Well, at least most of them aren’t, anyway.?
Often, the mainstream press will carry some surprisingly uninformed and downright unintelligent stories about ‘addictive’ gamers.?? These stories generally paint gamers as a sad, sorry lot of losers. That’s a very easy generalization to believe if you’re not familiar with gamers and their hobby.?? MMO gamers, particularly WoW players, are a favorite for this type of distorted media story.? A closer look at the data behind these claims tends to reveal something very interesting…there is no data. It’s all based on hearsay and bad anecdotal evidence.
That’s where a new study done by Dan Loton, an ethics officer at Victoria University in British Columbia comes in with study to find the truth.
“There is a great deal of anecdotal evidence about gaming addiction,” said Loton in a statement. “Online forums abound with tales of people who can’t get off the computer. But from a clinical point of view, an addiction is a mental illness with very serious consequences. In this context, we need to ask whether gaming is responsible for causing people’s lives to fall apart in the same way we see with gambling, alcohol or drug addiction.”
Out of 621 completed surveys, Loton discovered that only 15% of respondents were identified as “problem gamers” who spent more than 50 hours a week playing games. 50 hours a week gaming? I’d be hard pressed to do anything at all for 50 hours a week…except maybe sleep, that I could do. Or maybe eat…no, then I’d be as big as a Tauren.
Loton said, “What is significant to note is that even these “problem gamers” did not exhibit significant signs of poor social skills or low self-esteem. Only one percent of those identified as “problem gamers,” appeared to have poor social skills, specifically shyness.”
Dan also went on to state that, “We also looked at whether problematic play is impelled by social difficulties, by using a multiple regression analysis to see if high scores on the social skills and self esteem scales could predict problematic playing scores. Our findings strongly suggest that gaming doesn’t cause social problems, and social problems are not driving people to gaming.”
Boo yeah! Let the media yahoos who are trying to generalize all gamers eat that one! If anyone has ever wanted proof that only 1% of us are cave-dwelling trogs living in our parents dank basements, there it is.
“I think it’s an evolution of social and cultural stereotypes that suggest only nerds and geeks play computer games,” he said. “The reality is that nowadays everyone is playing video games.”
Don’t we all wish that there were more informed studies on gamers, gaming and supposed addiction like Dan Loton’s? If one of the usual “bogus” studies was done on horseback riders, skeet shooters, librarians, pool sharks, skydivers, small aircraft pilots, storm chasers, UFO researchers, film producers (the list can go on), it would prove that anything that human beings did on a daily basis would be labeled an addiction of some sort.? Pretty much we all need medical care and psychiatric help.
I’d write more, I’ve been away from World of Warcraft for at least 5 minutes, I gotta get back! Laterz!
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