It has been reported that the new Madden includes a concussion provision. This means that when your player has one of those head-to-head or head first hits, they not only get a concussion but an explanation of what it means medically and a forced bench visit for the rest of the game. While I certainly think that this could change some of the flow of the game, I also think that it is a learning experience. I’m not someone who thinks that all violent video games lead to violent behavior (or all violent children are that way as a result of violent media) but I do believe in socialization. You can be socialized in all types of ways by different agencies of socialization (family, community, peer group, etc) and the media (in which I am including video games) is one way. I learned football from Techmo Bowl and, though I didn’t go out and think that the sport was played by tiny blurry images on the monitor I used to use for my Nintendo, Techmo Bowl brought me into football and made it part of who I was. Maybe, just maybe, the kids who grow up playing Madden 12 will associate the lessons they learned about concussions with their socialization into football and, without judgment, they will understand the results of a head-first tackle, the seriousness of the resulting injury and the “normal” response of sitting the game out.
Madden-ing
I’ll be doggone
Several weeks ago, Michael Vick and Peyton Hillis were making the rounds on ESPN. This always brings people back to Vick’s legal issues and the behavior that led to them. As I didn’t get a chance to weigh in at the time, I’d like to share a perspective on what led to his behavior. When a new member is being inducted into a particular society, they are socialized by the people around them. The begins with their significant others–the people who are important to them–but eventually move to the larger community and during the formative years, the peers become the most important agency of socialization. If an individual’s family, either buys into the same values and behaviors as a child’s peers or has not instilled opposing perspectives into the child, the child is likely to allow their peers to socialize them to the values of that sub- or counter-culture.
Additionally, the theory of differential association states that people learn criminal behavior from associating with people who participate in it. Not only do you learn the actual skills required to participate in criminal activities but you also learn the moral code that allows you justify the deviant acts. If one’s exposure to these alternative moralities is greater than the exposure to more conventional moralities, the individual is likely to participate in these types of activities. I don’t know enough about Vick’s family life to say definitively, but it would seem to me that a strong moral foundation would have made what he did almost impossible.
Topics
What They Say
- Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.
Emile Durkheim
- Man is a moral being, only because he lives in society. Let all social life disappear and morality will disappear with it.
What You Say
- watch bears vs packers on Tiger Trials
- Rex Ryan on Tiger Trials
- Gene on All the Field is a Stage…
- Gene Mast on About the Girl
- Sociology Sports Girl on About the Girl