A new study fresh out of Utah is claiming that there are no positive side effects of videogames whatsoever, and that even non-violent gaming has a negative impact on your life. That's right, every single videogame is now bad for you. It's also a total coincidence that this study came from Jack Thompson-loving Utah, where a new videogame legislation is trying to be created.
According to this study, published in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence, games have a negative impact on the social relationships of the people who play them. I am going to have to inform my friends and family that I can no longer interact with them. I should probably get divorced too, since I can't maintain a relationship ... the study said so! Here's what else it said ...
- The more the students play video games, the worse their relationships are with friends and parents (although this effect is modest)
- Those who play video games daily smoke pot twice as much as other players and three times more than those who never play
- Young women who play often have lower self-esteem
"Everything we found associated with videogames came out negative," claims BYU professor Laura Walker. She doesn't state that we should ban videogames, preaching moderation over elimination, but maintains that the more you play games, the more of a mess you're going be.
"I assumed violent videogames would be related to lower relationship quality with friends and family," states college senior Alex Jensen. "I didn't expect regular videogames — nonviolent video game use — would be correlated to lower relationship quality."
Well you're f*cked, Jensen, you hear me? You've played videogames, and now you're f*cked!
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
1:00 PM on 01.23.2009
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The "women who play games have lower self-esteem" thing is actually explicable if you attempt to understand it in any sort of context (or have every talked to a woman who plays games, for that matter.) It's no secret that girls who don't conform to the stereotypical teenaged-girl personality type as well as others tend to be the ones that are willing to experiment with traditionally masculine hobbies-- when you're socially exiled, you have the time. It's for the same reason that girls who don't make the Cheerleading squad tend to be the voracious readers and academics; no one has ever tried to say that the correlation between a large amount of time spent reading and low self-esteem in women is the fault of BOOKS.
Those who breathe air are 3 times as likely to to murder another living creature violently and without remorse.
Seriously what is this crap. How many people play games? some absurdly high percentage of the population? Of course this is going to give results like this.
the world might be a better place if we all did.
'hey man, we should go and suicide bomb that church tonight'
'na... i'd rather just get some munchies and movie'
'yea, your right. omg ponies!' ;P
@falinter
nice!
I heard a stat that said 52% of people over 18 yrs play video games.
Anyways... what happened to doing studies on cancer?
Plus, I havn't touched pot in like 3 years, alcohol is another story though.
I love studies that show all the bad shit.
It's too bad the study is $34 to actually read. I think the Desert news article has spun it so that the results sound like "Video games cause negative behavior".
When in actuality the study probably concludes something like, "Playing a lot of video games is associated with certain other factors in a personality." Which isn't really surprising or damning.
As if they have the nerve to say that all gamers are social outcasts who don't love their mom. Honestly.
It's fuckin insane. They said females with high gaming time have lower self worth. ROFL. I know so many gaming chicks who think their shit doesn't stink.
I smoke a lot of pot.
I'd be a hermit regardless of video games.
however, let's be honest. Most gamers aren't exactly productive members of society. Sure, there are some rich white men like Cliff that are amazing, and in the gaming world and so forth, but i highly doubt any of us doing anything positive for our community, society, or the world around us. yes yes, video games are awesome - i love them too.
but let's be honest.
we're not doing anything productive or effective while playing a game. I'm not any better for saving Hyrule. You're not any better for cooking anything on Cooking Mama. I think that's what they kind of meant, but of course, it's a 'heated' article and gamers need to get all angry over SOMETHIIIIIIING.
Utah is the most ass backwards state in the union.
I know what you're saying, but that's a potential problem with any entertainment, not just games. Some people watch TV and just use it to unwind from life, and that's fine; some people watch it and become inspired to become actors or screenwriters and so on. Then there are some people who use TV as a replacement for other aspects of their lives, and that's a problem.
It's up to the user to use their entertainment to lead to something productive.
Also, I hate the Mormons simply because of a heating company that tried to screw me over. Long story short, they said that their technician who "fixed" my heater would never lie about not fixing it (damn thing didn't work after he left) because he was Mormon. The guy basically told me that since I wasn't Mormon, I was the one lying.
Moral of the story: fuck the Mormons.
....I really should go to Utah sometime. :3
If the 52% of the population number is correct, than a study on any premise of human behavior will be a positive correlation with video game players.
On a related note, what about the skills you get from gaming like hand-eye co-ordination, problem solving and teamwork? All the study concentrated on was on social life and not any other aspects of a persons life.
Also, after reading through the entire study, it's extremly contradictory with Jensen admitting that videogames help him bond with his family. This has got to be one of the worst videogame studies I have seen in a while.
/endrant
-Apparently, the authors don't know what a Likert scale is (!)
-The study isn't representative AT ALL (the sole participants were college students; their incentive to participate were course credit points; the participants completed an online survey, apparently from whatever place they liked)
-all of the participants already are part of some other kind of study ("Project READY")
-The theoretical basis of the study is ridiculously thin (380 words !)
-The study is only 10 pages long: To make such drastic conclusions from such a small-scale research is as unscientific as it gets
-They measure CORRELATIONS: Anything can correlate with anything without there being any connection between those variables. Why they didn't try to employ, say, some regression models is beyond me.
-The main argument the authors bring forward are the statistically significant findings (p<0.05, or less): This means NOTHING: Take a large enough sample and everything will be statistically significant.
Overall, from a scientific point of view, this is rubbish.
Cause and effect, right there.
Researchers and social scientists are always going to conduct studies regardless of the opinions of the targeted group. Most of these studies go unread (how many of you read scholarly journals/periodicals?) for years and simply conducting a study does not make it fact (there are many variables governing "scientific" research).
Gaming is being scrutinized just like any other social phenomena. Studying the affects of tobacco and alcohol did not stop either of those industries (I chose those two to demonstrate very negative social trends not as a direct comparison to gaming). When I worked with children, researchers at various schools were investigating internet addiction within both children and adults….by virtue of this post, the internet is still here.
Is it that hard for gamers to acknowledge that there are negative aspects to gaming? There are negative aspects to doing almost anything outside of moderation. Grow up gamers. The sooner we do grow up and stop looking at every study or law as a threat, the sooner the spotlight will be lifted.
There's no multivariate models here, so we can't control for anything. There are many problems with the survey (surveys are notoriously inaccurate, the population is highly restricted, a significantly high number of participants dropped out, the survey was internet driven - which is highly problematic, the survey was given for certain benefits), although I'll admit that survey research in general always has these kinds of problems. However, using simple ANOVA models means exactly dick. The results are statistically significant, but it's hard to tell if they are significant in terms of SUBSTANCE. With the various problems involved in the survey, I would be on shakey ground trying to draw any substantive conclusions from this mess.
On top of all of this, there's no causal story at all. This study seems incredibly prone to endogeneity issues. Essentially, they argue video games lead to weed use. What if weed use leads to video game playing? The statistics would be the same either way. Also, what if a common issue, such as troubled home life, depression, etc., caused both? That would also involve the same statistics. The conclusions they jump to are highly laughable.
I'll also assume games like Brain Training and Wii Fit were left out of this study. I should also add that to motivate myself to do my coursework I alternate between games and work. That's one positive right there.
Seven out of eight people I fucking know smoke pot, though, gamer or not. Just because you ask gamers and exclude other people doesn't make the supposed correlation more true.
Pot is popular. So is gaming. The two are bound to cross over in a lot of people.
Nothing. I think what they mean is when you're playing video games you're not out buying shit/going to movies/spending money so you can afford more pot than a non gamer who needs to do something every other five minutes to make life feel meaningful and worth living.
Also, I hate everyone.
"violent video game use was associated with more sexual partners"
It's not all bad.
I'm doomed =/
I'll think about that while I take me some pots and hoe's ignoring my friends and family.