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Study Claims 8.5% of Young Gamers "Pathologically Addicted"
schnucki brings word of new research which claims roughly one in twelve American children between the ages of eight and 18 are "pathologically addicted" to video games. The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, says that "pathological status was a significant predictor of poorer school performance even after controlling for sex, age, and weekly amount of video-game play." However, Professor Cheryl Olson, who has conducted her own research into video game use, questioned Gentile's methodology, saying, "The author is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."
lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework.
Wrong. Parents and taxpayers sacrifice money, time and effort to pay for education; if students are too addicted to X to learn anything then it's money down the drain just like gambling.
"The author is repurposing questions used to assess problem gambling in adults; however, lying to your spouse about blowing the rent money on gambling is a very different matter from fibbing to your mom about whether you played video games instead of starting your homework."
I disagree. I would argue that there is no real difference. Both are falsehoods designed to misdirect the most important woman in the subject's life on the subject's activities, which are not only counterproductive but guaranteed to raise the woman's ire when/if discovered. There is a difference in the severity of the consequences but both lies are essentially the same. Lying liars and the lies they tell — souls in need of correction whether young or old. There's times lying might be justified, but neither of these are those times.
And yes, I do remember being a kid and lying about playing video games, and that I knew the difference between lying for a potentially justifiable purpose, and just lying to avoid getting in trouble. Thanks for asking.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"The study, conducted by Douglas Gentile, director of the National Institute on Media and the Family at Iowa State University, "
Ya, that is a totally impartial source when it comes to video games.
Hey, how about maybe the poor school performance was due to the fact that school is boring ( it is pretty much just memorising facts and figures ) and the more bored the child is, the more likely he is going to do something interesting/exciting like, I don't know, gaming?
School is boring. Work sucks. Life's a bitch and then you die. If we all just played video games and poker (or better yet, online poker!) instead of doing boring things like putting food on the table then we could all just escape from reality and starve to death!
So, 91.5% of young gamers are completely fine and video games in no way have altered their academic or social habits? Cool.
School is boring. Work sucks. Life's a bitch and then you die. If we all just played video games and poker (or better yet, online poker!) instead of doing boring things like putting food on the table then we could all just escape from reality and starve to death!
Some people get inspired, find learning enjoyable, get interesting jobs and make good money doing it. Others went to public schools.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education.
Instead of this silly polarization of school vs. games, maybe the educators ought to support the positive aspects of gaming instead of turning generations of gamers against them. I personally have benefited from video games with regard to my education. I would never have learned English at such a young age (I am not a native speaker) if not for all those hours spent playing adventure games. Puzzle games have a definite positive influence on a child's logic skills. Even social skills can be developed through multiplayer games - provided that working against others has adverse effects to the player. Sure, most things simply have to be learned from school books, but the point is that games can support the learning process, not just hinder it.
I think the article isn't saying that all poor scholastic performance are the fault of games but that games can be addictive and due to that and their time consuming nature, games are a factor. Kinda like how not all people who drink alcohol are alcoholics, but some are and this causes them to drive poorly or become violent. If this is the case, they might need some kind of social support structure to control their addictions lest they ruin their lives. On that note, I've actually witnessed a few college-mates, even smart ones, nearly flunk out because they had to get some item of power from an Everquest raid. Consequently, they lost sleep, didn't study, failed tests, etc. If they had some kind of support structure, they might be doing cooler things instead of working at the local Gap.
Yes, school work may be dull and difficult but there may be some merit to the argument that games addictive and draw our attention away from topics no matter how interesting or uninteresting they are. I think this study is not about blaming video games but in realizing that people have low self control and need help.
Wouldn't a certain percetange of the general population be susceptible to such an addiciton anyway?
So now we're trying to measure the impact.
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.
And you can tear my fingers from around my controller from my cold dead hands if you disagree...
Seriously, its up to parents to make sure that this doesn't happen, not Government. The problem is that there are too many lazy parents that prefer to keep their kids quiet with TV and Video Games than actually play together...Eductation doesn't stop at school, parents have an equal, if not more important, role in educating their children.
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Addiction as described by TFA is used as a means of escape, it even says so in the body of text, and if games didn't exist then some other medium would fill the void.
One of the other mediums definitely is Slashdot's comments..
It isn't surprising that 8.3% of American teens are addicted to video games, especially since some video games such as Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOs) require vast amounts of time to be invested in order to progress and compete. In the majority of MMOs you progress by gaining levels, usually by killing X amount of enemies for X amount of experience creating extremely time consuming and repetitive gameplay. As MMOs are by definition massively multiplayer the competitive element means that in order to compete you need to have equal or better equipment/level/skills as other players, which means that the people spending 40 hours a week grinding game content set the bar for the other players. Also there's the social aspect, many tasks in MMOs require players to work in groups, so there's the pressure of playing in order to appease/help out your friends. Combine that with the fact that the game developers are constantly moving the goalposts with every patch/expansion, thus reducing the relative value of your equipment/achievements/money requiring you need to invest even more time to remain competitive, and it's no surprise that hardcore gamers are neglecting work/school/family duties. And the problem compounds itself. Say you get a D on an assignment because you stayed up the night before playing games. Disappointed with your grade, you're likely to go and play the computer game because being successful at a game gives you a sense of achievement and results in increased confidence. However, while you're busy spending hours gaining virtual achievements you're not completing your next assignment, so you fall into a loop of confidence highs and lows. It all comes down to self discipline and good time management. I speak from experience as someone who spent 3 years between the ages of 16 and 19 putting in 35+ hours a week to World of Warcraft and EVE Online, having to retake my A level exams and still ending doing on a foundation year. I don't use games as an excuse of my failure because it's down to lack of self discipline, but I'm sure that the nature of the games I played compounded the situation.
Where is the superficial study that links the pathological addiction to sports with low grades? 'Cause I think you'd find more data in that one.