Good news from the medical front, it seems as though skin cancer rates among young men have begun to level off (and slightly decline). Bad news is that young women's rates have increased.
Considerable space in this short story is devoted to why rates have gone up for young women, and the culprit is apparently tanning beds. But little time is spent on why rates have leveled off for men. I think I have the answer---video games.
I'm amazed at how pervasive video games are among younger men. At 43, I am sort of on the cusp of the phenomenon. While heading off to sea all those years, there was clearly a generational divide between those who congregated in the wardroom to watch movies and those who went to their staterooms to play video games. I always considered my billion dollar AEGIS Cruisers and Destroyers to be the ultimate video games, but alas, my young officers sought ever increasing levels of enjoyment from an ever increasing array of video complexity. My Chief Petty Officers in the ship I commanded networked a bunch of computers together in their mess so that they could play games with six or seven folks at a time. I'd walk in and just shake my head.
So, as our young men become whiter (can I say that?) and less susceptible to skin cancer, they become doughy and slothful. Win some, lose some.
Friday, July 11, 2008
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3 comments:
CW said, "So, as our young men become whiter (can I say that?) and less susceptible to skin cancer,..."
Yes, you can say that. I would suggest "pastier", like the zombies in "Shaun of the Dead".
Doc
To video games, I would add internet use. Let's face it, I'm definitely conserving my tender (white) skin by spending time writing this blog while the blazing Jamaican sun beckons...
I hear that there is an elastic waistband shortage... At first analysts thought it was speculators driving up the price of waistband futures, but now they realize as videogame induced chubbiness is now on the rise in india and china...
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