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Male Brains 'Wired for Videogame Obsession'
thinkzinc notes a story indicating that, according to a new study, men have a harder time putting down a controller than women do. Researchers at Stanford did brain imaging work on a group of young test subjects while they played a simple PC game. Besides the 'obvious' conclusion that men were more 'aggressive at gaining territory on the screen', the tests also indicated that male brains showed more activity in the reward and addiction components of the brain. "The lead author, Dr. Allan Reiss, noted that most of the video games that are popular with men are territory and aggression-type games. 'These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females,' he said. Other recent surveys indicate that about 40 percent of Americans regularly play games on a computer or console, but young males are two or three times more likely than females to feel addicted to video games, Reiss said. "
Video games are generally written to suit the obsessions of male brains, are they not?
-Matt
The pictures my brain is wired for interest in leave nothing to question.
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...and in other news, scientists studying grizzly bears in Canada have finally shown that they do, in fact, defecate in the woods.
Female Brain 'Wired for Shopping Obsession'... news at 11.
I prefer to be certain they are pictures of the opposite sex.
We need legislation banning video games. We must protect us from ourselves!
Every time I read a report of this form it always has the underling tone that what men are better at is a debilitating weakness. Why?
My girlfriend is JUST as addicted, if not MORE to the same games as I am. Oblivion and Black and White 2! It becomes a system of trade offs of who's playing what at what time...
It has more to do with the person then the gender! She can wale on me in UT and I make rockin' brownies.
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Mario and Sonic told me this isn't true.
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Please take your politically correct pronouncements elsewhere. I am a liberal, but also a science-minded person. I feel ashamed for all liberals when science is denounced when it might suggest that humans are not all equal in the ways liberals would like them to be. Sorry, but real science doesn't care how the world should be, it only cares how it is.
Why is it not controversial to investigate whether certain races are more prone to certain illnesses, but it is controversial to offer a drug that seems to have more health benefits to one race than another?
Well I'll answer my own question. Some of the concern is based on justified anger over past atrocities committed by people who called themselves 'scientists' (e.g. infecting blacks with Syphilis). But when that anger translates to 'In 2008 I won't accept a drug that is targeted for my race because it might be a plot to harm us', I think we're talking tinfoil hat time.
Why is it not controversial to suggest that one gender has more physical strength than another, but it is heresy to even wonder whether one gender might have more intelligence/compassion/aggression/addiction than the other?
My suspicion is that people get more sensitive when we're talking about the mind vs. the body, because then the subject is the core of who we are. Fine, we're all sensitive about that. But what justifies a knee-jerk reaction that this is just 'junk science'? As a scientist would say, prove it!
By the way, personal anecdotal evidence suggests that this study is on to something. I know that my son and I are certainly prone to being hooked on territorial/aggressive games, while my daughter and wife don't show such tendency. And this pattern extends to other people I know. This is not proof, just commentary.
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Title of the article: "Male brains wired for video game obsession"
That is VERY offensive. Men in the U.S. are the targets of an extreme amount of hostility. I'm guessing that the person who wrote that headline knew that being hostile toward men is in fashion, and wrote it to get attention for the advertisements.
Quote: "These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females," he said.
Fraud: He has not shown any gender differences in the brain. He has shown that, at the time, those particular subjects were using their brains differently.
The article does imply something useful about brains, however. The fact that Slashdot editors wanted us to see it may be an indication that the editors are not in touch with reality. Maybe that's because the editors spent so much time playing games rather than trying to relate to reality.
If you want to experience a society where men aren't hated, go to Brazil. However, don't fall in love with the first woman you meet, like many of my acquaintances.
I agree. While using a "territory" game may fall inline with the mass's perception of video games, they're not the only games out there. The industry has evolved to gear games at their male target audience, though recently innovative and casual games outside of the "territory and agression" mentality are becoming common. When you test subjects on games in which the male brain is supposed to be inclined, it should be little surprise that they find the games more addictive. This shouldn't necessarily mean that video games can't be as compelling to women as to men. Have the study participants play a variety of games -- not just those related to screen territory -- and then let me know if this still holds true.
I agree. I have trouble putting down the controller, but my gf is afraid of picking it up because she can't stop whatsoever until I snap her out of it.
I think it has to do with attention span. Those who love constant stimulation like my gf get a serious high from video games like the Sims where there is always things going on.
"I only speak the truth"
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I see nothing wrong with that. I like being barbaric. I like to scratch my nuts when I first wake up in the morning. I like to just shrug it off when women talk about their feelings (Here's a clue, ladies. If you're not my wife, I don't give a flying fuck about your feelings). I like to eat leftover pizza for breakfast and wash it down with a colder beer. I like porn. I like loud, nasty rock 'n roll. I like sex and violence.
After I'm done with my day's work I like to fire up a game and beat the everloving shit out of anything that gets in my way. I don't see anything wrong with this. After all, it's not like I'm at a bar getting drunk and picking fights with other patrons. I'm not hurting anybody or damaging other people's property. Of course, now it's an 'addiction', so I'm sure that there are women and some men who are traitors to their sex who will think that I and other gamers 'need help'.
I don't need help, and I sure as hell don't want any. I like being a barbaric, sex-crazed, gamer who eats too much, drives too fast, and has the volume up way too high. I'm an asshole, and I'm proud of it!
I write sci-fi for metalheads
Just so we're clear, the Tuskegee expiriments did not involve infecting black men with syphilis. I know it was a minor point in your post, but it was inaccurate, is a common mistake, and I think given it's historical significance it's important to get it right. The men already had syphilis, and when the study began there was no known cure for it. 15 years into the study penicillin was known to cure it, so there was no reason to continue the study other than to watch poor uneducated black men die, which they did, and furthermore the men were lied to to keep them from getting cured.
But the study did NOT involve infecting them men with the disease directly. In some ways that's worse, because the study seems to have started off as a good study by good scientists and then morphed somehow into preventing patients from getting cured entirely because of their race. An evil study like "let's infect black men with syphillis" is something only comic book villians will waste time doing. A good study eventually turning into evil, I don't know how that happens or how we would prevent that today.
Just because it's difficult to come up with a good experiment doesn't mean it's not worth doing. Many famous scientists of the past earned their fame by creating a brilliant experiment that nobody had thought of before. Just because you or I cannot think of a good test doesn't mean that it's not testable.
While people can absolve themselves by citing some scientific report about their behavior, it would just be an excuse like any other. Conversely someone could become more aware of their nascent nature and try to more consciously control it. Like anything else, it's up to the individual to decide what they choose to do with the information at hand. For an easy example, someone could claim he beats his wife since he and his mom were beaten when he was a child. While there is a clear correlation between being beaten as a child and then beating a spouse as an adult, it would still just be an excuse. If the guy had been aware of this relationship at a younger age he may have sought treatment for anger management before letting it get out of control.
There's several branches of science built on almost nothing but human behavior including economics, sociology and criminology. It is notoriously difficult to test economic theories due to the complex human behavior as you describe (and even Greenspan has admitted that the Federal Reserve has a difficult time of predicting when a recession will occur and doesn't do it well), but there really is no alternative than to try to use a scientific approach and build various models, adjusting them to meet reality as time goes on.
Well, the IQ test regardless of race is controversial. On a recent Colbert Report a guest discussed how the IQ test is targeted for people within a certain environment and are not truely universal tests. He speculated that if someone like Lincoln were to take a modern IQ test he would quite possibly score less than 100 simply because people of his generation faced different problems and wouldn't have the needed experience to do well on the typical IQ test. Another example he gave was to show how a tribe in Africa would also score horribly on the IQ test due to living in a completely different environment and facing different problems on a daily basis. (he went into much greater detail in his interview and his book, but I don't recall them now)
I agree that a study of 'intelligence' comparing races using various metrics probably isn't a good idea though. However, if, for example, one socio-economic group of elementary school students is underperforming it is probably worthwhile to become aware of the problem (through standardized tests) and then attempting to postulate the causes and try to adress them.
A: If you are male, and go to Brazil (and Thailand), you will begin to realize that all your life in the U.S. you have been treated badly by women.
It's reasonably easy, for me anyway, to find women in the U.S. who are personally very interesting and are responsible. They are often valuable employees, for example. It is difficult to find a woman in the U.S. who I would consider marriageable. My women friends say the men in the U.S. are just as bad, and I have every reason to believe they are right, but haven't done as much personal investigation of men, of course.
In Brazil, you will find many women who should marry someone, even if they are not right to marry you.
But, take your time. It takes a lot of effort to build a marriage-quality relationship.
Women from the Thai culture in Thailand (not from the Chinese culture) are often also quite gentle with men. Although I have met Thai women I thought were marriageable in both Thailand and the U.S., in general they are too childish. Also, there are huge cultural differences.
Marrying someone from another culture, even the Brazilian culture, requires extra effort and insight and willingness to define and learn the best elements of your own culture and the other person's.
If all of this is outside your experience, you may be helped by remembering the song "One Night in Bangkok". The song is about a true story. One year the World Chess Championships were held in Bangkok. Some of the chess players went out at night. The women were so nice to them that some of them fell in love immediately. I have known European and American men in Thailand who did that.
I saw the aftermath of instant love in Bangkok happen with my own eyes, standing on the corner on Patpong road about 20 years ago. A western woman was trying to get control again over the man she came with, after he had seen how nice the Thai women could be, even though the women he had seen were prostitutes, and therefore tended to be far less interesting than more moral women.
Those who don't like what I've said here can express their own theories about why there is a social breakdown in the United States. (Dollar falling in value, highest percentage of population in prison, and so on and on.)
Here's the actual paper: Hoeft_2008JPsychiatrRes.pdf
I emailed the progenitor of the paper about the "kind of video game" issue. I posit that word jumble games and MMORPGs are the sort of games that are likely to addict women.
If he ever writes back (unlikely), I'll post.
-l
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Both of you. Males aren't being persecuted. You have absolutely no fucking idea what it means to be persecuted, to be the target of outright hostility and to be the victim of discrimination. Well, not unless you're black or gay. I suspect you aren't, though.
What I do suspect is that you love your women to be submissive, to accept the man as the head of the household, and to believe in serving him. This is your prerogative - if you find a woman who is like that, go for it.
However, lack of submission has absolutely nothing to do with social breakdown, hostility against males or any other crap like that. If anything, I'd argue that the social breakdown that you see around you and the hostility that is expressed against you is the result of your chauvinistic, self-centered and egotistical attitude. You just can't handle an independent woman.
Seriously - prostitutes were nice to a man? No wai! Getouttahere! Wouldaneverguessedthat. Brazilian and Thai women are nicer? Wouldn't have anything to do with the fact their society is about as male dominated is it could possibly be, right?
Personally, I find that most brazilian women are either crazy or wallflowers. Thai women who made it out of Thailand seem to have adapted fairly well to western habits - but you can still tell who just arrived and who grew up here.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.