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I think both groups involved here (TL and researcher) are bias, and that's fine as long as we accept that we're bias. We can make fair but bias criticism as long as we're not calling people stupid feminists. I'm a feminist, I'm a guy.
Now, the kind of constructed morality likely held by Laura Walker if she is in fact a mormon treats things like sex, drugs, alcohol as immoral sins. I personally treat them as a good, a stupid and again as a stupid thing, with my opinion based on reasoning rather then a interpretation of a 'holy text'. Now, the kind of behavior the patrons of her study would find difficult might be acceptable to some of us. Similar kind of fundamental reasoning seems to indicate that they would find video games problematic. So that is their bias.
We have a bias towards video games. We're a sc fan site. We're bias against WoW players, we're bias for SC. We're bias against mormons. I certainly am. We have to accept that. We're enraged when we see a picture trying to illustrate gaming, getting the controllers wrong, misrepresenting us, making us angry. The article is suppose to strike fear into parents, that is the bias I believe (with bias) the authors of the study had. The sk article is written to get views, bias again.
Now, for any of us to say that even if we stopped playing/watching/thinking/talking about video games and put that time into school/work exclusively, that we would not 'improve' would be a damn lie. Now, for the authors of the study to think that if we stopped gaming that we would just put any big recognizable fraction of the time into things thought to be traditionally productive is another damn lie. Similarly, to think that nothing positive can arise from interacting with gamers, playing video games etc is silly. I am sure most of us have learned things browsing this forum (and looked at a million pictures of funny cats).
Now, from my bias standpoint here are the things I think could have caused the correlation.
If BYU is a mormon university, the folks in it are guided by the rigorous set of made up standards by that Joseph Smith fellow. A student that is likely to have an Xbox or PS3 seems to be likely not to be a devout follower of the religion, and more like the average 'american' then. I certainly think that less mormons consume alcohol then non mormons (It's part of their commandments), so the relation here is not between gaming but religious devoutness. Gaming is a symptom of being closer to the 'average'.
It seems that being a devout mormon would protect one from the evils of alcohol and drugs and 3 hatch all-ins. However, it would also protect one from the various magnificent products of modern culture, knowledge and education. One can present a crude explanation of why alcohol is bad to a religious person, justify it on 'faith' and produce a non-alcoholic population. That's an insulting shortcut in my opinion.
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Bias against mormons:
"A lot of people like the taste of beer, they like to drink beer, and they don’t end up as alcoholics or drug addicts," says Rick, a former beer drinker. "The problem I see is that once you start drinking, the Spirit is going to withdraw from you. So although your drinking might not get out of hand, you still can’t have the influence of the Holy Ghost with you because you’re drinking." (Laury Livsey, "The Beer Facts," New Era, Mar. 1993, 44)
from lds.about.com
contrasted to my reasons for not drinking beer: Caloric intake.
Fuck, it's like mormons treat their members as children and tell you not to kill others, etc. BECAUSE GOD SAID SO and not because ITS REASONABLY A WRONG THING TO DO. Dogmas, so stupid.
Check this one out too:
http://lds.about.com/od/basicsgospelprinciples/a/law_of_tithing.htm
Their version: "God says pay 10% to god and everything will be good. P.S. Small font: it will be used to spread our belief and our corporate heads will decide how it will be."
Honest version: "Give us a 10% tax to join our 'everything' club so you can feel good about yourself."
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does this image stike you as a gamer? lol..
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In other news, studies show that stabbing yourself may lead to blood loss.
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i think everyone knew that.
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Can anyone find the article and repost it? If it focused solely on console gaming I would have to agree with it.
Since I haven't read it, I'll put out the following concerns based solely on personal experience;
1) Computer and console gamers are extremely different people, you cannot group them into one category. I'll be honest, I know a lot of guys who dropped out of school, and their daily lives now consist of smoking weed and playing their 360.
2) Gaming genres produce absurdly varied communities, and to lump all players together is going to distort your empirical evidence and possibly produce false data. Most CS players I know have short fuses for their anger. They tend to rage over issues which seem irrelevant/pointless to me.
On the flip side, my RTS friends are a lot more collected and reserved (I'm hesitant to use the word "mature" but it may be true).
3) Drug Selection: There is a split in my personal friends who do and don't game. My gamer friends tend to stick to harmless drugs like alcohol and weed, and very rarely step into anything more serious. My friends who don't game are more likely to use what I'd define as "heavier" drugs. Pills, Coke, Heroine, X, etc.
Of course I have no empirical evidence to support my statements, but this is the internet.
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I wonder why this thread is so long, but I don't feel like reading it.
It's not because they game that they are like this, it's because they are like this that they are gamers.
end of story imo.
but again, maybe you guys are discussing something deeper.
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Actually, people with low self-esteem tend to be less social so they use the computer more often and thus are more likely to become gamers.
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On January 25 2009 04:34 CharlieMurphy wrote:lol look at this stupid pic the UK articles uses Does that look like a negative atmosphere? Would they prefer people going to a pub and driving home drunk or whatever?
lol wut is wrong with that pic?
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MrHoon
10183 Posts
I can't believe people still source Kotaku as something reliable
fuck man, that just makes me fucking sad.
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MyLostTemple
United States2921 Posts
that's odd because i found that playing video games turned me into a alcoholic drug abusing baller who has the best life ever.
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On January 26 2009 00:52 Frits wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2009 12:24 Physician wrote:On January 25 2009 07:14 Frits wrote: Anyone who thinks this research is useless/doesn't prove anything is clueless about scientific research or in hardcore denial. - did u read the paper? if u did post it, if u didn't you can't claim that... + Show Spoiler +and btw getting peer reviewed and published don't mean shit either, there is a lot of shit for science being peer reviewed and published out there, that journal included - how was the online questionnaire distributed? was it send to all students needing the credits? was it posted at 4chan? u get the point.. depending on whom the questionnaires were sent to, and what questions u address, one can find just about any correlation (click on me if u don't agree).. - on what she said alone in that interview u can definitively claim unacceptable bias, and if it true that the study was based solely on an "online" questionnaire, only "college students" from their own university, only "800" individuals were involved to study highly prevalent behaviors, and college credits were used as incentive to complete the study when they are looking at education itself as part of the study - how can u not say the study is shit for science? - now since none of us actually read the paper we can't really claim squat except that news posters in this case as usual could care less about science but rather sell news lol.. (just j/king) + Show Spoiler + Research in behavioral sciences is bound to strict rules and ethics in western society. You're critizicing the article on methods that are perfectly acceptable among statisticians. Online questionnaires are acceptable within certain rules, rules that a researcher has to abide by. Using just college students is acceptable as well, the researcher is aware of these limitations. It's like you think a researcher can just research whatever he or she feels like without any education and that gamers are the only people who use common sense. And that article about pew research center determines that gaming can include social activity, which we all already know, since we play online. The question is what the quality of this activity is and if it's reducing social interaction in real life. One positive effect does not disprove a negative unrelated effect. There isn't even any determination of correlation in the article you linked it's just a questionnaire that shows how many kids play online. This is what happens when you get overly defensive and biased. Show nested quote +On January 25 2009 17:03 SweeTLemonS[TPR] wrote:On January 25 2009 17:00 [X]Ken_D wrote:When you consider the excessive time spent playing games indoor instead of other outdoor activities, then yeah it holds true. The survey is a representative of the average gamers, NOT ALL. TL average is not the average gamer IMO  It's not even representative of the average gamer. It's representative of gamers that go to BYU. All this has shown (apparently) is that in the 800 students surveyed from BYU, there is a correlation between video games, and drunkenness, and self-loathing. You don't think that students from BYU are somewhat representative for intelligent teens across the western world? Until researchers can't replicate these findings I'd say there's a good chance it's representative for other western countries as well, that's just common sense. Besides these findings are based on comparing gamers in BYU with non gamers in BYU, if there's a difference between those 2 groups there's a good chance the difference exists in other populations as well, even if they have a higher or lower average, assuming the difference between gamers and and non gamers only exists in BYU sounds really illogical to me. To everyone who thinks this study is bullshit, do you know 800 gamers and non gamers? Have you compared their drinking and social habits objectively? It's not like 10% is a noticable effect for subjective evaluation and can be disproved with a few anecdotal quotes. You can't say it's bullshit because your intuition says it's not true. Intuition can be subconsciously influenced by what you want to think, not what is objectively the case.
Physician added that these people are also people who were in dire need of credit, and had nothing better to do than fill out stupid online questionnaires, in a pm.
No, I don't think BYU students are representative of the average Westerner, or I wouldn't have said what I said. BYU is a Mormon school, and most people are not Mormons.
From BYU's website on requirements for graduation:
"In addition, the following are required for graduation:
* Minimum of 30 semester credit hours in residence on the BYU campus in Provo as an admitted day student
* Minimum total of 120 credit hours
* Cumulative and BYU GPA of at least 2.0
* A current ecclesiastical endorsement"
Ecclesiastical: of or pertaining to the church or the clergy; churchly; clerical; not secular.
Also take a look at the University Core (which are required classes for any degree from BYU): http://saas.byu.edu/classSchedule/policy/winter/univcore.php
Generally speaking, if you aren't a Mormon, you aren't going to BYU. So no, I do not think that BYU students are representative of Westerners as a whole.
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On January 25 2009 04:39 anTi_ wrote:
When will idiots like this realize that video games are just like watching movies or television, except with video games you're involved with the entertainment. You're not just sitting back braindead watching some stupid tv show.
I have no idea, people seem to have this weird social stigma with video games, but i see it slowly fading as many people realize games are coolio, not foolio
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that's it
this woman is getting a harpoon through her ocular cavity
I will END HER
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I dated a Mormon once. Big mistake.
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Good job Frits! I was going to post something on the lines of 'correlation is not causation', but you're being much more thorough.
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On January 27 2009 02:48 SweeTLemonS[TPR] wrote:Show nested quote +On January 26 2009 00:52 Frits wrote:On January 25 2009 12:24 Physician wrote:On January 25 2009 07:14 Frits wrote: Anyone who thinks this research is useless/doesn't prove anything is clueless about scientific research or in hardcore denial. - did u read the paper? if u did post it, if u didn't you can't claim that... + Show Spoiler +and btw getting peer reviewed and published don't mean shit either, there is a lot of shit for science being peer reviewed and published out there, that journal included - how was the online questionnaire distributed? was it send to all students needing the credits? was it posted at 4chan? u get the point.. depending on whom the questionnaires were sent to, and what questions u address, one can find just about any correlation (click on me if u don't agree).. - on what she said alone in that interview u can definitively claim unacceptable bias, and if it true that the study was based solely on an "online" questionnaire, only "college students" from their own university, only "800" individuals were involved to study highly prevalent behaviors, and college credits were used as incentive to complete the study when they are looking at education itself as part of the study - how can u not say the study is shit for science? - now since none of us actually read the paper we can't really claim squat except that news posters in this case as usual could care less about science but rather sell news lol.. (just j/king) + Show Spoiler + Research in behavioral sciences is bound to strict rules and ethics in western society. You're critizicing the article on methods that are perfectly acceptable among statisticians. Online questionnaires are acceptable within certain rules, rules that a researcher has to abide by. Using just college students is acceptable as well, the researcher is aware of these limitations. It's like you think a researcher can just research whatever he or she feels like without any education and that gamers are the only people who use common sense. And that article about pew research center determines that gaming can include social activity, which we all already know, since we play online. The question is what the quality of this activity is and if it's reducing social interaction in real life. One positive effect does not disprove a negative unrelated effect. There isn't even any determination of correlation in the article you linked it's just a questionnaire that shows how many kids play online. This is what happens when you get overly defensive and biased. On January 25 2009 17:03 SweeTLemonS[TPR] wrote:On January 25 2009 17:00 [X]Ken_D wrote:When you consider the excessive time spent playing games indoor instead of other outdoor activities, then yeah it holds true. The survey is a representative of the average gamers, NOT ALL. TL average is not the average gamer IMO It's not even representative of the average gamer. It's representative of gamers that go to BYU. All this has shown (apparently) is that in the 800 students surveyed from BYU, there is a correlation between video games, and drunkenness, and self-loathing. You don't think that students from BYU are somewhat representative for intelligent teens across the western world? Until researchers can't replicate these findings I'd say there's a good chance it's representative for other western countries as well, that's just common sense. Besides these findings are based on comparing gamers in BYU with non gamers in BYU, if there's a difference between those 2 groups there's a good chance the difference exists in other populations as well, even if they have a higher or lower average, assuming the difference between gamers and and non gamers only exists in BYU sounds really illogical to me. To everyone who thinks this study is bullshit, do you know 800 gamers and non gamers? Have you compared their drinking and social habits objectively? It's not like 10% is a noticable effect for subjective evaluation and can be disproved with a few anecdotal quotes. You can't say it's bullshit because your intuition says it's not true. Intuition can be subconsciously influenced by what you want to think, not what is objectively the case. No, I don't think BYU students are representative of the average Westerner, or I wouldn't have said what I said. BYU is a Mormon school, and most people are not Mormons. From BYU's website on requirements for graduation: "In addition, the following are required for graduation: * Minimum of 30 semester credit hours in residence on the BYU campus in Provo as an admitted day student * Minimum total of 120 credit hours * Cumulative and BYU GPA of at least 2.0 * A current ecclesiastical endorsement" Ecclesiastical: of or pertaining to the church or the clergy; churchly; clerical; not secular. Also take a look at the University Core (which are required classes for any degree from BYU): http://saas.byu.edu/classSchedule/policy/winter/univcore.phpGenerally speaking, if you aren't a Mormon, you aren't going to BYU. So no, I do not think that BYU students are representative of Westerners as a whole.
Thanks for saying partially what I was trying to get accross in an non-expansive and emotional way, which may have put people off. I don't have time to go into lthe details the way this study was done but generally it looked like there was a large possibility for manipulation, not just of the data itself (which I admit probably didn't happen) but in the way they went about collecting it (which seems to have a lot of room for manipulation). Also, my main idea is that a sample of 800 BYU students is not the average American by any means.
It said that to be a heavy gamer, the study considers that you must play a game at least once every other day. Ummmmm.... since middle school I haven't met a single male from 5 years old to 30 who doesn't play a video game at least once every couple of days (on average). So does that therefore correlate that they have an increased risk factor for alcoholism and low self esteem? Well how do you judge that when you are talking about probably 80-90% of the population of those demographics? Of course I live in southern California, so my samples are someone unique and nondemonstrative of the entire country, let alone the world. But I think we are closer to "average" than the student's that were allowed to do the study at BYU.
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On January 26 2009 23:21 brambolius wrote:Show nested quote +On January 25 2009 04:34 CharlieMurphy wrote:lol look at this stupid pic the UK articles uses Does that look like a negative atmosphere? Would they prefer people going to a pub and driving home drunk or whatever? lol wut is wrong with that pic?
He's saying that those don't look like suicidal alcoholics, which they don't. It looks like they're just having a good night with their friends.
Someone else also pointed out, that one of the guys playing is holding an N64 controller, while the other is holding a gamecube controller, which just doesn't work.
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How do you even hold an N64 controller like that? I usually grab the middle section with one hand ;x
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EPT![[image loading]](http://s.sk-gaming.com/image/image/cd9ca3d182fe0cfcm.jpg)
![[image loading]](http://www.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01245/gamers_beer_1245542c.jpg)
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