Game Sparks Anti-Social Behavior Online
from the what-a-shocker dept
Someone let the psychologists into the Sims and now they're getting everyone worried. Last month we wrote about how The Sims was being "taken over" by a mob that was handing out "mob justice" on characters they didn't like. Now, here's another article, mostly quoting a bunch of worried psychologists about all the "anti-social" behavior showing up in the Sims. Amusingly, the same "mob" that was discussed in the original article is described in this new article as helping to "crack down" on the anti-social behavior (though, it admits that some of their tactics are just as bad). People are now afraid that the harassment done to those in such virtual worlds as the Sims is going to follow them out of the game as well. They're even suggesting that new laws will need to be created to handle such internet-based harassment. Of course, it's hard to see how this is any different than any other online community where the relative anonymity of the keyboard lets people be as anti-social as they'd like. For years people have worried about anti-social behavior in chat rooms, on usenet, and all over the internet. It's unclear how such anti-social behavior in The Sims is any different.
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Sparrows of Kandahar
The net has served so far as a petri dish for various forms of anti-social behavior. I'm wondering what other forms of superstitious or ritualistic behavior will emerge from it. If you feed pigeons at 15-minute intervals, they will acquire superstitious behaviors like hopping in circles, because they make false connections. In another famous psychology experiment, a chicken was taught how to play baseball by pulling a lever that swung a bat, but the chicken kept chasing the ball as if it were food. We'll see what new irrational, atavistic behaviors emerge from the net world.
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No Subject Given
It's not. Its a symptom of the same disconnect we all experience at varying levels on the net. We feel anonymous (even tho we are increasingly less so), we feel invincible and for a lot of people, this releases their inner-*ssh*le it seems...because for them, they feel they can (and usually DO) "get away with it" so they indulge in their immature and selfish pleasure in trying to ruin other people's days.
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Last gasp
The rash of TSO articles in the mainstream press over the past week smells like an effort by the game's publisher to attract players, any players, to subscribe to the game. It's as if they've decided that getting the grief player element's subscription dollar is preferable to having to admit failure and curtail the game.
Apparently they've found their market niche.
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Seems obvious
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