If you could stay home and play video games all day, would you do it? According to a brand new report that was released by the National Bureau of Economic Research on Monday, American men from the ages of 21 to 30 are working a lot less these days.
In fact, on average men in this age group worked 203 fewer hours per year in 2015 than they did in 2000. So what did they do with all of that extra time? According to the study, a large portion of the time that young men used to spend working is now being spent playing video games.
It is certainly no secret that young men like video games. But the study found that in recent years the amount of time young men dedicate to gaming has shot up dramatically.
This phenomenon is known as “extended adolescence”, and it is becoming a major societal problem. In the old days, most young men in their twenties would be working hard, starting families and becoming solid members of their communities. But these days, way too many young men are living in the basement with Mom and Dad and spending endless hours playing video games. So what is going to happen when older generations of Americans start dying off and these guys are forced to become “the leaders of tomorrow”?
I love baseball, and one of the things that you learn when you follow baseball is that hitters tend to peak around the age of 27. Of course there are plenty of exceptions to this rule, but on average there is something very special about the age of 27.
The reason I bring this up is to show that in many ways men from the ages of 21 to 30 are in their prime years. If they are wasting those years playing video games, that is not a good thing for our society.