Stupidest Things/Assumptions You've Ever Heard About Gaming

Kye Rich Taxi wrote: »

Nope...

Not enough evidence yet, but there will be

You should read through that abstract i linked to, which i only linked to as it was a meta analysis of multiple studies (which is why i gave it credence)

That said, we have no idea how many studies and hence sample size this was taken from.

Anybody on here with a subscription to any of these science journal sites that could pull out one of these research papers!?

Back on topic - The girlfriend thinks it is odd that i play games, just seems to see it as a waste of time, and mainly for kids, irritating, though i say the same about her horse riding

Kharn wrote: »

The stupidest thing I hear about Gaming is that it's Anti-Social.

I approve!

Lu Tze wrote: »

The science doesn't back you up on this. Leave it go.

Lu Tze wrote: »

Anybody on here with a subscription to any of these science journal sites that could pull out one of these research papers!?

I recently published a review paper in Issue 2 of the International Journal of Role-Playing games if you want to see the some of the research based evidence behind a few gamer stereotypes like violence and such: "Stereotypes and Individual Differences in Role-Playing Games" http://journalofroleplaying.org/

johanz wrote: »

1. Games make you violent.
Yeah right, I played mortal kombat and quake when I was 8, still not killing anyone.
Look at real sports, they get fights all the time and require police to break up.
Only a mentally unstable will become violent after playing games. But that's not a reason to take them away for normal people.

2. Games are addictive.
Again total bull****. If you are addicted to games, there's something wrong with you, because unlike heavy drugs, games don't cause physical addiction.

I don't think that games can actually cause somebody to be violent, the research does not back this up and every case which has claimed that games are the cause of violence or death has been thrown out of court. (again, check out that review paper for the research to back that up)

Blaming the game for a situation where someone who played a violent game and then went and attacked somebody is akin to saying that because the guys who did 9/11 trained for flying the airplanes on MS Flight Simulator, clearly Flight Sim makes people into terrorists. Correlation does not imply causation.

I do think that games can cause people to become more desensitised towards violence - but there's probably very little difference here between violent games and violent films. Also, while I'm sure that if someone had a tendency towards violence, playing a lot of very violent games could play a part in tipping the balance here, I'm skeptical that a perfectly mentally healthy person will play a violent game and decide to run out and kill somebody.


As far as addiction goes, gaming isn't necessarily a chemical addiction like drugs, but then neither is gambling and nobody disputes that people become addicted to gambling. Game addiction isn't currently listed in the DSM of Mental Disorders, but it's possible that it's only a matter of time before they bring out a new edition and include it.

RedXIV wrote: »

That'd be very interesting to read

Feel free I won't lie, it's quite long at 14 pages, but the general gist is that in reality the majority of gamers don't fall into the stereotypical image of being anti-social teenage males, living in their parents basements. There are a bunch of other really interesting papers about games and gamers in that Journal too by people all over in a few different disciplines, I haven't got around to reading them all yet but looking forward to it.

That you could pick up the bikes that slid alone the ground after killing the rider, in Streets Of Rage 2.

That would could force a red card in Sensible Soccer by tapping the shoot button when the ref was deciding.

That the Playstation network isn't any good.

Grayditch wrote: »

That the Playstation network isn't any good.

Why would you post that while the network is down... That's just asking for it

I'll echo what many others have said. The stupidest assumption I've heard is that gaming is anti-social. Check out the fighting game forum for overwhelming evidence to the contrary

samapple789 wrote: »

My Dad thinks video games destroy T.V'S :rolleyes::rolleyes:

They can, it's printed in the manual.

The TV can suffer from screen burn. It's probably in the console manual

samapple789 wrote: »

What the 300 page book i got with my new 3D TV i cant find anything in that thing

Nah the game manual

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

My dad still thinks that unplugging & replugging the AV cables will cause permanent damage to TVs, too.

And that I should not use a laptop & monitor at the same time because it'll use too much electricity -- but it's fine if I lower the brightness to 0 when he bugs me about it :rolleyes:

Unplugging some AV cables when on can do damage as they deliver a charge. Constant unplugging and replugging of cables can also damage the ports over time and make the connections loose.

A monitor can use nearly as much power as a laptop, so in essence you could be doubling your bill.

Girl at school was once outraged that her nephew was to too young to go to a disco (he was 13 if I recall correctly). When everybody else told her that he was plenty old enough she said that he still played video games and was therefore too immature...