FCC: School Drops Outs Due to WoW

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

What a bunch of crap!

Why is it that we always look for something else to blame than the actual person being a r-tard. I have a full time job and go to school (getting As and Bs)and am married (she plays as well and works and goes to school). Its all about self control, what a NUBCAKE!!!!

 

[JoeAverage]

Just because someone drops out of college doesn't mean that can't have a successful life. It used to be quite common for people to take a year or two off from college and come back.
Despite what our society may decree, we all mature at different rates. I wasn't ready for college when I was 18. The Army probably would have done me some good. Spend a couple years working and go to college when you want to not because you think you're supposed to. I just went to college at first because I thought I was supposed to and didn't really care about it. Just let them drop out and play WoW for a while; what's the harm. They'll get sick of it eventually. If and when they go back to college they'll take it much more seriously. In the US our culture is so competitive now it seems your're considered a 'failure' you haven't finished 4 years college by the time your 20 and it has to be one of 10 specific schools. Taken to its logical extreme, you may already be a failure if your mom didn't place you into right private school in kindergarden, to get you into the right prep school, to be looked at by the right university. I think its great if you are doing what you want and are happy. But are we going to allow our entire lifespan to be governed by market forces? I not here to simply be the best employee I possibly can. I did alot really stupid things when I was young. Alot of really fun stupid stuff. I made nearly every mistake a person could. Just think I could have been wearing a tie and a headset in a cubicle years ago..
I feel bad for kids these days. Their daily schedules would put a Wall Street broker in an early grave.

I personally was never going to go to MIT or any school like it. No one from my town has ever gone to MIT. I did pay a big price for dropping out of college. I had to repay all my loans and pay cash for my tuition just to get back in. It took me a little longer to graduate than most people. But I think I value my education alot more than I would have if I had just skated through the first time. That's what it took for me to take it seriously. Other people have other experiences.

 

[techguy911]

Maybe the school is to blame we have students working in my computer shop they are grade 12 i ask them what kind of job are you going to train for?.

They all say i don't know when i was in high school by grade 11 we had some idea what field we were going to work in.

 

[zerapio]

Thanks Eccentric909, cart0181 and JoeAverage for sharing your personal stories.

 

[waffle911]

[citation][nom]Eccentric909[/nom]...I'm in my 30's, he just became a teenager...I'm a single father, with sole custody of my child, who receives 0 child support...My live-in girlfriend also plays WoW with us and it is actually a very fun family activity, where we all interact together and enjoy ourselves. She goes to college...[/citation]
[citation][nom]cart0181[/nom]@Eccentric909: Good for you that you can get someone pregnant at 15 years old and then somehow turn out okay working for a Fortune 50 company. You're obviously an exception to the rule here. If you check the statistics, most people that make those choices don't turn out so well.[/citation]

Where exactly is it implied that a 15 year old was ever involved in this?
More importantly, at what point did it become necessary to draw exaggerated conclusions about people's lives to make a point?

I think one of our problems is exactly as techguy911 said:
[citation][nom]techguy911[/nom]Maybe the school is to blame we have students working in my computer shop they are grade 12 i ask them what kind of job are you going to train for?.They all say i don't know when i was in high school by grade 11 we had some idea what field we were going to work in.[/citation]
There's no motivation for these "kids" today. So many of them are going off to college to have a good time and maybe pick up a few valuable skills along the way, but they have no clear goal or aspiration in life. They probably want to make a lot of money, sure, but the question is how, not what. A lot of these MMO addicts, as well as drug addicts, seem to not know what it is (or was) they want to do with their lives. WoW is a means of achieving something with relatively instant gratification through hard work and determination with a great degree of certainty as to what goals to aspire to and how to achieve them. College is a lot of hard work that doesn't really pay off in the short term for most people; it's also a waste of time and money for people who don't know what areas of study to pursue because they don't know what they really want to do, so they end up getting a BA in English or Liberal Arts with no desire to become a writer or performer, or anything to do with either of those degrees for that matter.
WoW is a psychological addiction that fills the void left for a sense of achievement that is not satisfied quickly enough. Welcome to the ADD generation where everything must happen right now to be worth while, where now is all that matters and soon never comes, and the uncertainty of the future is reason enough not to bother thinking enough about it to at least come to the party prepared for what lies ahead.

"We are the lazy generation, No more standing out in line / Too busy wasting my time."

 

[Guest]

Basically because of the way modern society has changed it has come to the point where there is a good majority of kids that are just led through their early years without being given any real support to think for themselves. Then when they get into college they dont know what to do. I know in my high school there werent any classes or efforts to get students to explore what they may want to do. They are told to follow one path, "get good grades, go to a good college, get a good job". Then they are expected to do that on their own after never being shown/taught to make such decisions themselves. What do you expect to happen? As for online games causing college dropouts i would agree with the majority here that its not the games but the person playing the game that lacks effective time management and decision making, they are responsible for what they do, the game isnt responsible for their actions.

Personally as a college student i dont have the money to waste on those subscription games and i wouldnt even if i did have the money.

 

[rdawise]

Video games will always be blamed for "the downfall of modern society" because it is largely viewed as a waste of time by the former generations. As most of the people who visit this site I went to college and finished while being a gamer (...gasp). I admit my first year was a struggle not due to games but yes the freedom. I missed classes because I didn't want to wake up at 8, skipped classes because I was too tired to walk from my dorm. I was able to turn things around and graduate but it happened. Why does it happen, because "traditional" college students are prepared to handle that much freedom, but who is to blame? NO ONE! Until you're 18 you are told what to do, when to do, so on and o on. In college you must chose. In the end it becomes a battle of who you are and how you're raised. Yes there is a huge difference in th jump from high school to college, but high school can only give you knowledge. You become your own person in college and make your own way. I thought that was what college was for, a taste of the real world? Anyway, games have nothing to do with school dropouts. Any link between the two shows a serious lack of research by such an accuser.

 

[saymi]

If you dont find things intereting in real life you begin to play these games. A good real friend really avoids you playing from this game. I have to admit it ruined my school life too. Good thing is I am on track again. This game is really seductive. This may sound wierd but it should not be allowed to play unless you begin to earn your own money and real life starts to threathen your life. Then things will be in balance. I must add that I believe if you are addicted to wow you really have an intelligence above people around you which mean your country will lose a valuable brain power also a good future will slip through your hands.

 

[Marcus52]

Why do stories like this even get published? Where is the data? Freakin clowns purporting to be experts with evidence, being reported by sensationalists purporting to be newspeople.

 

[RobertM525]

I would like to say that I think that waffle911 and the Anonymous on 12/13/2008 10:46 AM are dead on with the problem.

I will add that I believe that much of our lives through high school are dominated by "clearly-defined problems." When you reach 18 and get to college you have a dramatic shift to "ill-defined problems"... WoW provides you with a return to the safer realm of clearly-defined problems again, in a semi-social environment to boot.

High school doesn't do anything to really prepare people for college or adult life. You can blame parents, but I'm not sure what a parent ought to be doing to force teenagers to have ill-defined problems they have to learn to solve.

Clearly-defined problems are safer for many people. And when you spend so much of your young life learning to tackle these types of problems and building your self-image from them, it's natural that, when provided with a semi-social means to continue living a life of clearly-defined challenges, that many would fall back to that.

At least, this is what I believe causes WoW to be addictive.

 

[Guest]

Its not the kids fault. Im at college and i wish i could play WoW here but my college has banned (blocked internet connection with it) and so should other colleges. WOWWWWOWOWOWW