Gamers and Lamers
I consider myself a serious gamer. I’ve killed literally hundreds of monsters in 2-D or 3-D cyber-worlds ranging from Asteroid, Doom II, Doom I (demo only), plus a bunch of old Apogee games I found online for free. I also played Half Life one time, but it was pretty scary, so I went outside. For these reasons, I think I’ve got a solid handle on the mindset of a hardcore gamer.
Or that’s what I thought, until I read this article.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7796482.stm
This article asserts that the fairer (and rarer) sex has an affinity for gaming. “Is that a fact?” I thought as I stroked my stubbly jaw in cool, masculine deliberation. I followed the links to researchers’ webpages and realized immediately that they are nerds, and their research might not be entirely unbiased (see below pictures). I also realized that all the data were collected from gamers who self-reported on the internet. The seeds of doubt were thus sown.
The Professors:
This line cued the bullshit alarm at last: “[T]he survey revealed an unusually high level of bisexuality among the women who took part in the study - over five times higher than the general population.” Wishful thinking all around.
The lead professor, Scott Caplan of the University of Delaware, explained this phenomenon. “These are not people who are following strict gender stereotypes,” said Prof Caplan. Indeed not, Herr Professor, although I doubt you’re seeing the full picture. Consider this as well: “Another unexpected finding was that the online game players - particularly the women - were healthier than the general population, though this was drawn from self-reported levels of exercise and body mass index.”
I’m not going spell to out why, but these findings are absolutely unbelievable. Anyone who’s spent time away from a computer would agree.
So there’s three articles here, at least that I can find.
- The straight-forward one about physically fit bisexual women playing computer games online;
- The one slightly beneath that one about how easy it is to get funding for doing bogus research as a communications professor at U of Delaware
- The third one beneath that about how nerds in academia will continue to delude themselves in spite of being attached to a much larger community of learning.
There’s also the hint of an article about weird MMORPGamers who lie to online surveys and identify themselves as fit bisexual women for God knows what reason. I think any of these articles (save the foremost, and especially the lattermost) would be good subjects for research by any sociologist with half a brain and a sense of humor firmly rooted in the real world.
UPDATE:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7797269.stm
Pope Benedict XVI has the right idea, only he ought to reserve his comments for imaginary worlds where Jesus lives, such as online.
