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New Study Links Video Games and Mental Problems
eldavojohn writes "A new study published today in Pediatrics Journal conducted in Singapore on three thousand children in grades third, fourth, seventh and eighth claims that one in ten are video game addicts and almost all of those suffer mental health problems. This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer. Among the accusations from the study are that playing video games leads to lower school performance and fewer social skills while exacerbating existing depression, anxiety and social phobias. Gamasutra reports that the Entertainment Software Alliance is already criticizing this study, saying, 'Its definition of "pathological gaming" is neither scientifically nor medically accepted and the type of measure used has been criticized by other scholars. Other outcomes are also measured using dubious instruments when well-validated tools are readily available. In addition, because the effect sizes of the outcomes are mainly trivial, it leaves open the possibility the author is simply interpreting things as negatively as possible.' It seems that the doctors are still disagreeing on whether or not gaming causes problems."
..Was reportedly walking. Now we need a study that links walking with mental problems!
Video games are way better then let your siblings lurk in the hood, take drugs, smoke or drink alcohol.
Correlation is not Causation.
If somebody did a study that discovered that video games are harmless fun, do you think it would get published? Do you think those who authored the study would get future funding, or tenure?
Could it be the other way around? Maybe people with this kind of mental health problems are likely to become addicted to video games.
Or, you know, it could be that people with mental problems also have a predisposition to become video game addicts.
Considering that Singapore is a country that will cane you for the most minor littering, spitting, or other innocuous offenses, I wonder how much higher the incidence of mental illness would be in that 10% if they didn't have an avenue to blow off steam.
My postings are informational and does not constitute legal advice. Act on it at your risk.
Jack Thompson has been disbarred! Who will take up the "All gamers are violent sociopaths" banner?
Mr. Hu is not a ninja.
I bet 8 in 10 of these school shooters have bicycles too. Why aren't they focused on the obvious bicycle problem?
Correlation is not causation. When will they figure this out?
Gaming, like alcohol and drugs is an escape. It's an escape from reality that is regularly used by people with mental problems. I don't have any evidence but I am hard-pressed to believe that games cause this condition.
How is this surprising? Excessive and compulsory behaviour is in itself a symptom of a mental health issue. The really interesting question is if limited cases of this behaviour cause mental health issues. As an example, if you drink 1 liter of alchohol each day, you have a drinking problem with the associated mental and physical health issues. Will you get those issues if you only drink a can of beer for supper?
Fast-food eaters and fast-food chains are protesting against "eating too much shitty food can make you morbidly obese" study.
-- Technology for the sake of technology is as pathetic as eschewing technology because it's technology.
As in cell-phone cancer, bad fat and bad guns, you can't prove a negative. This makes the topic a research grant magnet, so we'll be seeing this kind of garbage forever.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
I was wondering that these studies didn't show up 5 minutes after the shooting. I am sure Sarah Palin, YOUR new President, is behind this study... she cares so much for her country... god bless her.. xD
If you spend all your time living in a fantasy world, ignoring all your friends and social responsibilities, your social skills will suffer. When you finally confront your ignored responsibilities, you will perform badly. The more you ignore your depression, anxiety, and social phobias in favor of escapism, the worse they will get.
I'm not trying to say that these results are trivial; I'm just saying that they confirm things that seem obvious and widely accepted, even among gamers. I myself am a gamer and I see no reason to disagree with these results.
A new study published today on Slashdot conducted in my mind on hypothetical children in grades third, fourth, seventh and eighth claims that almost all of those suffer mental health problems.
The video game part is irrelevant. Not as confident about the 3rd/4th graders but I don't know many middle school kids who aren't at least moderately depressed. They are in middle school, for christ's sake.
I hear sports cause bodily harm. They also cause aggression. Being in sports competitively can also lead to steroid use. Playing a game leads to mental exercise. Sure, you're not moving much(unless it's Wii, Move, or Kinect), but I'd rather play make-believe games then come home with something broken. There should be a study on how sports affect teen aggression and how the competitiveness of sports lead to athletes doing things to their bodies that isn't healthy.
Once again, a misleading Slashdot headline. The study does not claim that gaming causes mental problems. It claims that it can exacerbate existing depression, anxiety, and social phobia.
They're the modern day horoscopes. Horoscopes are still around, of course, but not as big as they were a couple of decades ago. It's modern to be science-like today, so what better way to fill the pages than hundreds and hundreds of quickly patched up provocative pseudo-studies.
People in the trade know that, just like horoscopes, these studies contradict each other, and for a good measure, often contradict themselves even in their premise, but hey, it's a living. You don't want to check the sources too much either, or things quickly fall apart. And then, what are you going to write about?
Apples bad for teeth, study shows. Reflex games make you slow, study says. Fast food not the cause of obesity, discovers a new study. Heroes are everywhere around us, study finds. You'll travel to a foreign country, study shows, and a tall handsome person is in your future, I mean ef it. Pump them articles.
Seriously though, I bet if you did a study on the number of men under 25 you would find that 90% play video games or have played video games (aka, what they call a gamer). It would be like saying that the gunman didn't like doing chores or had at some point attended a concert.
People who feel bad inside want to escape reality. Some turn to games. Is this surprising?
I'm betting the gaming is a symptom, not a cause. Not that I'd say it's harmless to escape into a game when you really need therapy.
.: Max Romantschuk
"This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer."
Conveniently? I don't think that word means what you think it does.
Perhaps there is a correlation but it doesn't imply causality. It might be that the 10% of pupils with mental health problems sought out gaming as a way of coping.
The one in ten that are "addicted" to video games are the normal one in ten that have mental issues, and the video game addictions are just symptoms of the problems they would have anyway? Before video games there were plenty of other reasons to neglect school and chores... I know I came up with plenty of them as a child.
Every time a shooting happens, it seems like video games are brought into the mix somehow. The news is reporting that this guy is "crazy", but what they aren't reporting is that there were TONS of people who KNEW is was totally nuts, and didn't report it. Then he was able to go to a Walmart to buy ammo (he actually got denied by 1 walmart and had to go to the next because the first realized something was "off" about him).
Perhaps what we need is a National "You're Freakin' Nuts" Database, which will have to be checked not just for gun and ammo purchasing, but also for game purchases over a rating of E?
How far are we going to go in blaming games for the actions of PEOPLE though? If there WAS a database of crazies, but he bought "Rapala Pro Bass Fishing", too the included rod and reel and sharpened the end of it like a shiv, and killed someone with it, is it the video game's fault?
Exaggeration? Yes. Just as stupid as blaming games for a shooting? Yes.
"I hope you know how very lucky you are to know me, because I am so incredibly incredible."
Of course it's gaming.
I mean, there's no way that the 24 hours news cycle, fueled by talking heads is contributing to this in anyway. No chance outrageous commentary and over the tope persecution of opinions, individuals, and points of view you don't agree with, for whatever reason. (Choice, Ignorance, Lack of Understanding, etc.) could be contributing in any meaningful way.
Inflammatory rhetoric never hurt anyone, right? Never stirred anyone to action, right?
I bet 8 in 10 of these school shooters have bicycles too. Why aren't they focused on the obvious bicycle problem?
Who will win? I will pay top dollar to watch that match . . .
Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
Maybe it is because normal people do not play video games... (ducks!)
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
Any activity that displaces the individual's perception from reality has the potential to contribute to mental illness. Whether it is drugs, TV, online games or romance novels, susceptible people risk becoming wrapped up in a fantasy world. Most often the results are benign to the outside world, so the pathology goes unnoticed. It doesn't mean the problem doesn't affect and detract from the lives of many.
I agree completely. I think it is more likely that these kids were messed up to begin with and video games are just an easy thing to do solo in your room to occupy your time or distract yourself, rather than have proper social interaction with friends. I still miss when the focus of video games was to have your friends over and you would all play together and compete; it just isn't the same now that everything in that zone has shifted to online. Heck, even racing games nowadays don't seem to offer split-screen action! Is my only recourse to get a Wii?! Argh!
"Never give up, for that is just the time and place when the tide will change." -Harriet Beecher Stowe ^_^
Lets get it strait... the Tuscan shooter played ONE online game called "earth empires" which was about as sophisticated as mafia wars. The only interesting part of this were the posts he made in that games forums. He was clearly mentally unhinged and as you read them you can see the community is totally confused about what he's posting. They aren't sure if he's a Troll, just stupid or bat shit crazy. Unfortunately it ended up being the latter.
http://www.earthempires.com/jared-loughner-arizona-shooter-posts
These kind of studies are fine, showing that there is a link between video games and mental problems, but careless interpretration and reporting of the data screws it all up. Surely it's obvious that people with mental problems, especially the people they studied, which have "depression, anxiety and social phobia", will withdraw from society and play video games OR some other solitary pastime. But that makes for a boring headline. So, it becomes, video gaming may cause mental problems, your child may be at risk!
At least video gaming doesn't cause shootings for the moment. Thanks to similar loose causation/correlation, shootings are caused by Republicans...
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As an avid gamer since the days of the Atari 2600, up through PC gaming, a good 30 years. I can honestly say that no amount of gaming has made me want to randomly shoot people. What medical or scientific research do I need to link those two, exactly none.
According to wikipedia, yeah I know, take it with a grain of salt, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Singaporean "74% of the population is Chinese" and that's as of 2009. Since we also know that Chinese are pretty much leading the way with computer addiction, online addiction and dare I say gaming addiction. I'd be interested to know what percentage of that 1 in 10 ratio is Chinese.
I am Bennett Haselton! I am Bennett Haselton!
Widely reported? This is the first time I've even heard this in relation to the Tucson shooter. Second, convenient timing? Maybe the submitter doesn't understand how scientific publishing works, but there is no way to time the release of your paper. You submit it months before it actually gets published, it gets sent out for peer-review, rejected, revised, resubmitted, ad nauseum.
ahhh just shut up, everyday there is a new study..
I always wondered if a lot of this is caused by sensory input to the visual cortex, and other senses, and game pads that try and force handedness and making the brain work in a way the person is not accustomed too due to side of brain dominance. It seems that maybe a game needs a way of setting it's self up according to a quick test at the beginning to calibrate the input system to the users way of operating instead of how the developers want it to work. There are things like asynchronous brain interfaces via the auditory inputs and asynchronous evolution theories which point to the game interface needs to adjust it's self to each person individually not the other way around. The world in 180 from the way it should work.
The billing bible DSM-IV (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders) they use is populated by popular vote. Not by any scientific conclusions. No blood work, etc.
If you read the items in it you quickly get the idea they are simply trying to cover everything we do, which then makes it a cinch to say you need our services, which always means drugs. Which for them means a lot more money.
According to the DSM jet lag is a disorder. So is it to be anxious, even bitter over loosing your job.
How about oppositional defiant disorder, caffeine intoxication disorder, mathematics disorder, sibling relational problem, and frotteurism, the "intentional rubbing up against or touching of another, usually unsuspecting, person for the purpose of sexual arousal.
Based on the DSM psychiatrists declare that their drugs and other treatments work to improve mental illness, even though psychiatrists admit that they do not know how or why these drugs “work.”
Which could explain why the side effects are often worse than the symptoms they supposedly handle. Can't fall a sleep -- take this drug! It might give you kidney failure and in rare cases kill you. But we think it's a good idea to sell you dangerous drugs because it won't kill us.
In the end I really doubt that the excitement and joy of overcoming the challenges in a game is a mental disorder. Which is not to say that you could not end up spending more time in front of it than you should. Affecting school work, job, spouse etc. But that's not a disorder, simply wrong priorities in life. Teaching people to strive for balance in life would be far better and it does not have bad side effects.
The dude was caught in the act. I think "suspect" is more of the same newspeak we hear more and more. V.annoying.
I have smelled a lot of smoke, but I never had the graving to smoke. I have drunk booze but never became an alcoholic. I have fallen hard to the ground but never broke a bone.
Ergo, there are no smoking addicts, no alcoholics and no broken bones in the world since they never happpened to me, they can't happen to anyone.
Anecdotes are NOT evidence.
What seems odd to me is that most gamers will readily admit mood music exists, certain music can put you into a certain mood. But a game with mood music playing on far more then just your sense of hearing cannot affect your mood. Why?
The most telling argument I find that gaming does have an influence is that so many gamers react with such outright hostility to any negative comments about gaming. Kinda like how it is hard to believe a drug user claiming drugs are non addictive when they risk going to jail for the 3rd time for a joint... eheh.
You sound a LOT like the tobacco industry claiming there is no link between smoking and disease or alcohol producers claiming the effects on society are minimal.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
One of his two favorite authors was Nietzsche. His friends described him as a thoroughly nihilistic individual. Seems Nietzsche, not video games, had a truly profound impact on him.
Yet just the other day, I had a liberal coworker stridently tell me it was that eeeeeeevil Sarah Palin that made him do it. When I pointed out the Nietzsche issue, and the fact that he didn't listen to any right wing rhetoric, didn't matter. Heck, she didn't even know who Nietzsche was... but that didn't stop her, like a lot of liberals, from blaming this on Sarah Palin and some cliche political map.
1/10th of ppl are subject to mental deficiencies of some sort
Because of that 1/10th, we cannot drink in the street, smoke cannabis, drive fast, etc...mostly because that small fringe of the population cannot cope with it.
So I propose we start discriminating on those 1/10th of the population and stop making the live of the 9/10th miserable. Wanna smoke dope ? have a psy check. Wanna drive fast ? have a "left lane permit". Wanna drink in the street ? "pass a binge check and prove you are not agressive when you drink.
You fail ? I still get to enjoy life....
It takes 40+ muscles to frown, but only four to extend your arm and bitchslap the motherfucker
Watch our for Reuben Fine's famous articles.
My first Journal Entry ever, in 8 years! http://slashdot.org/journal/365947/aphelion-scifi-fantasy-horror-poetry-webzine
Actually, it seems to me you illustrate an even bigger problem.
The way I remember it, a correlation in statistics (as opposed to the usual "I have a couple of anecdotes and watch me leap to a conclusion") involve looking at the covariance of two variables vs their normal distribution for _both_ variables. Even in binary terms, you'd have to look at the set of people who, say, do bad in school, people who play games, and the intersection. Though a more useful correlation would look at something like SAT grades vs hours played, or some such.
And even then, you know, actual measured variables than someone's self-assessment. See for example Dunning Krueger for one problem with self-assessments.
Basically you don't have to look at just how many people skipped school for gaming, but basically at whether you're seeing more than the product of two unrelated probabilities. The relevant question is, basically, are people who play video games more likely to skip school than those who don't?
What I'm getting at is that asking "have you ever skipped school to play a game?" without also asking "have you ever skipped school?" is pretty worthless. A questionnaire like yours which asks, or _also_ asks, about the distribution of that variable without the conditional, would actually be a better exercise.
IOW, asking just "have you ever skipped school to play a game?" will produce a semblance of a correlation just because there is no way to say, "does it count if I skipped school to smoke behind the school instead?" It's like asking "have you ever masturbated in the bathroom?" and concluding that bathrooms cause masturbation. It's not a real covariance if they're together simply because the question is phrased to only allow a "yes" if they appear together.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Maybe, but I don't get the impression that the survey actually delved into that kind of details.
The question wasn't if you've played games to the point that you have to be dragged kicking and screamin to do homework or any chores, but rather whether you've done it at all. Which, yes, glosses over that important difference.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
"This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer."
According to the linked NYT article, Loughner was posting in the discussion boards of Earth Empires... "The Earth Empires discussion boards are an integral part of the game, which is more primitive than later online games because game play, which challenges players to govern a country and make decisions about economic and military tactics, is largely based on typing in commands. Mr. Loughner’s exchanges on the site seem to be a crucial component of his daily social interactions, not uncommon for any member of an online community."
The submitter might want to conflate this to the media broadcasting him as a gamer, but this article is the first I've heard of it, and it doesn't really do that either.
Ya ya, gaming ruins your psychological health, TV rots your brain, Radio will destroy free will.
nothing new to see here, please move along
And an assessment on the value of those people conducting the studies. Exactly what do they contribute by constantly posting argument/counter-argument studies that x is good/bad for you in quarterly cycles. At what point should we tell them to go get real jobs?
Related /. article still on main page.
At least, I think they are related :)
have there been any studies done between people who shoot lots of people in public and mental illnesses?
This study should come as quite a surprise to the educators I dealt with growing up...in my day all the scary/loner/mistfits problems were caused by playing Dungeons and Dragons!. Except for those few of us who took it to the next level, and played Paranoia! The computer was out to get us! Really!
A study that links mental health with addiction? Really? I thought that a large percentage of addicts are people with mental health issues, regardless of their addiction? If you're drug is video games, then how different is that from any other? It can change your personality, it can wreck your family and social life. And it can also cause health issues. I know, cause I'm a former gaming addict that used gaming to battle depression. As an addiction, it's dangerous because when compared to drugs, it's almost benign other than taking up your time which also makes it just as dangerous as other serious substances.
Management is doing things right; leadership is doing the right things. - Peter F. Drucker
If you've done any World of Warcraft: Cataclysm instances since launch and seen how horribly stupid people are, this study is hardly a surprise.
Not to bash Singapore, but aren't those people very big on the "tradition and family unity/the nail that sticks up must be hammered down" front? Even in relation to the other Asian countries?
Emotions! In your brain!
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I am a gamer and so are many of my friends. We have no mental problems as far as I know, have girlfriends, and lead normal lives. However there is one specific person type that makes this right: "professional gamers" in countries where "professional gamers" mean living off unemployment checks.
Every single professional gamer I know has never had a girlfriend, is a virgin, has insomnia, claustrophobia (for some), claustrophilia (for others), and various other mental problems. This is not a generalization because it goes for EVERY professional gamer that I know in the UK, USA, Italy and Israel.
Maybe they need to add these words to such articles?
Parents should watch their kids if they don't have any problems. Not just checking if they have cold. Sometimes starting to play too much might be just indication that there is something wrong with kid's surrounding. Either in school or anywhere else. What you think will happen when kid is bullied? It will start avoiding people and eventually finds that playing games is much more satisfactory than playing with "friends".
And sometimes it is just big misunderstanding. As it was in movie Role Models.
As someone else already mentioned, they hadn't even proven mental problems. The whole thing is a survey which depends on exactly how accurate those people self-assessed (e.g., I can see how depressed people would be more likely to blame themselves than those who aren't depressed), and largely circular logic anyway. The survey is largely of the form, if you answered "yes" to 5 of 10 questions to the effect of "did you ever do X to avoid Y" then you're an addict to X, without any attempt at distinguishing "too much" or "to the extent of affecting one's school performance" or anything.
They took pretty much a list of what kids _do_, and slapped "to play games" next to them, and defined that as a problem, while the same without games was obviously not a problem and not even asked about. The real common denominator there is "video games are bad", and it's a mental problem only because they say so.
Even if someone could argue that _some_ of the things they asked about are bad if you do them too much or regularly (like skipping homework) -- but I don't see them trying to establish if that's the case -- others are pretty much stuff that a catch-all and far from being necessarily a problem. I'd like to see anyone who can say with a straight face that they never had anything that can count as "bad feelings" or that they never resorted to something more fun instead of dwelling on them. Sure, "playing games to make bad feelings go away" lets one paint their own mental image of some terminally depressed kid who has no other escape from some horrible feelings, but someone could answer "yes" to that for just, dunno, playing a game (or reading a book or whatever) because they're bored or lonely when the parents are away, or just when having an occasional bad day, like everyone has now and then.
They don't actually either establish addiction _or_ mental problems, except for an audience which is already prepared to go "OMG addiction" if anyone's idea of a more fun time includes video games at all.
I mean, I was a kid myself. At that age you don't understand why those adults insist that you should sit through boring maths classes (I could do maths very well, but I hated it anyway) or history classes (which, as I discovered later could even be great fun if it weren't turned into rote memorizations of dates and places in school) or geography classes (I mean, in history at least something happens, but geography just lies there anyway) and the like. An the argument that you'll regret not doing it when you'll be in your mid 20's is kinda moot when we're talking about a date as far in the future as 3 times your total life span so far, and time perception for kids is proven to be dilated. It seemed like, dunno, telling you that you must do something today or there will be consequences some 200 years in the future. Fuck that, it's like an eternity away.
Of course I tried to skip school or skip chores and do something more fun, even before there was a computer around in my parents' home.
In fact, you could substitute computer with "cat" in their kind of questionnaire, and I'd have to answer truthfully that:
- I had sometimes skipped chores to play with the cat
- I sometimes skipped homework to play with the cat
- I could have done better in an exam or test or two if I hadn't played with the cat (mom still tells everyone about when she thought I was learning for an important exam and then she finds me playing with the cat under the table in my room)
- If I'm to go all introspective about it, I could honestly I sometimes played with the cat to avoid some bad feelings that are undefined enough to include just about anything (e.g., boredom or loneliness. Pets are great against both.)
Etc. I mean, I don't even know their whole list of questions, but I batted 4 out of 4 questions that are mentioned in the Reuters article. That's a 100% score, right?
OMG, cat addict. Right?
But somehow I didn't grow up to raise 100 cats in my flat and snort furballs instead of going to work, or anything, and I haven't attacked anyone with a cat either. It didn't even cause me to flunk anything in school.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
If someone played football for an average of 5 hours a day they don't get called addicts they get called David Beckham and Pele. Why is it different with computer games?
America, Home of the Brave.
Here's part of the problem.
Someone actually shot at Eric Cantor's office at the same time. It was a very heated issue, but we have to face up to the fact that it was the issue itself, not the rhetoric, that was to blame. Obamacare is precisely the kind of legislation that our founders did not want passed at the federal level because it would bring about a sharp conflict between the states.
We ought to consider ourselves fortunate that a few shots and bricks were all that came of it. Just look at the violent protests in Britain over tuition cuts, to say nothing of what frequently happens in France when the unions want something.
Could it be that people with mental problems (e.g. social anxiety disorder) are more likely to seek solace in online games? Although from personal experience, playing online games does seem to increase aggression, especially when some asshat interrupts my game...
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I don't believe there is any generally agreed-upon definition of what actually constitutes a "study", so: caveat lector. (Of course the media just want your attention, so they'll usually publish this kind of crap without scrutiny, but I digress...)
HAND.
I bet that more than 1 out of 10 of those children are religious.
Just saying.
Sounds like Dr. Fredric Wertham all over again.
http://www.psu.edu/dept/inart10_110/inart10/cmbk4cca.html
There is a war going on for your mind.
It's even more perverse than that, even if you assume that all kids answered 100% truthfully and objectively. (Yeah, right.)
Let's say you ask a few thousands people how many miles they drove in the last year. Then you ask something like "did a bird ever crap on your windshield while driving?" That conditional right there is what you can do a pseudo-correlation for morons with. Of course the guys who drove only 1000 miles will be a lot less likely to say "yes" than the ones who drove 100,000 miles. So, there we go, we just proved that driving causes crap on your windshield. QED.
That's exactly what that kind of questions does in the survey too.
They don't actually establish that those "addicts" actually skip chores more than other kids, for example. The only thing that is asked is if that ever happened in conjunction with video games. Of course those who play more hours are more likely to say "yes", even without needing any other correlation involved. Even if they were perfectly uncorrelated, you'd still be looking at P(X)*P(Y), which goes up as P(X) goes up. It's just to be expected.
A more perverse effect is that you can use that forced conditional to associate anything with anything.
E.g., questions boiling down to "have you skipped homework in conjunction with X" or "have you done X while depressed" can show a false correlation between any X and bad school performance. A child more likely to skip homework or more depressed is likely to have poorer results in school, whatever activity X may be. Whether it's gaming or not. It could be walking, reading books, or playing with the cat, or whatever.
Whatever that activity X may be, what remains is that you found a sub-group of kids who do one or more of skipping homework, not studying for tests, etc, and some may also be depressed too. Of course they'll do worse in school than the larger mass of kids who aren't selected for those traits.
Essentially now we're seeing the effect of P(Y) on that P(X)*P(Y). Those with a higher P(X)*P(Y) are likely to have a higher P(Y) too. By choosing enough activities Y1, Y2, Y3, etc, with a bad effect on kids' grades, you can make it sound like you're seeing the effects on X on grades, but really you just selected a group likely to do all those bad things.
I mean, you could do a similar trick for making anything else sound bad. E.g., let's say I want to prove that listening to music while driving is bad. Lemme see:
- were you fined for speeding while listening to music?
- did you run a red light while listening to music?
- do you ever listen to music as a way to calm down when angry at another driver?
- do you ever listen to music as a way to stay awake on very long trips?
Etc.
So first I do such a list of, let's call them "music addicts" and then I can objectively show that that group is more likely to cause accidents and costs insurance more money, so, you know, maybe music in cars is a bad thing. But in reality I didn't show that. I just selected a sub-group of those that have one or more problems like routinely speeding, running red lights, driving while extremely tired, and getting road rage. And of course they'll be more likely to have accident than the group which wasn't selected for those traits. Whether there is any correlation between music and doing those things, I didn't actually prove it. The only connection was in imposing a bias in those who can say "yes".
Same for the kids in the study. Any correlation between their group and grades is pretty much tautological.
In fact, I'd say that they have to do the intermediate step of that survey is what should have been a red flag to people. If there is actually a correlation between gaming and either school performance or mental problems, such a survey would have been unneeded. Then you could just use the first set of questions and correlate number of hours played to grades. That they must do such a "have you done things that might indicate depression or lower your grades, in conjunction with gaming" survey and then correlate that result with... depression and lower grades, is the whole sleight of hand right there.
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
Seems like you're complaining about a false negative (justifiably in this instance). Can we decrease that without increasing the opposite type of error?
Then again, you'd think the system would move quicker when the facts are this obvious.
I listen to both RIAA and non-RIAA stuff if I like the music, tangential business/politics nonwithstanding.
So once again we have an article where two attributes are noted, and one is assumed to cause the other because it's currently fashionable. Would it not be equally valid to assume that mentally ill people, ill from some unrelated cause, find the escapism of video gaming alluring? Maybe because most video games I've played don't attempt to determine if you're mentally ill, nor do they avoid or ostracize you for thinking oddly?
The preceding comment is my own, and in no way construes an opinon of the Emperor of Mankind.
No Science...
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hrrrjmmmmmm...
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
This is great news. They can drive it underground. We'll create it and sell it for ten times as much. Prohibition is great for business.
Tiger Blooded Bi-Winning Machine
Yes but what music and TV were they listening too at the time? Perhaps Nat King Cole drove them to violence. I know it does me.
Tiger Blooded Bi-Winning Machine
The suspect in the Tucson shooting also ate hamburgers and drank milk.
EVERYBODY PANIC!
You are right; Cantor's office being shot at had nothing to do with rhetoric.
"A preliminary investigation shows that a bullet was fired into the air and struck the window in a downward direction, landing on the floor about a foot from the window," the Richmond police department said in a statement. "The round struck with enough force to break the windowpane but did not penetrate the window blinds."
Bullet That Hit Eric Cantor's Office From Random Gunfire - http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20001283-503544.html
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They name a new disorder defined by playing video games a lot, then find some kids who play video games a lot, then decide that a high percentage of them have this disorder. Finally, an actual correct usage of begging the question.
If you are not allowed to question your government then the government has answered your question.
Guns don't kill people, video games kill people!
No one ever understands that linking one thing to another is still inconclusive. There's no side to take because there's not enough research. Nuff' said.
Correlation != causation
Perhaps the mentally deficient kids play games more BECAUSE they're mentally deficient. Perhaps they play video games more BECAUSE they are doing badly in school and are not interested.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Did they even consider that it could be people who have mental problems are more likely to play video games as supposed to the other way round?
As the saying goes correlation != causation.
null
Correlation does not imply causation. The mentally ill play video games and use drugs more often than the general population. This does not mean that playing video games or using drugs causes mental illness.
... I'll hit square three times fast and then hold it down! Then they'll be sorry!!! Bwahahahahaaaa! Then again, I could change games and use Cryptos anal probe on them! Bwahahahahahaaa!
Sure enough, the cow costume was hanging up next to the superhero outfit and sailors uniform. (S,Spud)
Who the hell wants social skills?
Well that means our society has mental problems especially since our current and future weapons will be controlled by the Militarily trained gamers. How else to stop Skynet when it becomes self aware?
People that get addicted to a fantasy world typically have traits that make them want to escape the real world. Actually escaping into a fantasy world only burns more bridges between you and everyone else, leading to an even worse condition. Some of the worst gaming addicts remind me of drug addicts in that they say they got nothing else, the only people they know is their clan and everyone else has backed off just like with a drug addict. In the choice between bad influences and no social network at all, most people pick the bad influences.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings