A study here suggests that video games are to blame for the reduced hours young men are spending as part of the "labor force".
Other experts have pointed to a host of reasons — globalization, technological change, the shift to service work — that employers may not be hiring young men. Instead of looking at why employers don’t want young men, this group of economists considered a different question: Why don’t young men want to work?
Mr. Hurst and his colleagues estimate that, since 2004, video games have been responsible for reducing the amount of work that young men do by 15 to 30 hours over the course of a year. Using the recession as a natural experiment, the authors studied how people who suddenly found themselves with extra time spent their leisure hours, then estimated how increases in video game time affected work.
A bigger question is does gaming constitute a kind of unpaid work? If these games for instance rewarded in cryptocurrency and this cryptocurrency could be used to pay bills then would these studies by economists be rendered politically superficial? It is also possible that the labor of young men simply isn't as valuable as it was in 2000 and the demand for the labor of young men being a lot less would result in young men spending more time playing games. If these games also get young men paid, then will there be a reconsideration about what work really is?
And what about Steemit? Are we playing on Steemit or are we working?