Posts Tagged ‘research’
Gamers Get Less Sleep: Gamers Ask “They Needed a Study?”
We’ve all been there. You sit down to play a few levels of whatever you’re plowing through at the moment and the next thing you know it feels like someone’s glued sandpaper to the inside of your eyelids and the clock taunts you with an obscenely late hour. A study presented at the recent SLEEP 2009 event told the world what millions of World of Warcraft subscribers already know: gamers get less sleep.
The study also showed that people who reported their gaming interfered with their sleep got 1.6 hours less shut-eye than everyone else and those who reported being addicted to gaming slept an hour less on weekdays. Only a third of those who reported being addicted felt that it interfered with their sleep.
While it’s easy to blame this on escapist, socially inept stereotypes, it’s quite easy to get caught up in games. Sandbox games can be particularly time-obliterating since there’s no obvious landmarks to call your attention to how long you’ve been playing. Bizarrely, the easiest I’ve ever been drawn into a game without concern for time was Viva Pinata. I haven’t played it since out of fear of losing entire days to its colorful world.
Study Claims One In Twelve Children Showing Signs Of Gaming Addiction
A new study conducted by Iowa State University suggests that video games might be a little too popular amongst youngsters. According to their results, one in twelve children between the ages of eight and eighteen show signs of being addicted to video gaming. Unfortunately for the anti-video game camp there’s not much going on in this study that can’t be explained by the simple fact that children and teenagers are generally impulsive and hedonistic.
The study used a survey method and since the majority of other research is laboratory based there are few pre-existing sets of survey so they simply used a set of criteria used to assess gambling addiction. The study goes on to assess the two behaviors via the same rubric although the two behaviors are quite different, especially when one considers that gambling is a behavior restricted to adults and is generally engaged in with the ultimate purpose of winning money.
Many of the more commonly manifested symptoms of the ‘addiction’ the study points to are simply common traits of children and adolescents. They did find that there was a correlation between greater signs of video game addiction and poor school performance, but there have always been kids more interested in working on cars, playing sports, listening to music or a dozen activities other than studying for tests.
Some of the other ’signs’ of addiction are laughable: ignoring chores in favor of games, suffering on an assignment or test because of excessive game playing, using video games to escape from problems or bad feelings. While it’s not commendable to spend time playing games instead of studying, the development of self control and good work habits is a crucial part of the adolescents development and is often not truly achieved until college or later in ones adult life.
When one takes into account the permissiveness of many parents nowadays combined with the self-gratifying focus of American society and the pleasure-focused existence of most teenagers, it’s not surprising that kids are playing more games than some might consider healthy.
Gaming Drives You Crazy
In the majority of research seeking to probe the link between gaming and aggression researchers use combat-oriented games like Call of Duty or Mortal Kombat. A new study coming from Huddersfield University in the UK suggests that shooting games might not be as affecting as previously thought.
One of the biggest problems with previous aggression research is that the actual measurement of aggression varies from study to study and some researchers use questionable definitions of aggression. This study sought to shed light on unquestionable measures of emotion by measuring sheer physical data (EEG, heart rate and breathing) in addition to the usual mental measures.
The participants, aged 18-45 played one of three games on the Xbox 360; either a 3-D table tennis game, an FPS game or Project Gotham Racing (the only game whose title they actually reveal). Interestingly the driving game induced the greatest change in brain activity and heart rate, while the FPS defied expectations by producing less of a change than even the table tennis game.
This certainly explains why my friends who take a sound beating in Halo quite gentlemanly rage and scream whenever we play Mario Kart. Nothing says ‘frustration’ like blue shells.
Study: Xbox 360 is Most Played Online
Surprising no one, marketing research group NPD revealed that, according to a study, the Xbox 360 is “the console online gaming leader” in the United States. This study was conducted between January 6 and 26, 2009. Despite this, the PC remains “the most widely used platform for online gaming activities.”
This survey was carried out on “just over 20,000″ US residents. They found that the Xbox 360 accounted for 50% of consoles played online. Nintendo’s Wii made an improvement, coming in at 29%, a jump from last year’s 18%. PC users are a big bunch, as 87% of those surveyed used the platform to play games online. Surprisingly, that’s down from 90% in 2008. As for the PS3, it moved up from fifth place to third place.
The study also noted that microtransactions have slowed since last year, noting that PS3 and Xbox 360 users purchase more downloadable content than others.
Donate Used Games For Good Cause
Gamestop has been making a killing for years with their used games market. They buy your games for a relatively low price, then turning around to re-sell them at a much higher price. It often seems a rather unfair system, because eventually some older games are worth barely more than pennies for resale while other titles like Gears of War that they have dozens of are still being sold for a large proportion of the original price tag.
If you’ve got old games lying around that you’re bored to death of and you can’t get more than a few quarters of trade-in value for you can now do something good with them. A charity is starting that aims to help some of the unfortunate individuals of the world. Donate Games will accept used games and re-sell them, with the proceeds going to help ‘orphan diseases’. There are a whole lot of diseases out there, but many only affect a small portion of the population and are of less concern for the population at large. The charity is founded by Jim Carol and his wife Cynthia. Mr. Carol worked in the IT industry and his son was diagnosed with Philadelphia Chromosome. Although his son is now in remission, the couple saw many people suffering from equally rare diseases that aren’t getting enough funding for proper treatment research.
The site is up and accepting donations, but right now you can’t buy any of your games yet.
Study Says Gamers “Likely” Substance Users
One of the general problems with a large body of psychological research is that it’s conducted on college campuses with most of the subjects being college students. A study has been conducted in the glorious state of Utah that claims to show that gamers are more likely to use controlled substances and make negative decisions.
When they surveyed 800 students they found that students who played video games regularly were 10% more likely to drink or take drugs then their non-gaming friends. Those who play daily were three times more likely to smoke pot, stop talking to friends and family or have low self-esteem.
Unfortunately for these researchers, college kids have been drinking since before video games were anything but a bar room novelty. Films like Animal House and television shows are much more to blame for the prevalence of teenage drinking and drug use than all the video games rolled into one. Conducting a study on how a generally irresponsible group with vast amounts of free time amuse themselves sounds like a bad idea, especially when you throw in the fact that BYU is a religious school.
Gold Farming Industry Worth $500 Million
According to a study conducted by Manchester University, gold farming in online games like World of Warcraft is now an industry worth an annual $500 million. Gold farming allows users to use real-world money to purchase in-game currency; it has become a controversial issue for game makers and players alike.
The study was carried out by Professor Richard Heeks, a gamer himself, finding out that the industry currently employs approximately 400,000 people – 80% of which is in China.
“I initially became aware of gold farming through my own games-playing but assumed it was just a cottage industry,” said Heeks. “In a way that is still true. It’s just that instead of a few dozen cottages, there turn out to be tens of thousands.”
Additionally, Steven Davis, chief online game security firm Secure Play, claims that the criminal underworld has gotten involved, revealing that these “gangs pay for their accounts with stolen credit cards” and not deliver on the goods.