to 5%, and the American economy added 2.7m new jobs. Back in 2000, less than 10% of such men were in similar circumstances.
What these individuals are not doing is clear enough, says Erik Hurst, an economist at the University of Chicago, who has been studying the phenomenon. They are not leaving home; in 2015 more than 50% lived with a parent or close relative. Neither are they getting married. What they are doing, Hurst reckons, is playing video games. As the hours young men spent in work dropped in the 2000s, hours spent in leisure activities rose nearly one-for-one. Of the rise in leisure time, 75% was accounted for by video games.
We don't know how many of these men are giving up on real life for virtual worlds in a meaningful sense -- as opposed to, say, obsessively (but temporarily) playing Skyrim to get over a recent breakup, or simply because Skyrim or another particular game happens to be awesome. The challenge, top games and sociology researcher Nick Yee tells me, is finding the right data to measure this phenomenon:
"The most representative gaming data we have tends to be transactional/sales data," Nick tells me. "Academics have trouble getting representative samples. And industry research isn't going to ask this question." (For obvious reasons.) Then there's a structural challenge:
"[Q]uant game researchers who are most suited to study this tend to come from the media effects tradition and primarily do lab studies," says Nick. "So the issue of representative sampling (which is key in this case) tends to be sidelined in favor of controlled studies. It's also a lot cheaper to run lab studies than pay for a representative sample study."
As with many things, money may be the ultimate challenge:
Bearing in mind here that Second Life went gold in 2003. Looking up the records - this was just after the first dot-com bubble burst. Second Life became a refuge for many luckier creatives out of firm full-time employment at the time.
Could we be looking at a repeat of this phenomenon if the US economy starts tanking?
Posted by: Patchouli Woollahra | Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 06:20 PM
Well it may have the to do with underlining Pornography addictions were they think ill-fully that avatars are closer to real physical love then it is to masturbation.. when both suffer from lack of real sensitive real touch/smell/taste/warmth ..both Pornography & Avatar Sex use mostly visual stimulation/some voice that hardwired the brains reward system when it should not while desensitizing people adding more barriers to real intimacy.
Instead of more avatars against trump articles this week how about NOFAP Avatar Week?.. great for male/female..pornography addictions weather movie based or avatar based are equally destructive... not just Secondlife as WOW/Skyrim/Sims & many other games have mods that can turn the whole game into skinflick booths for fapping.
The increase in more males online has more underling reasons them many think as one escape from the real world issues they might find VR/Simulated Partners will have dire conservancies in other aspects of thier lives or worsen an addiction they never realized having.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Ya67aLaaCc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EOAVLjJTO6M
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z2qzCk3rx7Q
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6xqgl2oAmg
Posted by: Just Say'n | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 12:40 AM
Well, they decide not to be part of the workforce and instead live off someone else's money, e.g. their parents. What's wrong with that? Oh yes, I guessed it, it is because they are MEN. If a woman aged 25 drops out of the workforce "during the most consequential years of their working lives" and lives off her husband's income, it's called her "choice" and she is being applauded for it by certain people ...
Posted by: Total Eclipse | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 03:01 AM
Thought this was all boy-palmers plan anyway.
http://nwn.blogs.com/nwn/2016/09/palmer-luckey-trump-supporter-poor-vr-1.html
Le Shrug.
Posted by: sirhc deSantis | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 03:40 AM
Sure, spend more federal dollars to study the symptoms as a cause, rather than study the cause that culture changes produce unmotivated wimps that took easy courses that make them unfit for the labor force.
My generation had it right. If you're not working or in school you're kicked out of the nest. You'll either fly or plummet on your own merits. It's a great motivator.
Posted by: Dartagan Shepherd | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 06:48 AM
This is a whole false dialectic. The powers that be DON'T CARE that men and women are now living life in VR. THEY WANT THIS TO HAPPEN. That is the whole point!
Eventually they will "gamify" (real term used on TED)our whole lives. Soon our whole day to day life outside VR will depend on what games we play.
Game A only pays you Poopy Points depending on what you do in game. Poopy Points can only be used in certain stores.
Want to shop elsewhere? That new shop only takes Doofus points! Well register for another game. No doubt only points that can be processed through Facebook will be accepted in stores.
We already have the points system. EVERY store uses the concept.
Do you see where this is going? Do you see the jailed populace that will be forced to live 24/7 in unreality. It will be required if you want bread from the store.
Posted by: melponeme_k | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 08:24 AM
Cause and effect is not clear from the data. There seems to be an assumption that addiction to video games is keeping the the young from the work force, but this country has steadily lost jobs due to automation and outsourcing since 2000. It could be the growing lack of job opportunities that discourages job hunting and forces the young to live at home. Then the increase in gaming is just a symptom, not a cause.
Personally, I'm at the other end of the age spectrum: I'd like to drop out of the work force, and retire to a virtual world!
Posted by: Flashing Merlin | Wednesday, June 21, 2017 at 05:43 PM