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Are Games Turning Kids Into Jocks?
Do not look for the results of this study to be reported on your local evening news in the U.S., or on the front page of any newspaper. It will not be there. Those spots are reserved for frantic stories about pedophiles, pornographers and online identity thieves.
So much for the popular view of gamers as oddballs and outcasts, cut off from the world and deprived of healthy social interaction and intellectual activity. That's the portrait widely promulgated in American media and invoked by U.S. politicians, from so-called liberal Democrats like Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut, to Republicans like Attorney General Ashcroft and the President.
The British researchers, perhaps unencumbered by uniquely American pandering to so-called "moral" political interests, see it differently. "People who play games regularly seem to develop a mental state that we have seen before only in serious athletes or professionals such as astronauts, whose life depends on concentration and co-ordination," found Jo Bryce, who led the team. "Their minds and bodies work together much better than those of most other people."
Bryce conducted her research by visiting gamers, usually during regional or national competitions around England, and administering a series of psychological tests and questionnaires to nearly 100 of them. The results were then compared with those from similiar tests of athletes and others.
A separate study by the British government's Home Office indicated that those who regularly play computer games when they are young are more likely than non-gamers to go to college and get a high-paying job. They also, said the Home Office study, tended to be more intelligent. The Times also reported that Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University and an expert in computer gaming, found in a study of 800 children that those who play games "moderately" -- generally defined as no more than two hours a day -- had more friends, were better adjusted, and tended to read more.
This rational approach to kids and gaming -- a government actually providing useful information to parents and educators -- stands in jarring contrast to the post-Columbine hysteria still prevalent in America, which holds that gaming commonly leads to addictive, anti-social behavior, even sometimes to violence.
The British researchers did discover that children who use computers to excess could, in fact, develop emotional disorders. One 16-year-old boy spent 70 hours a week at his computer and suffered severe psychological problems. But then, we don't really need a study to tell us that. The same would be true of bicyclists or chess players.
More typically, the ESRC study found, subjects were averaging approximately 18 hours a week on computer games; interestingly, these kids were spending similiar amounts of time on sports or social activities.
"They seemed able to focus on what they were doing much better than other people and also had better general co-ordination," said one of the researchers. "The skills they learned on computers seem to transfer to the real world."
As gaming spreads and becomes mainstream, such findings become important. They are valuable and useful -- not only to gamers, who already know much of this stuff, but to public policy. Parents, employers and educators often appear woefully misinformed about gaming's true and increasingly significant effects. More and more, these studies suggest, parents should be encouraging their kids to game, not to stop. You have to particularly appreciate the comparison to superjocks. The nerds' revenge only gets sweeter.
i find it interesting that Jon blows off every study showing a link between violence in the media and violent behavior, but as soon as a study is published saying something positive about the video game industry, he hails it as the gospel truth.
from the I-wish-Katz-would-stop-plagiarizing-other-peoples- work-dept.
No, it's almost certainly true.
Have you seen what counts as a "top-level athlete" in the UK?
:P
...j
I would say it's a sign of misplaced intelligence. That is, placed somewhere other than the troll's brain.
You are misusing the term "jock". An athlete is one who enjoys sports. A jock is a meathead who enjoys sports and beats up geeks in high school. I assume gamers are not aspiring to become the latter.
Hey stop screwing around reading slashdot and get back to work!
The more you know, the less you understand.
"it's: contraction of "it is"
its: possessive form of "it" "
Thank you. I didn't proof read. I also keep catching myself typing "you're" instead of "your". Perhaps I should just avoid contractions althogether and then there'll be no chance of the wrong thing coming out of my fingers.
How about it's true title: "The Times". Americans get a bit confused because their Times has a city name in its title: "The New York Times".
;)
Anyway, is anything outside London of any significance? Doesn't London define Englishness and all things of any cultural significance?!
I think the bottome line hovers somewhere around the idea that if a child can learn to enjoy the active and competitive elements of video and computer games, they have a higher likelihood perhaps of willingness to undertake/approach (mentally) active and competitive elements of life.
Most games involve some degree of reading and most encourage some sort of fantasy/ideation in the mind of the player, tapping near if not quite into the same vein that a good story taps into.
There's also the idea of Flow, which is thought by some to be crucial for our mental well-being. Flow is the senation of 'forgetting yourself' in an activity, which could be meditation, sex, rock-climbing, a good book, movie or video game. People who can't find flow in creative activities may find it in crime and acts of aggression instead or, most commonly, in drug and alcohol abuse.
It may even lead to small improvements at the physical reaction level. Visualization techniques are fairly-well accepted to be of measurable benefit to training for physical and athletic activities. Video games in many cases might prove to be a sort of active visualization.
Are video games the ultimate cure for everything? No, but they may prove to not quite be the idle time-wasters they are commonly assumed to be. This is not a professional study by any means, but it provides some interesting food for thought.
**>>BELCH
...make you turn Scottish?
Some of us were just born that way.
I'm out of my tree just now but please feel free to leave a banana.
A separate study by the British government's Home Office indicated that those who regularly play computer games when they are young are more likely than non-gamers to go to college and get a high-paying job.
Ah.. And that's not because kids whos parents can not afford to buy a computer/console and games also have trouble paying for a good education? A child on the lower end of the social ladder is likely to end up with a poor education, that's not all that new.
Seems a lot like the studies where eating lots of butter is proven to be really bad for you. Oh, it is, but the study does not take into account that the people that do eat lots of butter more often than not stuff themselves with other health degrading junk food whenever they get the chance.
I can't help but to squeeze this in.. I have enjoyed Slashdot for a long time now, and still do.. But please, go easy on the self-glorifying content. Yeah, growing up and being a computer nerd wasn't all that socially accepted, and it did not make you the coolest dude in school. Does that mean we have to pretend like we're all-knowing just because computers happened to go mainstream? I for one am not a bit cooler than when I was in school. I'm still just as shy and my social skills aren't any better either.
Don't bother commenting on my grammar or spelling. English is not my first language.
And sitting in front of your computer all day will really impress the girls...
-----------------------------
You too, huh? :)
Although I often have to be careful if I go out driving right after an hours-long GT session. I live exactly one block away from a police station.
I think computer games are just another source of information (and entertainment), and you can do whatever you want with it. You can view many movies (Easy Rider, The Graduate, One Flew Over the Cookos Nest, and half a dozen others), and only find commic value. Then again, the person next to you will see the anti-govermental, anti-traditional themes of these movies.
And some people will try to refute this movies, or try to have them banned, because it offends their senses. There are lots of things that offend my senses, but I don't neccessary go around trying to have them removed from society.
On the other hand, you wouldn't be watching those kinds of movies, playing those kind of computer games, reading those kind of books if it wasn't something that you had as a pre-existing interests.
Do you really think reading McGovern's "A Time of War, A Time of Peace", the was sole cause me registering as a democrat? No, I had to have some pre-existing interest in the topic, and some pre-existing bias, or I probably wouldn't have even picked up the book. I probably would have never seen "Easy Rider" (or known what it was about), if I wasn't interested in freedom loving counter-culture and prejudice.
In conclusion, your beliefs and ideas will make you predisposed to lean a certain way, even before you get propaganda that reinforces it. At any point you can change you mind, such as recent events happening around you, other propaganda getting you lean the other way, and other events.
The best way to deal with this, is be open, give equal information on all sides of the issue, and the let the person make the best decission possible.
The Canadian Discovery Channel had thing a few weeks agin on @discovery.ca about how music helps atheltes get into "The Zone", a frame of mind where mind and body are one, where the athlete is working on pure instinct. They said that athletes get by far their best performance when they are in this state of mind. I know that I have gotten in that frame of mind several times while playing games, where I just seem to do everything right without thinking about it, everything becomes instinct. It's probably because gaming hones reaction times and concentration, when you're playing a fast-paced game, there is rarely time to think about what you are going to do, you just have to do it.
They also mentioned that it usually takes years of training to be able to get into this state of mind, gaming probably provides good mental training because reaction speeds need to be just as fast for alot of video games as they do for many sports. I have also noticed this sometimes when I'm coding, but not as often as when I'm gaming.
Does this now mean that we have to beat ourselves up? This is a lot different than beating off ourselves.:)
Since the study did not record information that would prove or falsify your conjecture, this and many other questions remain unanswered.
I'd heard about the report before Katz got to it and when I read his headline I flashed to a different theme.
/any/ online multplayer action/role playing game and log in. Ya there? Good. Now see how long it takes until someone boasts about owning you. How long it takes to find someone who is TKing for the hell of it. How long it takes to find dozens upon dozens of outright pricks and assholes who are there for the shere pleasure of causing other players grief.
You equate jock with the meathead who enjoys sports and beats up geeks in high school. OK, let's go with that definition of jock.
Pick pretty much
Grief. Just like the meathead who is good at sports and beats other kids up. These players are good at their game and while they aren't phsyically beating others up, the same trend for abuse is clearly present.
It is for this reason and no other that I never, EVER got into Quake online. I can only tolorate Unreal Tournament in small doses. It is why I dropped completely out of CS after my clan tore itself apart. I'd like to get serious about DoD but I know the grief players are there as well. 9-10 months of AC and you know how much role play I saw compared to the amount of grief I saw before I quit because it was clear that Turbine/MS would do nothing against the grief players? I'd say the ratio is on the order of 1:100 if not a magnatide higher. Now I am playing AO. Need I even mention that the trend continues unabated?
I'm sorry, but the title was accurate even though the content doesn't match it. Given their own place to excel geeks... gamers... are turning into the meathead, abusive jocks they hate.
-- Grey d'Miyu, not just another pretty color.
Did the game playing help make the player more intelligent, coordinated and focused, or is it that people with those qualities tend to be attracted to computer/video games?
Mind you, I think the study make an important point to those who rely on such studies for information, but I think that a longer term study to look at the causalities would also be helpfull.
why doesn't he let us draw our own conculions?
/. editors do very frequently.
/. really is. It is an opinion site, not a news site, being that the editorial staff, in charge of news, is in no way separated from the opinion staff). So, if he is going to analyze something, one would hope he would reach a conclusion, which presumably he would include.
I am presuming that you mean "conclusions."
(A) Katz is not the thought police, he is simply telling his opinions and conclusions; at least he is explaining his reasoning as opposed to simply stating something wtihout support, which other
(B) Katz is a writer, and writers do analysis. He is not an editor, so he does not simply post and give brief opinions (which, BTW, tells what
Most of the people in these so-called "poorer" areas are what would be described as casual gamers, who play less than 5 hours a week. More than likely they're too busy working to make ends meet to have time to play video/computer games.
This study was focusing on "hardcore" gamers, who play 18+ hours a week. That's approx. 2.5 hours a day. Most gamers I know who play 18+ hours a week don't do it on a PSX or Dreamcast, they do it on a PC. PC gaming has become expensive. To play modern games decently, you need at least a GeForce 2 (See: Black and White) and gobs of CPU power, plus you have to have the cash to upgrade every 6 months to a new system to keep up. Add that to shelling out $50/mo for a broadband connection, which is necessary to compete reasonably nowadays, (not to mention live in a neighborhood where such is available) and this takes the kind of resources that lower-middle class families just don't have.
As for the argument that sports aren't as popular among the less-financially-endowed, have you ever been to a basketball court in a poor neighborhood? Expensive organized sports aren't the only places where people can play, pickup games are quite common, cheap, and a hell of a lot of fun. I'm not a social economist or anything, but I know enoug people who aren't terribly wealthy to know what actually happens.
from the maybe-rents-are-cheap-in-England- dept. Jon, you should see the rents here. F**king extortionate. Everywhere. Like, a million pounds a month. Plus there's foot and mouth (which can and does infect humans, and makes people illiterate), high taxes, a totalitarian government who, errmm, demonises smart kids and puts them into padded cells for being too brainy. And we blame everything on the fact that guns are banned and really think that Bush is something special. Plus, up here in Yorkshire the internet is banned because teachers are paedophiles.scared it'll turn computer-game playing secondary-school students into Seriously, you'd hate it here. Stay at home, you'll like it better. Please.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting
There's also such a thing as correlation, often misunderstood for a causal relation. The article tells us that kids who play a lot of games tend to end up in college (i.e. there is a correlation between playing a lot of games as a kid and ending up in college). It would however be misguided to conclude that playing a lot of games causes people to end up in college (i.e. playing more games makes you intelligent).
With this in mind a logical explanation of the above phenomena could be that kids who played a lot of games as a kid and ended up in college must have been playing games in the early nineties/late eighties. In those days, computers were typically not found in lower class families but rather in middle/upper class families. So the above study could be seen as a difficult way of saying that if you grow up in a middle/upper class family, you are more likely to end up in college.
Disclaimer: I have only read Katz's biased summary, not the original paper.
Jilles
"Their minds and bodies work together much better than those of most other people."
Ummm.... I don't want to burst your bubble, Jon, but our bodies would work better if we exercised regularly. My CS friends who do nothing but play games all day are
THE CLUMSIEST PEOPLE I HAVE EVER MET IN MY LIFE!!!
As for mind being more agile, the same has been said for decades about chess, team sports (as long as it is presented right), rock-climbing, reading books, etc. The truth is: any stimulating activity is helpful for young children. Naturally, games are stimulating.
I was thinking of how to intentionally fail my drug test... It would make a good memoir story someday.
From a propaganda perspective (and as much as I'd like this debate to occur rationally, it certainly will not) these studies are GOLD. Now, whenever Senator Lieberman pulls out a study that says "Kids who play QUAKE have an 83% chance of swearing their souls to Cthulu!", we (the rational lot) can pull out this British study and say, "Look, old chap, you're full of shite."
Unfortunately, public policy is rarely determined by moderate rhetoric. Black and white, hot and cold...these dichotomies drive all political decisions nowadays. We need to get used to playing the game that way!
Why yes, I AM a rocket scientist!
Well, while I do think that games do enhance the reaction time and analytical thinking, what ISNT shown is how much computer games detract from one's social life. I know plenty of people that have their weekend activities limited to computer games and very little social interaction. Like everything in life, balanced activities will make for the well rounded individual.
|>
Great! Now I can show them my gaming experiance and get the $1mil scholarships. Then I can finally get the gaming system I really want!
make Linux, not Microsoft. sin(beast) = -0.809016994374947424102293417182819
I can say that the "zone" you can reach in quake is no different from the one you can reach in competitive sports. I have felt both and they are the same, at least to the brain. A full comprehension of all the factors that effect your performance. A laser focus and the ability to act instantaneously on new information. The feeling of "flow" and ability to anticipate the reactions of your opponents.
It's the same "emotion" one way or the other, and it's a pretty good one as far as emotions go. Definitetly worthwhile to cultivate in whatever form you can experience it.
--
+&x
1) wouldn't this apply to other games as well. the study should have (I admit I didn't actually read it) checked to see whether board games had a similar effect, or thinking games (read: D&D). Granted those wouldn't get coordination and skill (and maybe that tying actually would take them above the rest)
2) Um, without the well-developed muscles of real athleats, they're in non-competable categories. IE, it's sort of comparing apples and oranges to call computer gamers "athletes" if it brings up the idea of olympic runners.
3) So, we need a quake category in the next olympics. But does that fall into the summer or winter category?
The next site to slashdot will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and start slashdotting it early!
thank you, i'll be here all week.
... hi bingo
Meybe all that research doesn't apply to slow moving strategy games that resemble MUD's more than doom. Still, I've learned how to run a scam, and sometimes I manage to avoid one. ;)
Geeky modern art T-shirts
Some of us are rednecks...
Best Slashdot Co
More and more, these studies suggest, parents should be encouraging their kids to game, not to stop.
While the comparison between "jocks" and "gamers" might hold true for mental comprehension, for developmental purposes, athletics provide physical development as well. As it is, Americans have horrible eating and excersize habits and are overweight overall. Do we need more sedentary activities for our kids?
I'm not saying that gaming is bad, nor am I contesting these results. There is a difference between having positive effects from gaming and actually encouraging kids to spend more time with it. In doing so, you tun the more dangerous risk of moving from moderarion into exess which will offset any gains you might make.
Insert plug for a game called Operation Flashpoint.
Windoze only, 65M playable demo available online. IMHO well worth the download.
It looks like these guys are trying to do for the first-person shooter what "Flight Simulator" did for the first-person-flying-game.
As a civvie, I was impressed. The thing that impressed me the most? The fact that I had to figure out how to achieve the objectives for myself. So I did what I'd imagine most Privates do in such a situation - said "holy shit, everyone's running that-a-way, and so's the Corporal. Better catch up with them or I'm toast out here!". So I followed along with the group, maintaining separation between units (just as the AI was doing), and trying to find cover where I could (again, as the AI was doing), while taking down a bad guy or two ("Holy shit, that guy's shooting at me! Good thing I got him first!"), and not get shot. 15 minutes later, I failed in that third objective, which is probably what you'd expect from a civilian thrown into his first firefight.
But it was one intense 15 minutes. Definitely the closest I ever wanna get to the real thing.
It does imply "the zone" in which the top athletes are at their best.
(Old-Sk00l gamer mode on) As one who played plenty of Defender, Robotron, and Tempest - not in MAME, but using the original controls, in dimly-lit arcades, surrounded by flashing lights and bleeps from 20 machines everywhere, and a 19" monitor filling most of my view - I experienced it daily. Once you got to the point where you could make $0.25 last for half an hour or more, you just melded into the machine and became one with it. (Sorry for the new-agey crap, I don't know any other way to describe the sensation.)
The expert who runs the mile and gets his "second wind" is like the kid who becomes one with the machine. The brain switches off, the body runs on autopilot, and you don't think about what to do, you just do.
I have no doubt that some of the "jocks" in my high school achieved the same level of concentration on the football field or on the track as I did in the arcade. (I just wish I'd known back then, as I'd have had more respect for their accomplishments.)
To mention a few more areas where folks enter "the zone", I'll offer motor sport, live performance of classical music, several martial arts disciplines, and Deep-Hack-Mode programming. I'm sure there are plenty of others.
Jocks achieved their godhood on the field, but remained assholes in the hallways and classrooms. My apotheoses were in the arcade and classroom, but I remained dateless in the hallways.
It has nothing to do with jockhood or geekhood, it has to do with the difference between someone who's merely competent or proficient, and someone who's truly a master or virtuoso.
Oh thanks. First I make a comment about /. being a bit US centric and now they abuse my name. I am starting to feel like I am being picked on here! Yes I am from Scotland, yes my name Jock.
Damn yanks.........
"pedophiles, pornographers and online identity thieves."
Maybe that's just where you live.
I've discovered that stuff above isn't everywhere. When I was in West Palm Beach, the 11 'oclock news special was that a school bus was hours late because the bus driver "got lost."
That was it. No guns, no death, no pedophiles, no pr0n.
The lack of a control group in this study is a Red Herring. If you'll note, this study was compared to previous studies (which would have had control groups, presumably, or they wouldn't have held up to any scrutiny either). Why waste the (British) public's money with redundant testing? They simply used the prior control group data and placed these scores against that (along with athlete and whatever else has been done previously).
Your placement of social class, by the way, is woefully off target. Even the upper fringe of the lower class can afford a console machine these days (although a decent gaming computer is still out of their price range). That's the purpose of the console machines... Basically, anyone who can afford a TV can probably afford a game console and a few games. They may not be the current hot console or the most recent games, but (up until it became a collector's item) you could easily hit a garage sale for something like an old NES, Genesis or SNES and 30 games and end up paying under $30 for the lot.
Now the study may have been done wrong (to your mind), or have looked at the wrong sampling of gamers (those that compete are generally going to be the more socially well-adjusted... They did come out of their hole, after all). All in all, though, I'd keep in mind this is a general news release article, not a technical paper, so it'd be difficult to say exactly what the test methods were. There may well have been a control group in this study and the author didn't think that was important enough to put in... If you find the real paper on the subject, then you can level your accusations appropriately.
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
"Veni; Vidi; Vi C++"
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
"Yeah, average for Olympians, and that's makes up about 5% of society."
:)
5% of people are Olympians? Damn. In the US, for example, there are about 300 million people. 5% of that is 15 million. If everyone lives to be 80, there will be 20 Olympics during the average lifetime. If everyone goes to the games just one, that means that the US is sending 750,000 representatives to the Olympics every four years.
Even NBC would find it hard to do that many human-interest stories.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Trolling, like sarcasm in general, is probably often a sign of misguided intelligence.
Hate to burst your bubble.
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
Maybe we could get some good insights from Nicholas Negroponte one of these days? He had articles in WiReD too ... :-)
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
My now very off-topic point was that the ability to construct a good trolling statement requires a level of wit and intelligence lacking in many of the other responses on Slashdot.
I'd like moderator options like "intelligent" and "well-thought". More importantly, I'd like to be able to select which moderator adjectives to ignore in my preferences so that I could ignore the negatives assigned "off-topic" posts, for examlpe.
PS, when is Slashdot going to open permanent discussion forums for on-going subjects such as trolling and moderation?
- Michael T. Babcock (Yes, I blog)
"Beyond that, gamers are smarter, more likely to go to college, have more friends, read more, and get better-paying jobs than non-gamers."
...And if you act now, you can also make millions just like other gamers! Get some Viagra cheap! and improve your high score!! Get the X10 and be the envy of all your gaming friends!
Jeesh, isn't it kinda reckless to make generalizations without a basis case to reflect upon?
http://thechubbyferret.net - Ferret pictures and informative links.
This is pretty obvious stuff. (I like drawing my own conclusions, thak you very much, Katz). Athletes and astronauts spend hours practicing what they do, and therefore are good at it and can concentrate on it more and in a different way than the average Joe. Kids who spend hours gaming become good at it and can concentrate on it in a similar way that athletes and astronauts concentrate on their tasks. The reason why they have better coordination and concentration than the average kids of the recent past is that spending hours in front of a TV makes you good at watching TV, which requires minimal concentration and coordination. It's good to see that a study... the spending of a lot of money... can yield common sense results.
"The best laid plans of mice and men gang oft agley..." - ROBERT BURNS
Christ Katz, think ya could use a friggin' spell check before you post an editorial?
---
Linux: The world's best text-adventure game.
Next on Fox, "When good Geeks Go Bad"
Funny. You just described slashdot perfectly. Maybe we should petition for a slogan change?
I'm glad to see that while we're free to rail against the post-Columbine backlash against gaming, we're also free to take findings as out of context as "they" are.
And when did playing (insert video game of choice here) start turning anyone into a jock? Being able to twitch a joystick to and fro doesn't mean you're not a klutz. It doesn't mean you're a genius, either: where's the control group in this experiment? Do we have children with access to games who choose to not play them, opting instead to ride a bike or play chess or whatever? Are we solely talking about privileged middle-and-upper-class children here with ample leisure time and parents with disposable income?
All that this survey's really done is proven that "all things in moderation" applies to, you know. All things.
Easy does it!
Easy does it!
This comment has been submitted already, 276865 hours , 59 minutes ago. No need to try again.
Well, I beat him away from the traffic lights the other day so he can't be that good.
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Moderator's essentials
It might be worth pointing out that Jaques Villneuve hasn't won any races since 1997.
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Moderator's essentials
Among other controversial results of the study, they found that children who played video games regularly were more likely to live in a house with a computer than those who did not, were more likely to have parents with above-average incomes, and were more likely to have parents of above-average intelligence.
"This temporal-reverse causation from children to their parents is the most astounding aspect of the study," Dr. Klu said. "Who would ever have imagined that children's video game playing could cause increased affluence and intelligence in their parents?"
Investigators from the study are considering consulting with renowned Cambridge physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking on the possibility of a temporal worm-hole created by video game playing. "We think it's something like what happened at the end of the movie A.I.," Dr. Klu explained, "where they were able to clone that woman, and extract her memories from the fabric of space-time. We think a similar mechanism is at work with video games, only backward: increasing the intelligence of the parents through a reverse space-time-DNA wormhole."
Dr. Hawking was unavailable for comment.
> "The skills they learned on computers seem to > transfer to the real world."
It's true: only this morning on my way to work I had to blow off a zombie's head with a bazooka, and tomorrow I've got to fly a tie fighter to Dagobah.
I realize that you have a job to do, and articles to write, but please try for something more useful, innovative, insightful... SOMETHING ORIGINAL.
And how do you know that? Have you read my local newspaper? Or watched my local news? I'll apologize for the flame but you are taking one research report and then generalizing all others to say its right. This isn't journalism its sensationalism at its finest.
"One World, one Web, one Program" - Microsoft promotional ad
The Anti-Blog
...but I'm doing research on gaming and flow, which seems to me to be what this study is discussing. From what I gather, Flow is very big in the sports psychology field (that's not why I use the concept I stubled upon it from a colegue who uses it in his work) and it is one of the keys to becoming good at most computer games as well. If you are interested you can go here to see the two papers I have written on the subject. They are for an academic and non-gaming audience so there is a bit of "This is what a First-Person Shooter is, this is what they look like" kind of hand-holding stuff, but I think that they are pretty good anyway.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
Internet pr0n has given my right forearm strength equal to that of a world class arm wrestler.
See? Now I'm buff from using my mouse... And my bicepts are ripped from lifting my bawls. Later on, I'm going to play some Q3 and work on my quads.
Ceci n'est pas une sig.
So nerds are smarter, have more nerd-friends, read more books like '1984' and 'The hitchhiker's guide' and have a better payed programming job. We already knew that.
But the real questions are: Can they get girlfriends? Do they have sex?
<grub> Reading
it was supposed to be
"the geek shall inherit the earth"
I'll contact Jesus about this ASAP.
Karma: Bored. (Thinking about resurrecting the "Anyone else is an imposter" joke.)
hehe
Exactly
So let Jon Katz write whatever he wants... and either filter out all his articles... or stop reading Slashdot altogether
We've all got brains people... Jon Katz just has his own opinion
Here's to the crazy ones
Number 1, I *did* here about this study on my local news radio station. This is not a geeky radio station in the least. Most of the ads are for retirement homes and hair-replacement treatments.
Number 2, if you look at the study (or even at any of the half decent articles *about* the study) you will find that this study did not deal with plain old gamers, it surveyed *competetive* gamers in regional and national championships. This makes a HUGE difference. I used to play Magic: The Gathering (ugh... don't even get me started on money wasting) fairly competetively, and there is a very big difference between competetive players and non. The big time players were totally focused, ruthless, and had many enormously complex strategies which they implemented without batting an eye.
When you add up those two problems, there isn't really much to write about anymore. To give Jon Katz some credit, the local news-radio station didn't mention the fact that they were all cometetive gamers either. This in itself makes spinning the "suppression" of this study as an anti-gamer sentiment even sillier.
People fear what they do not understand, and there is nothing harder to understand than someone who is really brilliant. It's not that they are richer, or better schooled. They just plain do stuff better, and learn faster. When there is no direct beneficial impact, they public's reaction will usually be fear and loathing. Galileo. Jews in Europe throughout the middle-ages (kept as advisers but publicly shunned). Geeks.
"He's more machine now than man, twisted and evil."
For fuck's sake man, how many times does a similar study have to be posted here, only to have everyone point out that just because two traits are apparent, they are not necessarily cause-and-effect related. I'm sorry Katz; I too wish that playing lots of video games would make me sexy, desirable, rich, and funny. Unfortunately, as I think both you and I can attest to, none of those are the case.
(And apologies if that's not what Katz's actual rant was about; I merely skimmed it. I don't have the stomach to take full-on Katz.)
As for any sim, specifically auto racing making me a better driver, I would have to disagree. As with any PC or console game/simulator you quickly realize that you are in fact constantly compensating for and taking advandage of the AI of the simulation. This goes for the big time simulators as well, such as airline pilot training sims. They are still computers and graphics when you boil it all down.
That being said, I tend to think that it may help condition a little more hand/eye coordination, but at the same time, planting your butt in front of a gaming console or PC for endless hours also makes you lazy, and in some opinions sort of an intravert. Is this bad? Dunno, depends on what each persons likes/dislikes are.
I do disagree with Jon on this one though. I think trying to fabricate justification for gaming, other than it simply being a fun and entertaining way to spend some time, is just stretching it to much.
Oh, and not to disagree with the above posters comment about it enhancing driving ability., Here's an interview from NASCAR.Com that has a driver saying basically they don't use them.
More race stuff in one place,
More race stuff in one place,
than any one place on the net.
I disagree, it seems like these kids are playing games INSTEAD of other sedentary activities. I personally spent much of my youth glued to the Nintendo/Amiga/PCjr and not watching the equivalent mind rotting television that my peers were. Also I don't think discouraging kids from playing games will make them be more active, it will just encourage other worse sedentary activities. If parents want more active children they should offer to play catch, etc. instead of telling them to turn off the playstation.
Cyber-games make children brighter Jonathan Leake, Science Editor COMPUTER games are giving a generation of young Britons a level of co-ordination and powers of concentration equivalent to those observed in top-level athletes, a government-funded study has shown. Youngsters who play computer games regularly but not excessively also tend to have more friends and be better adjusted than those who make do with traditional pastimes such as reading and television. The research, funded by the government's Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), challenges the common view of computer gamers as "geeks" who cut themselves off from the world and develop few social or wider academic skills. Instead, it suggests that playing computer games could sharpen young people's mental agility to a level superior to that of previous generations by exposing them to intense stimuli from a young age. "People who play games regularly seem to develop a mental state that we have seen before only in serious athletes or professionals such as astronauts, whose life depends on concentration and co-ordination," said Jo Bryce, who led the research. "Their minds and bodies work together much better than those of most other people." Bryce did her research by visiting computer gamers, often during regional or national competitions around Britain, and giving nearly 100 of them a series of psychological tests and questionnaires. The results were then compared with those of similar tests applied to athletes and other groups. She found that although there remained a minority of gamers who were obsessive, the majority had a healthy mix of other interests and varied social lives. Playing games helped them to do better in other areas, including schoolwork. "Our subjects were averaging about 18 hours a week on computer games, which sounds a lot, but they were spending similar amounts of time reading and doing sport or socialising," said Jason Rutter of the ESRC's centre for research on innovation and competition at Manchester University, who worked with Bryce. "They seemed able to focus on what they were doing much better than other people and also had better general co-ordination. Overall there was a huge similarity with top-level athletes. The skills they learnt on computers seem to transfer to the real world," Rutter said. The research may explain why some racing drivers find it useful to practise on computer games. Rubens Barrichello, a member of Ferrari's Formula One racing team, reportedly prepared for the Malaysian grand prix, a course he had never driven, by using a popular F1 computer game. Similarly, some upmarket car showrooms have ordered copies of Sony PlayStation's new Gran Turismo 3 racing game to give to those customers who are interested in any of the 150 models that it features. Tests have shown that drivers can develop the skills necessary to drive such sports cars by playing the game in the safety of their own homes. A recent study by the Home Office indicated that those who regularly played computer games when young were more likely to go to university and get a better-than-average job. They also tended to be more intelligent. Mark Griffiths, a psychologist at Nottingham Trent University and an expert in computer gaming, found recently in a study of 800 children that those who played games moderately"- no more than two hours a day-tended to do more sport than those who played no games. They had more friends, were better adjusted and tended to read more. "Depending on the types of games played and the age of the children, computer games can be a positive experience," said Griffiths. Not all research shows the benefits of information technology for teenagers. A separate study by Griffiths showed that many children using their computers to excess developed severe personality problems. One 16-year-old boy spent 70 hours a week at his computer and had no friends except those he met on the internet. He once abstained for three days and showed withdrawal symptoms.
Not in London (which is where most of the jobs are) unless you're comparing them to really high-rent places in the US.
More pertinently, I doubt very much that this report will have much influence on govt policy here. Read our tabloid media (which is most of it) and you'll learn that the 'net is a den of thieves and perverts, and judging by such ill conceived pieces of legislation as the RIP Act our government, specifically the Home Office that commissioned this research, seems to agree.
I'm sure this report will be ignored and buried, just like all the other research that comes up with findings the UK government and The Sun doesn't agree with is.
Just my 2 cents.
It was reported. In Canada, actually. The Globe and Mail had it, I believe. Gotta love Michael Kesterton.
Quid latine dictum sit, altum viditur.
Anything said in Latin, sounds profound.
Those who still harbor illusions about the accuracy of what pols and the popular media tell us about "geeks,"...
While this stereotyping of the Polish community as geek experts is a new one on me, nevertheless, we should not single them out in this form of generality.
However, the notion that the popular media being inaccurate is perfectly acceptable, and Jon Katz is a walking reminder of it.
The headline screams:
Are Games Turning Kids Into Jocks?
...and later in the story...
Maybe my experiences with jocks in school were vastly different from the norm, but I don't recall the majority of them being any better-adjusted socially or better read than a bowl of week-old pudding. You know, the stuff with the "hardened protective layer" on top.
At least here (Canada), more affluent kids tend to play a lot LESS games, as their parents can more readily afford spending the hundreds (and thousands) of dollars necessary these days on things like sports equipment.
Can you imagine a garage sale in rosedale? or in forest hill? I've never seen one. Maybe they do have them, but I think the frequency is much lower. I can vouch from personal experience that a lot of my computer geek friends lived in an affluent area of Scarborough (Hill Crescent). So I don't think you can equate garage sale data to draw the conclusion that rich kids don't play games.
(sorry about the local references to Toronto)
Children have always been the soldiers of tomorrow
You wouldn't expect the people of the generation causing the conflict to go and die on foriegn soil would you?
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
This is based on 100 gamers at a convention. It is statistcally irrelevent.
If they found the same number of gamers under the same conditions were emotionally unstable, would the study been given and credence from Katz? probably not.
Another question, how many gamers do play sports, and socialize? are these the same type of people who would of gamed 15 years ago, before it was cool?
I'm glad there is somebody doing studies, but I don't hink we should really being using this study to prove any points.
when they do a study of 10,000 gamers streached across many backgrounds, then we'll start to have something.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
http://www.theonion.com/onion3539/looking_skills.h tml
Well, let's see, bright boy.
They don't have the advantage of living in an area with an adequately funded school district.
In most cases, they don't have the advantage of growing up in areas with low crime or low pollution.
They've had to work from an early age, so haven't had the time to get a good degree from a 4 year school.
They've been surrounded by alcoholism, drug use, crime, and despair from an early age.
Suuuure, they've had ALL the advantages. May I suggest you actually get out of your parents' nice suburban home some time and visit a ghetto, or West Virginia, sometime? Maybe talk to some people.
Once again, by opening your mouth, you've managed to remove all doubt.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Programs like welfare will turn the United States into a third-world country eventually.
Oh, bullshit. It's pandering to the multinationals and the drug war that are doing a damn good job of that.
I know what its like to be poor. I also know that people who view life as a wave that washes over them, and do nothing, will become nothing.
And this has exactly what do do with my point? Your claim was that the poor have all the advantages the wealthy do. The point that you attemped so assiduously to avoid was that that claim is a load of shit. Anyone born in poverty has significant disadvantages over someone of the same natural abilities born to wealth. I'm sick of hearing you dittoheads repeatedly spew the lie that they don't, so I pointed out that your claim a crock of shit.
I know the solution...Let's give EVERYONE a FREE COLLEGE EDUCATION!!!!
Sounds good to me. You see, I'm not a terminally shortsighted idiot. I realize that every tax dollar that goes to education saves me several on prisons. In addition, it reduces my insurance costs by reducing crime, and increases the number of people who are contributing taxpayers instead of leeches. Finally, it reduces my chances of getting stabbed for my shoes. Basically, I'm intelligent enough to figure out that in the long run, raising taxes to pay for education will save me money.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
my claim is that the poor disadvantage themselves. They can get a job, just like a person in a wealthier area can.
Well, since you're pulling a Reagan here, let me refresh your memory on exactly what you said.
most "poor" people DO have the same advantages as "normal" people.
That's pretty hard to misunderstand. You made a straight-up claim that the majority of the poor have all the advantages everyone else does. And if you'll recall, I named a number of advantages the poor commonly lack, which won't be fixed by "just going out and getting a job." This "kick them well they're down" attitude of the dittohead crowd is beginning to annoy me.
Also, you've conveniently managed to forget that our economic system requires that a certain percentage of people remain unemployed, in order to keep labor costs at a reasonable level. Given this, don't you think we have a certain responsibility to those people?
or a free education (which, just to let you know, if effect would make things like a college education Useless)
Why?
they would rather stay poor, and get a free handout.
Ah, the dozens of studies and programs which have shown that giving people a decent education leads directly to them starting a productive career never ever happened. Suuuure.
--
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Were it to turn out that such hardware was spread across the classes evenly, their results would be interesting. But how likely is that? For all we can tell, maybe video gaming hurts your chances of getting into college and finding good work. Maybe kids in your socio-economic class, with similar talents who stayed away from video games are on average doing much better than gamers.
It reminds me of another study which shows that high school students who are casual cocaine users are more likely to go to college and get better jobs than those who never touched the stuff. Not a good reason to do coke! You can reproduce these "amazing" results by plugging in any bad upper-class habbit. I'm sure that those arrested for drunken Porsche racing are more likely to go to college than those who never tried such a thing. Drinking microbrewery beer is probably also an indicator that you are more likely to go to college and get a good job. I expect it's even better than abstinence from alcohol. (Abstinence is probably distributed more evenly over the various income levels than microbrew fetishism is.)
(This is not the first time that I found myself wishing that Katz would sit through Critical Thinking 101.)
That struck me too when I read the article. Methodologically, this study is a nightmare.
Lessee, run, run fast, shoot everything that moves, know the terrain. Yep. These lessons mean that I'm in a now in a class of own. 'Course that might also be due to the fact the rest of the league is nursing sucking chest wounds at the moment.
Or a playstation? Or a N64? Or even a Gameboy.
> Thus his family is most likely to be upper-middle class or higher, socially speaking
Bloody hell, spending £45 on a secondhand playstation means you are upper-middle class?
Here is one for you
Brother 1 - Played lots of games when at school, probably to excess, had a computer from age 12+ - Went to college, then University - Now works in Computers.
Brother 2 - Played games now and again, when his other brother loaded them, lost access to games when older brother moved out. Went to college - Now in the forces.
Brother 3 - Never played games, didn't really have access to a computer at all. Left School - Now unemployed.
Hmmmmmm?
try to make ends meet, you're a slave to money, then you die
I agree.
I used to be turned off by the fact that geeks could get girls only based on "money," but then I realized this:
would it really be so much better to get girls because you benched 250 lbs and can act like a total asshole? When it comes down to it, girls being attracted to you for your money is pretty close to girls being attracted to you for your talent, which is just fine with me.
I might believe what the popular media tells me, but I do not trust anything that comes from Poland! ;)
Don't steal. The government hates competition.
... I wonder if this works for sex too ....
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
My nephew was quite a gamer, he's now 24 and in the Marines, and an officer to boot.
...as a side note (more like a reader's digest story) he is recently stationed in Japan, and has a Japanese girlfriend. They were out with a group of couples, when suddenly, she (girlfriend) got up and left the room. My nephew asked, where did she go? The reply was "Oh, she's mad at you so she left to cool off"
He is, creative, focused, moral, a fine rock guitar player, and quit deadly with many weapons.
hehe
His reply.. "Sweet"
[for non-USAinas, our women will bitch you out in any public place]
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
Katz posts another
my testicles shrink with fear
PC death brings relief
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
So, who would you expect to find at regional and national competitions? A cross section represantive of the typical game player? Or maybe above average players?
that people with naturally better hand-eye coordination, and concentration are better at games, and so they are more enjoyable to them and tend play them more than people that have slow coordination and concentration? Hmmm, ya think?!
You mean those self-same papers that advertised DOOM as the cause of Columbine? Real nice discrimination there.
But poor people have all the same advantages as "normal" people... oh wait
most "poor" people DO have the same advantages as "normal" people. They just refuse to utilize them.
let see...
welefare keeps will keep them in this postion forever. People can work at restaurants, stores, or a factory job with little to no education. They can save the money, and actually do something with their lives.(even move out of shithole areas). But instead, we look upon the poor as people that are down trodden, and need support from the government. (The term "Digital Divide" comes to mind). How about programs where they try to give the "under privilaged" jobs? it failed, and do you know why? Because they could sit on their asses all day and get FREE MONEY from the government. Programs like welfare will turn the United States into a third-world country eventually.
May I suggest you actually get out of your parents' nice suburban home some time and visit a ghetto, or West Virginia, sometime? Maybe talk to some people.
I know what its like to be poor. I also know that people who view life as a wave that washes over them, and do nothing, will become nothing.
They don't have the advantage of living in an area with an adequately funded school district.
In most cases, they don't have the advantage of growing up in areas with low crime or low pollution.
They've had to work from an early age, so haven't had the time to get a good degree from a 4 year school.
I know the solution...Let's give EVERYONE a FREE COLLEGE EDUCATION!!!! people like you support racist programs such as affirmative action.
And why is it that I, as a taxpayer, need to support the 5 kids that a woman who knows she can't afford, has.
I have seen many ghetto areas (mostly in California). But I seriously doubt you ever have. Maybe when you finally get out of your dream world (or 8th grade for that matter) sometime, you will figure out how the Real World (tm) actually works.
Your claim was that the poor have all the advantages the wealthy do
my claim is that the poor disadvantage themselves. They can get a job, just like a person in a wealthier area can.
Sounds good to me. You see, I'm not a terminally shortsighted idiot. I realize that every tax dollar that goes to education saves me several on prisons. In addition, it reduces my insurance costs by reducing crime, and increases the number of people who are contributing taxpayers instead of leeches. Finally, it reduces my chances of getting stabbed for my shoes. Basically, I'm intelligent enough to figure out that in the long run, raising taxes to pay for education will save me money.
Don't You UNDERSTAND???? People have been getting their hands held by the government for so long in the US, even if you gave them a free job, or a free education (which, just to let you know, if effect would make things like a college education Useless), they would rather stay poor, and get a free handout.
Doesn't that make them 'bad'?
Will Katz be writing about how gamers with better computer and Quake skillz are bullying the poor soccer & RPG players???
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
LAME
I played NFL 2k1 on my Dreamcast and became pretty good at it. I told myself "Hey, I can do that!" and tried to tackle a 6'6" 300lb guy from behind. Let me tell you, that was a mistake.
The game definitely did not turn me into a jock.
Columbine was caused by Rammstein alone!
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The ivory tower has never had to reach so h
Ender? Is that you?
"Do not look for the results of this study to be reported on your local evening news in the U.S., or on the front page of any newspaper. It will not be there. Those spots are reserved for frantic stories about pedophiles, pornographers and online identity thieves." You mean like this story?
Maybe you should educate the morons of tomorrow so they'll stop believing the leaders of tomorrow. - Dogbert
More not-so-exciting adventures in the land of correlation vs. causation. Yeah. We also get laid more, but has anyone done a study on that? It's not like you're in a real class of your own if you just play video games these days anyway.
Its really hard to do experiments with people, I would hate to be told I can't play video games because I was part of an experiment I was signed up for when I was a baby ^_^ (or forced to play games). If the experimentor just chooses kids out of the population who already have these tendencies then she is not doing an experiment, it's just a study
Imagine an experiment to study the effects of bullying on kids. With a study you go out and find kids that have been bullied and ones that have not and you analyze the data. Since you didn't control the situation you can only say that their is a relationship between bullying and some resulting behavior in the victims. But, to do an experiment you would actually have to create two groups of very similar kids and subject one group to bullying while shielding the others.
This would be horrible meddling in a person's life, so we can't do it (ethically) and so we will never really have proof of anything caused by bullying.
Now, I hear a cry that "of course we can have proof that bullying causes this and that!," and sometimes we do have a strong common sense notion that the correlation between one thing and another is actually causation. But that only really works for "obvious" things like "being in battle for more than 6 weeks without a break causes psycosis in 98 percent of soldiers." Most social questions are nowhere near as straighforward as that.
"People who play games regularly seem to develop a mental state that we have seen before only in serious athletes or professionals such as astronauts" -- this doesn't mean it turns them into athletes or astronauts. Those professions require a lot more than fast mental reflexes -- things like physical stamina, endurance, and muscular strength which video games most certainly do not encourage.
Frankly, I'm tired of seeing Katz' columns focus on nothing more than the trailing edge of last week's /. stories. This column is nothing that wasn't already written in that article's comments. Do your own research, man, it's what you're paid for.
...are right here.
I can't wait for parents to live vicariously through their children playing games. Could you imagine your dad getting exited over your domination of "Crazy Taxi"?
Information wants Coq
Of course, rather ironically, Formula One starts are know done via 'launch control' software, meaning all the driver has to do is put their foot to the floor, and the computer takes care of little things like wheelspin.
--
Blaming GW Bush for the Iraq war is like blaming Ronald McDonald for the poor quality of food.
The First Time:
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/22/1952 24 1&mode=thread
I'll normally defend John to the grave against all the trolls but this crap is just occuring way to often. If you write for a site you should at least read it to not double-post
This is also how Jacques prepared for his first Formula 1 season, by racing the tracks on a PlayStation video game. In that season he set the record for most points scored as a rookie with 78. Those 78 points were enough for second place in the World Championship. While it helped that he'd raced in IndyCars and F3, it's still an impressive feat, especially when you consider the fact that he hadn't raced many (if not all) of those tracks in real life before.
True, Jenson is at the back, but more often than not so is Fisichella. The Bennettons are suffering from a notorious lack of power. I'm sure they will continue to do so until Renault gets their engine right.
.003 seconds behind David and his vastly superior McLaren. Not that I think much of DC, but still...Kimi Raikkonnen is also another example. In the beginning of the season he was able to mix it up quite well with Hakkinnen and Montoya, and he did that with a vastly smaller team and LAST year's Ferrari-rebadge. He should be interesting to watch...
I would agree with you about the car being a big part of racing, but that's why they have a Constructors Championship. There IS a lot more to it than just the car though. Look what Michael did with Bennetton when he won the championship, and also look at what he did with the Ferrari team, he turned it around completely.
More supporting evidence of the driver having more of an impact than the car is with Jarno Trulli and his Jordan versus David Coulthard and his McLaren at the race two weeks ago in Silverstone. Jarno qualified
Eddie also has had a raw deal with the Jaguar. Until recently their aero package has been crap, and so has their reliability. Not to mention the fact that he almost won the World Championship when at Ferrari (which was at that time inferior to the McLarens). I'm sure if Eddie hadn't have had to play second fiddle to Michael before Michael broke his leg(s) he would have beaten Mika.
A good driver in a mediocre car is better than a mediocre driver in a good car.
Who's your bet on the race this weekend?
'The British researchers, perhaps unencumbered by uniquely American pandering to so-called "moral" political interests, see it differently.'
Are you contending that Brits are immune to research bias because they are a better judge of true morality? Can you defend that? Maybe they pander to all kinds of political interests, even in this case.
Just because there is a correlation, it doesn't mean one causes the other (eg games make one smarter/more focused). Perhaps more intelligent people are drawn to gaming, rather than gaming honing one's intelligence and concentration. Maybe gamers have an ability to focus, and thus are able to play games. Just because gamers tend to have these skills doesn't mean that gaming creates/strengthens them.
Maybe people that don't posses these abilities are unable to have fun playing games.
What fun would it be playing a game if you can't concentrate on it or be coordinated?
In our town there is a new cable/phone/broadband roll out at the moment, and the suburbs that are getting it first are the poorer suburbs and the ones with the worst performing schools.
This is because they have a higher uptake of this sort of thing, its been proven.
who do you see down at the spacies arcade?? is it the cafe going, upper middle class? no! its the lower socioeconomic groups.
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Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
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Drink Coffee - Do Stupid Things Faster And With More Energy!
More obvious stuff from Katz. Although this does relate to the previous articles about games and kids, why doesn't he let us draw our own conculions?
Come to think of it, the biggest hole in the study is probably that the kids at competitions, who are obviously the most skilled, competitive and energetic, are wildly unrepresentative of gamers as a whole. Maybe the conclusions are accurate for Thresh and the like, but they're being applied to every kid with a console.
* A term I made up to describe how poor children tend to be unaware that there's a world outside their neighborhood.
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
That said, did this study involve anything resembling real case controls? All I see is "Bryce did her research by visiting computer gamers, often during regional or national competitions around Britain, and giving nearly 100 of them a series of psychological tests and questionnaires. The results were then compared with those of similar tests applied to athletes and other groups."
It sounds to me like this study is comparing different social classes and deciding that any factors that correlate with gaming must be caused by playing games.
My favorite part, by the way, is the instance of "doesn't translate well to American" at the end:
Next page: Dyke builds fortune as property developer
Unsettling MOTD at my ISP.
I read this earlier in the week. Why did I just waste my time?
There's also The Chicago Sun Times and, well, anyway, there's at least a dozen American papers with "Times" in the name. And I would say the vast majority of Americans don't read the "New York" variety...
--netmouse
it's: contraction of "it is"
its: possessive form of "it"
They don't even have to have 10,000 gamers. It doesn't take that many samples to find out if different groups of people belong to different means and distributions of a trait (like reaction time, say, or years of school completed). But they do need to randomly select samples of people out of the gaming community if they want a representative study
That's not what this is.
Help! Help! I'm being oppressed! You're telling me Katz is being obvious! Why not let me draw my own conclusions?
Oh wait, expressing an opinion (and pointing to a study) doesn't stop me from having my own conclusions. Wow. That's a relief.
Unfortunately, you will notice a decided lack of a control group in the study. One might argue that the entire populace is an implicit control group; however, that would only reveal one's ignorance. First and foremost, we should recognize the social class to which these kids most likely belong. Any child who plays video games 18 hours a week probably owns a computer (or at least his family does). Thus his family is most likely to be upper-middle class or higher, socially speaking. While this is not true for every kid there is most like a very strong statistical correlation. Now we should recognize the fact that children of such classes are already fairly likely to go to college and get a better than average job anyway
Similarly the do not mention any control group for how like situated children, score on the same battery of test. Thus, the finds could have just as easily been summarized as "well off kids found to do better in life" Of course no one wants to hear that...
--- Computer science is about computers in the way that astronomy is about telescopes. -???
Born in 1982, everybody in my classes in elementary school owned a NES. The kids who are jocks now, were jocks then too, and a lot of them were jocks before they got their Nintendo's. I don't doubt that gaming helps coordination but saying that it turns kids into jocks is absurd. There have always been jocks and since the last 20+ years everyone in my generation has owned some sort of gaming console. There is probably just as many jocks now as there were back before games.
Bryce conducted her research by visiting gamers, usually during regional or national competitions around England, and administering a series of psychological tests and questionnaires to nearly 100 of them. The results were then compared with those from similiar tests of athletes and others.
I'm a gamer, yet I can barely walk straight. I have no hand-eye coordination, and few athletic skills. But I am a gamer, and not a very good one.
Her choice of subjects completely screws up the experiment. That's like going to the Olympics, and using data to claim that the average mile can be run in 3 minutes.
Yeah, average for Olympians, and that's makes up about 5% of society.
---
Furthermore, being athletic doesn't make you a jock. Being obsessed with sports and having no intelligence whatsoever makes you a jock. I know a damn well large number of people that could probably be very good at any sport they played, but the don't. Just because certain people have certain traits, doesn't mean they fall into a group of people who often also have the same traits.
Man oh man, why dont' I have mod points now!?! Mod him up!!! Underated +1
Damnit man I was drinking Pepsi at the time, warn me next time, almost went up my nose.
don't be selfish make all your variables public!!
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
Geeks are fast, strong and pissed off, look out.
Next on Fox, "When good Geeks Go Bad"
I love the smell of Karma in the morning
You figured out that affluent kids tend to play less video games just because there consoles are not for sale at their garage sales ? That constitutes absolutely no evidence at all. Did you consider the possibility that it might be beneath richer families to sell things like Nintendos, and/or that they are more likely to be able to afford having a PS AND a PS2 around ? Did you consider the possibility that maybe they're not selling their PS CDs because they're playing games instead on (more expensive) PCs ?
This "study" by whomever it was in Britian seems to be flawed. Its the chicken and the egg syndrome as it is many times in these cases, and it seems the researchers are so slow that they don't even catch on to this.
Are these kids doing better in school then their peers because they play video games, or are the kids just more intelligent, better able to concentrate, and have better dexterity than their peers? Obviously if they are, they _would_ be better at playing video games.
It doesn't take a genius to realise that if you study 100 kids who enjoy doing math problems, that you will find most of those kids are better at doing math problems. Likewise, if you take 100 kids that love to play video games, and study them, you will find that those kids are better in hand-eye reflexes, concentration and problem solving. Its not because they are playing video games that they get this way, its because they were this way to start off with that they like to play video games.
What fun is it to play something that you can never win, rarely improve at, and you don't even understand? None! The children that don't play video games are either less intelligent, or unable to manipulate the interface they are using (mouse, joystick, etc) in order to find the game amusing.
What this study really needed was 1000 random kids from England, and 1000 random kids from a country that is identical in every way to England (including diet, vitamin intake, clean water and good food, good schooling), but have a low or no computer count. This way the study actually has a control group.
Ever heard of those?
Its quite obvious that all people are not genetically identical. Some are morons, some have weak bodies or minds. These kids don't. Simple.
This Guy is a professor on one of the most important brasilian universities and he seems to be radically against the use of computers or video-games by youngsters.
We're running a discussion on his ideas on userfriendly.org's forum about this, and is great to see a scientific report that refutes some of Seltzer's opinions.
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What ? Me, worry ?
The Times is a national paper, not a local one. If you have to call it anything, call it the UK Times or something like that.
Karma: Shitty (mostly due to American moderators)
When I was a kid, I played Metroid and Legend of Zelda for Hours on end. I did not have any more friends, no girlfriend, and I got my ass kicked in every sport that I played, got beat up every day, and mocked. The only thing that the games did do is make me wanna go out and kill people. Video games are bad and should be banned because they turned me into a geek.
Being intelligent does not preclude athletic prowess or competitiveness; and athletic prowess and competitiveness does not preclude intelligence.
grow up-- it's not us vs. them; it's not Bill Gates vs. Michael Jordan (like that insipid email about 'nerds rule'
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
Sen. Davy Crocket to US Congress, Nov. 1, 1835
People who are gamers usually possess a PC. Lower income families often don't possess such a machine and also kids from such families often don't go on to college and well paid jobs. Thus the fact that many gamers go to college may be due to the fact that they are typically from a middle class 'comfortable' background and not due to superior skills acquired from said gaming.
Any child who plays video games 18 hours a week probably owns a computer (or at least his family does). Thus his family is most likely to be upper-middle class or higher, socially speaking.
Ummm, Game Boy Advance: $100. Sony Playstation, $300. The poor family (near poverty) who used to live across the street had a console and more games than I did. Computer games != home computer, and therefore computer games != upper-middle class or higher.
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Developers: We can use your help.
Without studies (i.e. "scientific" proof), most people don't want to believe certain things. When the general feeling is that computer games cause problems in kids, and common sense is ignored (or maybe changed), then a study is needed to prove otherwise. I agree that a study is certainly not needed to know this information. But for the general population to swallow it, a study is absolutely necessary.
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Developers: We can use your help.
One 16-year-old boy spent 70 hours a week at his computer...
...and suffered severe psychological problems.
At my company that's considered a dedicated employee.
Good thing we have a comprehensive mental health plan.
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Developers: We can use your help.
do ALL editors think they deserve an editorial now?
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www.shockthemonkey.org
Photos.
They might be a little sharper mentally, and computer games probably contributes to this. But the level of obesity among children today is a hell of alot higher than it was in the past. And spending a few hours a day sitting playing computer games before moving on to other "hobbies" such as watching televison isn't helping. Diet probably has a lot to do with it as well, but the fact remains that children are fatter, and that can't be healthy.
(1) Computer games increase co-ordination and reaction time (practice, practice, practice)
(2) Gamers tend to be brighter (less intelligent kids tend to just sit in front of the telly)
(3) Gamers have friends (and witter on about games boring the hell out of the rest of us)
(4) It's anti-social to do nothing but sit in your room playing games
Not that earth shattering - unless you're trying to get your mum to buy you a playstation.
BTW rents are high in Britain, and "Dyke" is Greg Dyke - boss of the BBC.
Boring Old Fart (40, married, 3 kids...er no...make that 49, married, 3 grown up kids...it's been a long time)
Is there a link to the original ESRC study? Reading a newspaper digested synopsis of serious scientific research is like reading the slashdot summary of something without ever clicking on links to the original article and thinking you know what's going on. (Anyone remember the Melbourne Man Patents ... The Wheel article and the comments that came up?)
When newspapers digest serious research we get a lot of misinformation. I remember when the media reported a study a few years back that found early North American inhabitants were white causing much uproar and discussion. The original research used the word caucizoid which means caucasian features, not white, but was retermed caucasian in the media. This difference caused much of the debate to become confussed over racial issues that should have never entered the picture because most people relied on the media's interpretation and not the research itself to form opinions.
Of course, most jocks were jerks also. The difference was they were more attractive to girls.
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
...to the extent that porn does?
About the nerd friends and books and programming job.
Can we get girlfriends? Do we have sex? I think that's a resounding "Yes". More so than jocks. Why?
Jocks: Look good, and that's about it. They have a less than high paying job, maybe have a nice car. Are complete jerks to women because they "know" they can have any woman they want.
Nerds: Have high paying jobs (money attracts women as well as job security) have expensive cars from those high paying jobs (cars attract women), are nice to women because they can't get them based on self appearance (nice-guy stuff can SOMETIMES attract women).
Look at Bill Gates: Nerd all around. You mean to tell me if he was still single he couldn't walk down the street and pick up any women he wanted?
"Every computer Crashes, cause Every OS Sucks.. Everything since Apple/DOS..Just a bunch of crap"
Let me get this straight...kids who sit on their asses playing video games (like me) are just as apt to be better athletes as the kids outside running around?
Heh. While I agree with this statement, watch a movie like 'Clueless' some time, and tell me that this doesn't apply even more so to the really affluent :) People in general don't realize just how big and varied the world really is.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
You know, I've seen this comment repeated many times throughout the various /. articles on kids and gaming recently, and I have to disagree. At least here (Canada), more affluent kids tend to play a lot LESS games, as their parents can more readily afford spending the hundreds (and thousands) of dollars necessary these days on things like sports equipment. Poor kids just don't play hockey any more, they can't afford it. Never mind when kids become teenagers, and the 'rich' ones have cars and seemingly unlimited allowances, while the poor ones get stuck with last year's Nintendo and a couple of games, grand total cost maybe $100.
I've noticed a STRONG correlation when I browse the local garage sales. The better areas of the city tend never to have classic games or consoles for sale, it's all much more expensive goods. The 'poorer' areas all seem to have a Nintendo/Playstation/etc. And it's NOT because they need the money - I've gotten in the habit of asking 'why are you selling this?'. Most common response? 'We just bought the newer version'.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
I have a friend who is looking to attend the Air Force academy or go through the Air Force ROTC program at the University of Illinois. One of the questions that came up during a discussion of piloting skills and reaction times was asked by the Colonel (or whatever rank he was) in charge of the program: "Do you play a lot of computer games?" My friend's answer was ofcourse YES. And the colonel replied "Then you should be fine." I thought it interesting that even the Air Force has taken note of the fact that computer gaming helps concentration and coordination.
Those young'uns who play computer games _moderately_ are probably already well-adjusted and well-rounded. I see no evidence to indicate that playing computer games moderately contributes to these attributes, but is rather a side effect of their inherent personality types. "Everything in moderation" - Aristotle
I'd like to dip my balls in that.
I think that members of the media should be required to take a first-year psychology course and a statistics course before being allowed to interpret and analyze "news" like this.
It is not a controlled study in any way, and at best, the authors of this report might have uncovered a corelation. Of course, there is no way of knowing at present which direction the corelation is (do students with naturally high co-ordination and concentration play vids or do students who play vids develop better co-ordination and concentration?).
There is a value in corelational studies however.
Corelation != causation, but if there no corelation, there is no causal relationship.
Interesting, but hardly newsworthy at this stage.
*** Where are we going? And what's with this handbasket?
Sports take mental as well as physical skills, so I'm sure that playing computer game simulations over and over would help you in that area.
I can attest that all my hours playing Gran Turismo 3 have helped me learn the skills needed to take corners here in town at 90 mph, and if necessary, to use other cars to help me out if I come in too fast!
Does gaming turn kids into Jocks? First of all, let's say athletes, because Jock just isn't a good word. So kids play video games all their lives, it makes them quicker and more reflexive, and turns them into athletes? Well it sounds reasonable. Maybe those kids were already athletes and they liked their sports so they like to play them on video games too. Maybe the competitive spirit that makes the kids want to play video games and beat their friends carries over to athletic events and gives them more drive than others. I doubt that sitting in front of a TV all day makes you more athletic, I don't care what you're doing. I wish this was the absolute truth though, I would have had more time to play Madden 64 when I was in HS!
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~ now you know
Well, it isn't for Heinz-Harald Frentzen... I think that Williams will have a really good run and Mr. Schumacher the younger (Ralf) will pull another win out of the hat.
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Since everything on the battlefield will most likely be run via remote anyway... Games are basic training for skills they'll eventually need to serve in the remote controlled army of whichever dark overlord has the biggest market cap at the time... We have administration games for tomorrows administrators. Field games or FPS for tomorrows field soldiers. Tactical games for tomorrows officers... It's a "brave" new world!
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Wasn't this topic already posted in the article :4 1&mode=nested
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/07/22/19522
If this is meant to be an editorial, I do not see strong pros or cons. You do not even reference the original post on slashdot that brought this topic some attention.
David Byrd
CEO - 21st Century Tech., Inc.
URL: http://www.nite-surfer.com
David Byrd
CEO - 21st Century Tech., Inc.
URL: http://www.nite-surfer.com
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Won't somebody please think of the children!
Screw 3...
If you consider that the people who are playing these games are doing so during the time where they used to watch television, the results are not too surprising seeing as how I have a hard time finding a less mentally stimulating experience than tv (especially considering what these kids were watching (ahem, *mon)
The most interaction you get from tv is changing channels, messing with the volume, and throwing hamburgers at Callista Flockheart trying to get her to eat more because she looks under-fed.
the more exercise a brain gets, the better it works. Interaction is better for you than no-action.
-PYves
This is old news. I read about this several weeks ago. Who ever is at the top needs to review these stories more carefully before posting them.
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Just because a bunch of people believe or do something stupid, doesn't make it any less stupid.
So Mr. Katz, now that you can be considered a Jock, does that mean we don't have to read anymore whiny articles about high-school geek-trouncing? Thank the Lord Almighty!
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One more post on the journey to negative Karma history!
I remember a few years back, reading that the U.S. army was using Quake during basic training. If nothing else, first-person shooters with a team element, like Rainbow Six, Team Fortess,or Counter-Strike make great tactical simulators. So I guess gaming skillz are useful for mud soldiers too...
Wanted: One witty yet thought provoking
"Their minds and bodies work together much better than those of most other people."
Really? I only notice my ass getting bigger after too much gaming, but maybe I'm not targeting the right muscles when I drag the mouse around. Oh wait a sec, maybe it's because mine is optical and there is less friction due to the lack of a ball. That makes sense. The whole focus of this study and article seems silly to me. Maybe since I live in the real world, instead of the sensationalist wired columnist's, where somehow nerds are fighting an apocalyptic battle royale with parents and jocks.Does anyone else notice that they are an avid gamer and still manage to be a completely normal, emotionally well adjusted person? Most are, and we don't need a scientific study to show it. And the odd exceptions either go on a rampage or write pseudointellectual articles filled with cliche's in an effort to drive others to the same level of madness. On a side note, Max Payne rules!
Yeah I think their offices are right next to the Deptartment of Mispelinggs.
m00.
Im ready for my multimillion dollar contract. sign me up. all i need now is an agent.
Seriously though, if you practice, your coordination gets better. Sit down and wire up a 20000+-wire breadboarded *something* (it was a neural net in my case) and you'll get a *lot* better at wiring. Nowadays I've got excellent dexterity and okay hand-eye coordination. I really only play about 3 hours of games a week (well, lump it together, its more like a solid week once a month or two), and code (and hardware equivalent) the rest, but still, I say it helped me.
Hardware, software, and blinking lights!
Republicans like Attorney General Ashcroft and the President
Although the prez is a ReBloodlican, the A.G. can't be considered to be one.
Just ask his constituents.
I found it easier to concentrate, program, and the like when I am in season for a sport, not becasue I played quake for three hours straight. I love videogames, but exercise forces one to be alert. Sitting in chair doesn't.
Liquid Gaming - Your daily dose of gaming news
Maybe it's time to think about becoming an expatriate.
Yes, Jon. Leave. Please.
Just because the played the game doesn't mean it made them loose their grip on reality. The fault of Columbine lies in the hands of the shooters and no one else.
Do you have your high school slang right? A jock is a geek's mortal enemy! They cruise through HS without working on the strength of their athletic ability alone, and get all the chicks because of it. We don't ever want to be one! Also, this survey is blatantly flawed. It's flagrant, really. It has no control group for God's sake! Also, they are basically reporting that correlation == causation, playing games increases chances for a good life when the truth is, a good upbringing causes both a good life and a chance to play video games. I know that is the case for me. For the love of God JonKatz, stop giving any validity to these terrible, terrible reports! My mom is a statistcal researcher, if she saw this, she would cry.
HAHAHAHAHA! I was right all that time... We have got to spread the word about this interesting study. There are kids who don't game nearly enough because their parents don't think it is healthy! They are game deficient. Face it. Whether you like it or not, we cannot live without violence. So lets embrace it... wait no.... lets... uh... show... um... the badness... of violence. Yeah!!!
I am supreme and you are not. This is good. But wait... someone is reading this. Huh? What was I talking about?
There's definitiely a lot uproar in America about how video games affect kids, and, as the article pointed out, "This rational approach to kids and gaming... stands in jarring contrast to the post-Columbine hysteria still prevalent in America, which holds that gaming commonly leads to addictive, anti-social behavior, even sometimes to violence." But, instead of just saying that video games might actually be beneficial, it would have been helpful to see which kinds of video games were correlated with which effects. It would be worthwhile to analyze the results by the type of video game the kids played, and to see if there was a difference between social behavior in kids who played, for example, violent games vs. racing games vs. puzzle games. This would give a great deal of insight into what these findings can be taken to mean.
"He may look like an idiot and talk like an idiot but don't let that fool you. He really is an idiot." -Groucho Marx
That's a really bad generalization. I have another theory.
Take myself for example. I am at the moment addicted to the Diablo 2 Expansion. I play it about 8 hours a day.
Yesterday, I played basketball for about an hour with a few of my friends. Just like I did on Monday.
I am by no means a fat slug. I weigh about 130 lbs, and I don't think that's considered overweight.
:: Beyond that, gamers are smarter, more likely to go to college, have more friends, read more, and get better-paying jobs than non-gamers. ::
Possibly because the parents that can afford gaming systems also have the opportunity to live in an environment where activities such as "reading", "going to college", and "getting a high paying job" are more commonplace?
I would wager than players of physical sports exhibit better coordination, but do not on average exhibit the same qualities listed above. I believe this is one subculture's attempt to justify hours spent in front of the screen.
Out of curiosity, do these "friends" they have so many of go by names like aCiDbUrn and z3rOk3wL?
Right...
http://cdtag.org