A blog that focuses on our unique program that teaches natural horsemanship, heritage breed conservation, soil and water conservation, and even folk, roots, and Americana music. This blog discusses our efforts to prevent the extinction of the Corolla Spanish Mustang. Choctaw Colonial Spanish Horse, Marsh Tacky, and the remnants of the Grand Canyon Colonial Spanish Horse strain.
Sunday, March 25, 2012
Video Games That Kill Horses
It seems that playing video games stimulates the mesocortlicolimbic system which creates feeling of success. The "success" is the result of controlling movement in the game. Control becomes addictive. Addiction requires higher and higher doses and symptoms of withdrawal result when the sensation fades.
Society is now seething with little boys that react to loss of control over movement much the way that a crack addict reacts to loss of control over his supply of crack--pure, raw terror, panic and a feeling that nothing is more important than getting crack/control immediately.
School teachers that have been around for a few decades are beginning to notice crying spells and panic attacks in middle school age boys to a degree never seen twenty years ago. Little video game raised boys cannot cope with situations in which they feel a loss of control. Worst of all, in their world, control is effortlessly gained by pushing a button.
Boys that have this background become petrified when on horseback the instant that they learn that the horse can and will move regardless of the riders direction. The result is that it is much more difficult to teach little boys to ride than it is to teach little girls. Boys are much more likely to panic, freeze, and, yes, burst into tears, than little girls.
For horses decreases in demand result in increases in slaughter house sales. When horse demand is restricted only to little girls a huge potential market is lost. Horses die as a result. The only thing that will significantly reduce the number of horses that go to slaughter is to radically increase the number of new riders.
That cannot happen as long as we allow little boys to spend their time "achieving success" on the video game board.
(Jacob, shown above, has achieved success by controlling his horse. Here he is sitting on Uncle Harley, his HOA colt that he trained himself and later rode on to win the coveted National Pleasure Trail Horse of the Year award from the HOA.)
I believe this 100%. I work in a school environment and can't believe the amount of meltdowns that occur with boys old enough to be able to control their emotions. It is a daily if not several times a day occurrence and this is a smaller school!
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