According to a joint study conducted by researchers at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, the Palo Alto Research Center, and University of Delaware in Newark, we gamers are not the fat, lazy bastards the public used to think we were. Now we’re depressed substance junkies. Well, not “we” so much as “they.”
According to this research, gamers have slimmed down. We’re now under the national average of a body mass index of 28, weighing in at 25.2. This new gamer exercises twice a week, taking better care of their health than the old couch potato stereotype.
The flip side says that these same gamers reported more cases of depression and substance abuse. “They may be drawn to use the game to help deal with emotional distress,” says team member Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware, reports NewScientist.
Polling 7,000 gamers sounds like a pretty good study, right? It’s too bad that they polled 7,000 Everquest II gamers, and no one else. There’s no representation of the console gamer, which I’m sure you’ll all agree is a different beast. In that sense, I think “we” are still fat and lazy.
[Thanks, wardrox]
