I have been told many times that I am addicted to video games and electronics. I do admit to playing lots of video games and that by definition I could be considered to have an addiction. However, I just hate how loose the term “addiction” or “addictive” is thrown around. For instance I LOVE hockey. However I never hear the term “addicted” thrown around by my parents when I have like 20 hours of hockey a week, and if I am being honest, I am addicted to hockey, but instead the word I hear more is “passion”. Based off of the description of both scenarios I am clearly addicted to both, so why is the word addiction only used for electronics? Once again I think that it’s fact that most parents are not sure about electronics. For instance, you could go to hockey for 20 hours a week and that would be acceptable, but if you then went and played video games for 20 hours a week I feel as if most parents would say that you have some sort of addiction to the video games? If you are going to call one an addiction call the other one an addiction. I also feel like the reason the word addiction is used for electronic use is because it is looked as to be bad for you… well let me just say to much of anything can be bad for you. The point I am trying to get across is that the word addiction should only be used for things that can harm you or at least not used on the context of something that you should not be worried about doing too much of i.e. video games. Anyway, let's really quick look at the exact definition of addiction. The definition for addiction is; the fact or condition of being addicted to a particular substance, thing, or activity. First off, why is the word addicted in the definition for addiction (there like the same word)? Second, yes this could mean that you can be addicted to your video games...etc based off of the definition given here, but nowhere in there does it say that addiction is a bad thing. So parents and people of the world please stop using the word addiction as a something that is looked down upon when clearly it is not always the case.
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I feel as if there has been some sort of war between Youtube and parents since YouTube has come to exist. I can’t remember the amount of times that my parents have told me that it is “unhealthy” and “Why are you watching someone else play video games when you could do it yourself” or even “YouTube and video games are the same thing”... I hate hearing any of the above, and here's why. First off… I just want to say that there has been many studies shown that it is not “unhealthy” and you will in fact NOT “rot your brain out”. Like for real, rot your brain out? Who even came up with that?! I get where parents are going with the whole “unhealthy” thing though. It is not healthy to be sitting all day watching youtube videos and never getting exercise. However for a guy like me, who makes and watches a lot of youtube videos, I also play hockey at least 3-4 times a week, and every weekday after school I go to the gym and work out for an hour. Even still, I constantly get nagged to stop watching or making youtube videos and how its to much. Here’s my thought on why parents think of YouTube as such a “bad” thing. When the internet came out I have been told many times by adults that it was said to be bad for kids and full of scams/unreliable websites. I get why some people think this, but they have clearly not done there research. Although this is true, I think the main reason that adults look down apon YouTube is because they don’t understand it. For example my dad comes home from work and more or less sits and watches TV from the moment he gets home to the moment he goes to bed. Get this though, he hates electronics… Ok what? The only electronic he uses is the TV and never even tries to use other things. I truly don’t get why he hates video games and youtube so much when he is perfectly ok if I was to go and watch TV. If he new what video games and youtube where, that would be one of the most hypocritical thing said ever. I don’t think adults don’t like youtube at all, in fact, I think that they would like it. However because they know what it is or how to use it, they instantly reject it… just another example of “Can’t teach an old dog new tricks”. (proof that the internet/youtube does not rot your brain out and is not unhealthy, however there is still a lot of debate) https://www.wired.com/insights/2013/02/is-the-internet-good-or-bad-for-your-brain/ http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/02/24/good-question-is-screen-time-bad-for-your-vision/ You're watching a YouTube video and your parents walk in and ask you “why you are watching a video game instead of playing it”? My response to that is “I could ask you the same thing about sports on the TV”. Watching someone else playing a game on youtube half the time is because you really like the YouTuber as a person and like getting to know them. It could also be because for the same reasons as someone watching hockey, they can’t play the sport as well so they watch someone else do it. People also like to have fun and laugh and there are many YouTubers that are funny, like listening to a comedian. Once again, it’s all the same “problems” as before and by “problems” I mean parents just simply don’t understand what we are watching, and then when they walk in for a half a second, then see the video game they just assume it is the same thing. In reality though, they are just doing the same thing but with something that they are comfortable with and therefore think it is good/”normal”. Last thing I want to say about this topic is that YouTube and physically playing the video game are NOT the same. Watching YouTube and watching TV are more similar to each other then playing video games is with YouTube. Reason being, you are watching something with TV and YouTube and with a video game you are actually controlling an outcome for yourself/person in the video game opposed to watching a video and it being the same outcome for everyone that watched the video. YouTube is awesome and has great content but is not the same as actually playing the video game itself. You can get different experiences with the content creator playing the game that you like opposed to playing it yourself. Don’t get me wrong, both are awesome, but they are both different types of awesome. Like I said before, playing and watching hockey are both awesome but aren't the same. I have gone on for hours to my mom about this topic, and science has not 100% confirmed that YouTube or video games is bad or good for you. I truly think however, that if they were bad for you, that it would have already been discovered and there would be more scientists trying to stop electronics like we try to stop global warming. I have one laest question for you, do you think YouTube and electronics are bad for you? YouTube comments need to get there stuff together…. I literally took 1 minute, at most, to find these horrible comments. I wonder how long it took people to come up with such nasty things to say… oh wait I know, probable under the minute or so I spent looking for them. I just want to know what makes people feel the need to put such unconstructive strait from the trash feedback onto the internet. Also, YouTube, get your head on straight and try your 110% best to fix the problem at hand! Otherwise, slowly but surely, the YouTube community will lash out and it won’t end well! First things first, I want to address the people of YouTube. What in the world gives you guys the thought that it would be a good idea to write these nasty hate comments? My thought is that the majority of people that write these comments don’t actually think such bad things about the video. I think that they are just “jealous” or don’t have a “good life” so they pick on someone, not in real life, but someone who is online that looks like they have a good life. Sometimes this makes people feel better (it's horrible, but it can… in a bad way). It is just another form of bullying. However it is not in real life, face to face, and because it is on computers and they can’t be seen they feel superior or like they can say anything. I am not saying that all criticism is bullying. However, I am saying that the sheer hate needs to stop! So you reading this, next time you go to write something online, remember that there is indeed another person on the other end. Would you say what you're about to send to there face? Now that that’s out of the way… How many times have you, the person reading this, gone to YouTube and stumbled upon the YouTube comments section and looked at all of the hate that is getting pushed to the top. Ever wonder why? I am very sure that the content creator does not want this. So why does it happen? Well YouTube has a VERY broken comment algorithm. The way it works is when, say someone posts a hate comment, if anyone comments, likes or even dislikes the comment it get pushed further up the comment section on that video… all I have to say to that is, WHAT?? YouTube, there should be a way so that the community has a better say in what comments come first, like a voting system or something. I know that YouTube has been working on the comments for awhile now and there have been very few breakthroughs . One of the good features that they once had, was when the content creator of said video would reply to someones comment, the reply would be pushed to the top with the comment section and this was the best. I don’t know why, but this was taken away and they added this “heart” feature which does something similar but you can only do it so many times on the video? Why was this done? YouTube, people that use you on the daily are screaming at the top of there lungs, pleading for you guys to find a better way, anything that could improve the comments section. I have personally seen countless videos on this topic. Look, don’t take it from me, take it from pewdiepie, the biggest YouTuber on the planet right now with 54 million subscribers, who, as of August 29, 2014, has cut himself off from his fans by turning off his comments section because it was getting so bad… That to me is sad. Now I will give credit where credit is dew, and since then he has turned them back on so props to you YouTube you must have done something right since then. In the future though, I feel that this may happen again, and last time I checked your platform is a social network, but if there is no socializing… does that make you just another network? Please fix this YouTube. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4_hHKlEZ9Go) ~Pewdiepie's comment video~ Spam and Links! This is a big one. There should be a way so that you can auto delete links that get posted in the comments, half of them are viruses and the other half are links just selling you things… so in other words they need to stop. YouTube this one is an “easy” fix. If any of the same words is put into a comment a certain number of times it should not go through and for the links just make it so that if a link is detected in the comments it auto deletes it. The YouTube community in the comments with the link has gotten better however, I don’t see nearly as many links in the comments. Reason being, I think it’s from something YouTube calls “Blacklisting” and this makes it so you can make it so certain types of words that the content creator does not want in the comments don’t show up. Now as good as “Blacklisting” is I feel as if it could be improved upon to completely terminate the spam and links in the comments. YouTube, you have an awesome website, but you seem to be falling apart in your interaction section(In other words the comments). I feel as if you guys at YouTube are working hard to try to improve these problems and nothing is perfect, however I still do feel that it would be humanly possible to fix these problems. However as it stands right now, YouTube, your comments section needs to start looking like a community and not random rage and spam. Youtube is the best social media platform ever! I love making YouTube videos and watching YouTube; it is something that can take all the time away from my day without me noticing. Although this is my opinion, I have a bone or two to pick with them. The first thing that I think that could be something YouTube should look to improve upon is the obsessive clickbait. About 1,440,000 results show up in a matter of seconds with just one quick search on YouTube about clickbait. Most of which, from what I could see, was not even clickbait but instead just talking about the matters on clickbait and how bad it has gotten. Tell me, if you have been on YouTube for 10 years or 10 minutes have you seen a red arrow or a title like “Best insert thing here ever!”. The answer to your question is yes. This is the most common form of clickbait. I will admit that some videos with clickbait have some good content. However, most of the time it is just real annoying and makes me not want to watch their content. Now unless YouTube Basically shuts down there web site or uses black magic, there will always be clickbait. There is only one way I can think of stopping clickbait. People have to stop it, just stop it! Now that I have addressed the elephant in the room, I want to talk about something very detrimental to YouTube but not as noticeable at first glance. Most likely if you have been on YouTube for at least the last year or so you would know about this. Recently YouTube had a big downfall in the comments. The thing that I am talking about is the spam and the hate in the comments. Now YouTube at one point in time had a good, not perfect, but good solution for this, and that was when ever a YouTuber that owned the channel would comment whether it be on a reply or a stand alone comment, it would be sent to the top. Now this is gone, and yes I am aware that you can press the little heart and send it to the top, but you can only do this for so many comments. My Point is now that this is gone all of the spam and just pure hate is being pushed to the top. Reason being, YouTube’s algorithm is taking comments that have the most attention whether it be likes, dislikes or replies and pushes them to the top. I also know that YouTube is trying to fix this and I believe that they can. This is a case of people of YouTube, the viewers, need to stop the hate. I know that there are ways to fix this to help let the comments live. So YouTube Please do so! (YouTube video link on this topic) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5-Mm-7RQsbw&index=101&list=PLMBYlcH3smRy1U2-VNhsxBmhqF7lptS47&t=97s The final thing that I wanted to address is the YouTube home page. If you have never logged into YouTube or have made make a new account this should not be a problem. However if you are like me and have been on the site for years, you would know that the home page is very “broken”. When I say broken I mean that YouTube makes your home page like a trending page so that they can make that big money off of the bigger YouTuber video ads. They spam you with videos that you would never or have never even searched/had anything to do with. For example, I like Call Of Duty YouTubers and a little minecraft so that's the kind of stuff that I search for and therefore should show up on my home page. However YouTube has had a phase where they put on everyone's home page “The Bee Movie Every Time They Say Bee It Speeds Up” and various garbage like that. Now that is bad, but on top of that there is more. YouTube is going to have real trouble in the future if they keep going the way they are. I say this because YouTube will only give to the big channels that make them all of the money now up front and center. Now you may be thinking, yes that makes sense they make more money that way, and yes you are right… only to a certain extent though. Since Youtube will literally advertise a video from a big YouTuber from about 1-5 years ago! Meaning that they are killing off channels that are mediocre that need just a little bit more support to become a full time YouTuber and they are not being advertised but the videos from 1-5 years ago are. This means, if you have not already caught on, that YouTube is turning down the future of YouTube by doing so, based off of something so small but at the same time so big. Like a said at the beginning YouTube is the bomb! However there are some major flaws. It would be a shame if YouTube does not look into this soon and losses what they once had forever. Now all I can do is sit back relax and enjoy it while it lasts. |
Logan MacNeillI am a person who loves to play sports, do YouTube, and play video games. This includes but is not limited to; hitting the dank no scopes in call of duty and rambling on about nothing. Enjoy! Archives
April 2017
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