Usernames Reveal the Age and Psychology of Game Players (sciencedirect.com)

limbicsystem writes: Your online name can reveal a lot about you. Researchers from the University of York and Riot Games have shown that information harvested from the usernames of players who signed up to 'League of Legends' can sometime reveal both their ages and how they behave online. And the short story is that both younger players and players with obnoxious names are more likely to exhibit toxic online behavior.

Comments

And this is news?

[BarbaraHudson]

And "the short story is that both younger players and players with obnoxious names are more likely to exhibit toxic online behavior" is news? The opposite finding might be ... but not this.

Re:And this is news?

[Fire_Wraith]

I could've demonstrated that with 30 minutes on XBox Live voice chat in any FPS.

Re:And this is news?

[TwentyCharsIsNotEnou]

There's a difference between anecdotal evidence and properly correlated research data.

Research that confirms an expected answer is not useless.

Re:And this is news?

[Nethead]

It tells us that you are way too hung up on shit that doesn't concern you.

Re:And this is news?

[AthanasiusKircher]

There's a difference between anecdotal evidence and properly correlated research data.

Agreed. The problem is the "properly" qualifier, which most published studies have trouble meeting, and the percentage of valid conclusions goes down even further when you try to measure nebulous social science issues.

Research that confirms an expected answer is not useless.

While what you say is literally true, the problem is that "research that appears to confirm an expected answer" is frequently "useless." Anyone who has been following recent attempts to reproduce studies in various fields know that Ioannidis's claims that most published research findings are false has been shown to be an accurate assessment again and again.

And everything gets even worse in a situation like this. Even if researchers have the best of intentions, there are fundamental cognitive biases they are working against in setting up the experiment. There is potential to unintentionally (or intentionally) bias the data collection, the measures chosen, the categories and analysis system created, the ultimate statistical measurements used to determine significance, etc., etc. at every stage. When such an "obvious" hypothesis is the starting place, this is GOING to happen in the vast majority of cases.

So, I'd go so far as to say that 90% of research that APPEARS TO confirm an expected answer is useless... because it probably didn't actually measure things accurately or have enough statistical power to support the conclusions beyond what was already expected in most cases anyway.

And here's the thing -- even IF some researchers manage to overcome all of these biases and did a study like this and found NO correlation -- would they even publish it? Would a journal accept it? "Yeah, we looked for a correlation and didn't find any strong evidence." Note that's different from finding strong evidence AGAINST a correlation, which would likely take a different experimental design. Instead, they would have just found a negative result for their hypothesis... which seems uninteresting, and may be nearly unpublishable unless they found an interesting way to spin it.

So, publication bias means it's even MORE likely that studies like this are completely useless.

There's only ONE REASON why a study like this is generally useful -- it sets up a scientific "standard" in an official publication which COULD make another future study that proves the opposite publishable. Because now if another study comes along and can't find this correlation, they can argue it IS interesting, since it contradicts previous "science."

This study itself is likely useless, if it's like most studies of the sort. Its only usefulness is if it actually leads someone to disprove it or to qualify it with further nuance that partially disproves it. I wouldn't take it as evidence of anything without a thorough review of the procedure (in likely much more detail than would appear in any publication).

Fuck "Toxic"

[Anonymous Coward]

What's with sociology and weasel words?

Toxic is meaningless. In high enough doses, water is toxic (and can lead to water poisoning). It's just a slightly stronger way of saying "problematic", which is another weasel word (everything has pros and cons - so everything is problematic).

Words like "toxic" and "problematic" just mean "I don't like it, and I think it's a bad thing on balance but I can't prove it". If you can't prove it's a bad thing for some squeaker to tell me to fuck my mother, maybe you should figure that out before researching its association with user names? Otherwise you're just finding ways to promote your own quirks, biases, and bigotry.

Re:Fuck "Toxic"

[narcc]

League is competitive; if someone tells you to fuck your mother, then you're doing it right. Don't like it? Then fuck right off, faggot. You're obviously not prepared to handle actual social interaction.

Amazing. Someone actually believes this. I'll repeat the kicker:

You're obviously not prepared to handle actual social interaction.

From the guy who wrote:

if someone tells you to fuck your mother, then you're doing it right. Don't like it? Then fuck right off, faggot.

Seriously. It's right above this post. Read it for yourself. This actually happened. It makes me sad. The collectivist in me wants to know where we went wrong. How did we fail him so badly.

His justification for supporting this kind of adolescent behavior?

League is competitive;

This past spring, we gave a stupid amount of money (around 10k) to the local little league team. Why? Because we think learning things like teamwork and sportsmanship are important.

To One With Whisp, I'm sorry that you were not offered the same opportunity to learn about sportsmanship as the kids participating in those kinds of activities. I can only hope that you take this opportunity to learn a little more about it, develop some empathy, and learn how to play well with others.

Research sometimes does need to state the obvious

[Firethorn]

In my experience, sometimes you need to research the 'obvious' because sometimes what seems clear-cut turns out to not be. It's part of the reason that people say things like 'data is not the plural of anecdote'.

And once you've done the research you have to write the paper to justify the expenditure of resources and time to verify the results.

Yawn

[Anonymous Coward]

What age are the original names? And do they use the age when I CREATED the name? (25 years ago, offline) or do they use the age when I first used it online (20 years ago)? Or do they use one of the many years in between then and now? I mean WTF. I have handles from when I was 10 years old BBS'ing. And the name is even on the list of legal names in Iceland. (did you know you have to have your name approved by the gov't in Iceland? But I digress.)

This whole concept is officially stupid. Only people who want to be known as assholes will pick asshole names. No News Here. NNH.

Makes me wonder

[Dunbal]

So how do I skew the evidence? I chose my nickname in 1986 when I was young, and I still use it today. Since it hasn't changed at all I wonder how they presume to associate any "age" data with that.

Sounds dodgy to me

[viperidaenz]

Sounds like someone wanted to use research grant money to play League of Legends.

Researchers need better maths.

[God of Lemmings]

subjects over the age of 20 were not included in our analysis......The distribution of birth years from all servers between the 1985 and 2002 (inclusive) are shown in Fig. 2a.
1985 = 30 years of age.

Re:Research sometimes does need to state the obvio

[narcc]

Except when you have years gaming online that counts as research, if someone has played multiplayer games for years, that would be the equivalent of research fron a statistical standpoint (aka enough datapoints to draw a valid conclusion).

No.

Ah, yes, "toxic".

[LaurenCates]

I presume it is known that younger people exhibit the more obnoxious behaviors online, simply because when you are a gamer, you observe this behavior, and it doesn't take an academic study to figure it out.

Now, I say "obnoxious" because it puts the behaviors contextually in the realm that they belong.

When someone says "toxic", they semantically put a greater weight on it. They give it a word that's supposed to be scary and instill paranoia, and the strong feeling that people are "problematic" and need "re-education" (okay, they don't use that last one, but guaranteed, it's coming).

That's how you know the person(s) who published this study aren't gamers. Because real gamers have been dealing with obnoxious behavior since they picked up their first controller (me: original NES in 1985; we had Atari and Colecovision, but I was way too young to use them back then), and they don't try to create a stigmatizing label over it. They keep playing. They return the smack-talk or they proceed to shut the mouthy bastard up by annihilating him.

Seems to me the only reason studies like this one exist is so some preening pseduo-intellectual can jerk him/herself off by reinforcing stereotypes about gamers being beneath them. (And yes, I'm aware that the study says that the obnoxious behaviors come from younger people, but since the word "toxic" was invoked, you can be sure that someone, somewhere will use that as evidence that gaming instills "toxic" behavior in gamers.)

-LaurenC