The Impact of Sports - Cons

[SaphireAphrodite]

Through my years of public education and experience with sports, I've come to notice quite a few things, both negative and positive. I've had a lot of good experiences with sports, but I feel sports are a tad over rated.

Like I said, I recognize that there are positives to being involved in these activities. To ensure my analysis isn't too biased, I'll try and identify the positives first:

1) Keeps you fit/in shape

2)Teaches you hard work, perseverance, commitment, and other skills

3)Expands your social network/introduces you to new people

4) Presents new opportunities (i.e travel or scholarships)

Now for the cons:

1)Risk of Injury

- I know a lot of people who have suffered a debilitating injury during sports that has effected them for the rest of their lives. I think depending on the sport, risk of injury can be very high, and cause irreversible damage. I know concussions from football have been known to cause TBIs and hinder brain development. With injuries like these, I don't think it's worth it to continue participating in the sport.

2)Organizing Principle

-I think this attribute is very common amongst those who excel at sports. Not to say that being great at a sport is bad, but I've noticed that people start defining their identities by their performance in the sport. Once sport becomes an organizing principle for individuals, than those individuals begin to judge others by their success in sports. Athletes perspectives become limited as their world and decisions begin to revolve around the sport. This makes it easy to inaccurately label people as "unsuccessful" or "unworthy" because their performance in a sport may be poor. Once athletes begin judging others by athleticism, they ignore other people's qualities, like intelligence, hard work, generosity, empathy, etc. Thus, athletes destroy their own opportunities by not giving time to/ establishing relationships with good people who excel in other fields/capacities. Additionally, making sport your identity makes it very easy to disappoint yourself or label yourself as "insufficient" because you perform poorly in/fail at that sport. So, I think making sport an organizing principle has a negative impact.

3)Time Sink

Relative to the millions who've participated in sports, very few become super famous/successful from those sports. Sports can cost individuals hundreds, if not thousands of hours. Additionally, sports can demand commitment and time from family members. If you think of all the time you spend on sports, and compare it to all of the other ways you could be utilizing your time, sports can be a major time sink. I think for most individuals, the amount of time they put into a sport isn't worth what they get out of it.

4)Money

This one is pretty blatant. Between gear and travel, sports can cost individuals and family thousands of dollars. Similarly to time, that spent money's a commodity that could be better spent.

Ultimately, I think sports can have a lot of downsides and can cause a lot of issues. I think people idealize sports, and often ignore the negatives.

That said, sports do have positive impacts. I myself am doing xc because I love the athletes' personalities (everyone is very friendly, determined and hard-working) and it keeps me in shape. I just wanted to point out the flaws that can result from sports. I think in most cases, sports aren't always worth what they demand, especially for the athletes.

What do you guys think about sports? How have sports impacted you?

[clampfan101]

Ya, everything has cons regardless of the pros.
I love games of many sorts, but not particularly sports. I don’t know how much of it has to do with how bad I’ve always been at them, though.

[VixenRach]

Fascinating 😊

[SaphireAphrodite]

Thanks

[dantetheexplorer]

" If you think of all the time you spend on sports, and compare it to all of the other ways you could be utilizing your time, sports can be a major time sink."

That could be said for anything.

Why spend 15 minutes of your time every day putting on makeup and another 5 minutes removing it when you could use that 20 minutes to improve yourself by taking an online course?

Why spend 2 and half hours watching a movie every 2-3 weeks at the theater when you could be using those hours at the gym, improving your health and building up your V02 Max and overall health?

Why spend 30 minutes on social media and GaG every day when you could be using those 30 minutes to work on your part-time consulting business?

Why spend 45 minutes on Netflix watching a BlackMirror episode when you could be spending those 45 minutes learning a new language to improve your work opportunities in the future?

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

#2 makes little sense... just because an athlete is an athlete doesn't mean they judge others based on their athleticism... that's like saying accountants will judge people's success solely based on how much money people have. or how doctors will judge people based on their ct scans.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

it's like you watched 1 too many mid 2000s teen flick movies

[SaphireAphrodite]

What do you mean?

[SaphireAphrodite]

I think your job comparison is a false equivalence.

From what I've observed in highschool, people are still trying to define themselves and figure out who they are. Sports offers and easy and simple answer.

Because people use sports to define themselves, they associate themselves with friends who have the same values as them (athletics). Thus, they tend to leave out all the people who don't prioritize sports.

I understand where you are coming from with your job comparison, but the difference lies in identity. Adults don't define themselves by their jobs. They often define themselves by their family, priorities, and experiences.

I think religion and intelligence are better examples of this in group bias.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Athletes associating themselves with other successful athletes is like Catholics only marrying other Catholics.

[SaphireAphrodite]

In highschool, kids internalize their performance in sports. To kids, sports isn't just a job to pay bills; it's a piece of themselves that defines them.

Because adults typically don't define themselves by their job, I think your comparison is a false equivalence. Yes, I'm making a generalization. Not every athlete prioitizes sports/athletic performance. But, I've noticed a lot who do, especially those who excel.

And quite frankly, I think it's typical. It's another form of in group bias, or favoring people who are Like yourself. So, I think that is the more important message to take away from point #2. Individuals incorporate sorts into their identity, thus making it an organizing principle and potentially causing an in group bias.

[Other_Tommy_Wiseau]

i like your use of false equivalence by using an example of false equivalence... also, given that i was a pretty decent athlete in my own right (competing nationally in track from middle school onward) and playing football through high school, i'm pretty confident i, nor most kids besides maybe the bro-est of the lax bro's actually define themselves by their sport... unless you were in that high school musical type ish

[SaphireAphrodite]

Yes, and I completely understand your experience. Unfortunately, I don't have any statistics to back my beliefs up.

I think we are both using anecdotal fallacies. Like I said, my statement is a generalization, so I'm sure there's many exceptions to my observation. I don't doubt that you were definitely one.

But, from my experience, both with my peers and from asking my parents, sports almost always became an identity issue/ caused in group biases. Even at my highschool, those involved in sports are a lot more popular and often value others who excel at sports more than those who don't. My dad told me he wasn't really interested in dating girls unless he knew they were good at a sport, and I've seen that mindset a lot in my peers.

So ya, of course there's exceptions to my generalization. But I have seen first hand how people incorporate sports into their identity, and make it a defining principle to the point that they have an in group bias.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Did you say I used a false equivalence? Could you explain to me how?

[Lance1965]

I played a lot of sports as a kid. The older I became the more I hated it. Kids would have a melt-down of losing a game and I just could never relate so I stopped playing. Now I have reached the point where I can't even watch sports. They just bore me.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Yep that's an example of the my organizing principle point.

[Logorithim]

Well, like with anything, you can go to far with sports, but not only are they fun, you keep in shape, learn discipline and teamwork, and make friends.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Yep. That why I listed all of that under "pros" at the very beginning of my paragraph.

[Logorithim]

I think for some Sports, the Risk of injury is the biggest factor- I wouldn't let my sons play American Football or Rugby.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Ya. That's what my dad said too.

[Goodwifie]

Team sports are a great way to teach kids how to work with others.
I played soccer in highschool and it taught me how to be resilient because of the way that the boys used to treated me for being the only girl in the soccer class.

[Dingaldongal]

We should ban all equestrian sports. I hate that O ly members of the Royal Family can do dressage a d show jumping because horses are so expensive. The horse dose all the hard work. I could go to the Olympics and win a gold medal if my gran was the queen and she bought me the best horse in the world.

[englisc]

Yeah sports are bad, being fat and useless is much better.

[SaphireAphrodite]

Do you think that's my message? Because I don't see how I could have implied that. I made it very clear that's sorts don't just have negative effects.

[englisc]

No, I don't really think that's the message - my point is that 65%+ of Americans are overweight. It's the same here in the UK. Those people mostly don't play sports. Maybe if they did they wouldn't be so fat. I disagree that sports are over-rated - playing them and taking part in them at least.

[SaphireAphrodite]

That's not just a sports issue though. It's an activity or genetic issue, which is a different thing. They don't necessarily have to play sport to lose the weight, right? You just have to be active.

[SaphireAphrodite]

But you're right in the sense that sports do help people maintain adequate activity levels.

[Dingaldongal]

Why do all modern sports require a lot of expensive equipment? Is it a conspiracy by manufacturers? In the 18th century the world's best boxer didn't even own a punching bag, he used to punch trees. We should promote bare knuckle MMA.

[Notabadguy]

The biggest CON of sports is NO (literally) no fucking time to socialize with your friends or family (personal experience)

[SaphireAphrodite]

Ya that's why I made my time sink point

[Notabadguy]

sorry i misread that part

[SaphireAphrodite]

You're good

[Kingkennys]

i don't agree. humans can bully, and they bully for fashion. it's more how human nature works, than sport.

i think it's people who were shit at sport, who hate them. they're perfectly healthy an normal.

[jacquesvol]

I'm not into sports. No participant, no fan either.

[Iron_Man]

Sports are awesome it's the best in the world and it will help organize your life as well

[Kayla45]

I don't like sports soooo... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[ENTP_EMO]

great mytake

[SaphireAphrodite]

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Okay

[Anonymous]

Risk

[Anonymous]

Valid points.

[Anonymous]

Nice take

[SaphireAphrodite]

Thank you.