Studies of health and gaming seem to be en vogue lately. Having spent much of my time as a student analyzing propaganda and message manipulation, I've always been fascinated by the way in which these studies are released, but even more so by the reactions they garner.
So when GamePolitics.com reported the results of a new scientific study on the mental states of gamers, I was intrigued to say the least. An Iowa State University study linked playing games to ADD in the Oct. 2009 issue of Psychophysiology. And while my Google Fu failed to produce the original article, I'm going to give them the benefit of the doubt that people who have ADD play a lot of games.
Normally a post on this topic -- on a gaming website -- would use that as a launching pad to transition into hyper-defensive mode. But my concern about this report can't be answered by 'causation vs. correlation', 'it's the new medium so it's scary to older people', or the often lobbied 'average age of a gamer is 35'. Rather, I find it sad that the topic of health and safety concerning games is so politicized that readers will form their opinion based on the headline rather than the merits of the piece.
The fact that GamePolitics.com felt it was more important to place a quote from the press release than provide any detailed results or information on the sampling procedure tells me one thing: it doesn't matter what the report says since everybody has already made up their mind.
Comments on the article only reinforce this with the entries such as "Without even reading the data, i dont doubt the result for a second…" and "…Next up, they'll say video games are the gateway drug to Marijuana…".
While it's perfectly justified, I would even say commendable, to try to find and possible personal feelings which may skew a study, that rarely happens on studies of our pastime. These findings may prove to be false or misinterpreted among a host of other things, but having our community resort to ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority and popularity only serve to validate the gamer stereotype.
I don't believe there's anything inherently wrong about the medium, or at least any more so than other media primarily absorbed in a sedentary fashion. However, if a study does come along which shows my view to be wrong, I hope to be among a rational group of people with access to scrutinize it -- or at the very least have a dialogue with a group who went through the inaccessible information. Rather than incite conversation, the current knee-jerk reactions use assumptions to builds an 'Us vs. Them' wall stronger than the Iron Curtain.
While we are most likely only partly to blame for the polarized climate we find ourselves in, it's unquestionably in our best interest to take steps toward rebuilding an open dialogue.
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