New Study Links Video Games and Mental Problems 306
eldavojohn writes "A new study published today in Pediatrics Journal conducted in Singapore on three thousand children in grades third, fourth, seventh and eighth claims that one in ten are video game addicts and almost all of those suffer mental health problems. This comes conveniently after the suspect in the Tucson shooting has widely been reported as an online gamer. Among the accusations from the study are that playing video games leads to lower school performance and fewer social skills while exacerbating existing depression, anxiety and social phobias. Gamasutra reports that the Entertainment Software Alliance is already criticizing this study, saying, 'Its definition of "pathological gaming" is neither scientifically nor medically accepted and the type of measure used has been criticized by other scholars. Other outcomes are also measured using dubious instruments when well-validated tools are readily available. In addition, because the effect sizes of the outcomes are mainly trivial, it leaves open the possibility the author is simply interpreting things as negatively as possible.' It seems that the doctors are still disagreeing on whether or not gaming causes problems."
Re:The Tucson Shooter... (Score:5, Informative)
Hell, this study was nothing more then a survey anyways.. from the Reuters article...
In the study, teachers handed out questionnaires to students in the third, fourth, seventh and eighth grades, including questions about their gaming habits, social skills, school performance and depression.
The kids also answered ten questions to find out if they were addicted to gaming — so-called "pathological" gamers. If they answered half in the positive, they got the label.
The questions included things like having neglected household chores to spend more time on video games, doing poorly on a school assignment or test as a result, or playing video games to escape from problems or bad feelings.
Re:The other way around? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:The other way around? (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, the study does actually have a reasonable basis to claim causality. It also does say that people with this kind of mental health problems are likely to become addicted to video games. It only claims exacerbation of existing mental health problems, not creation of the problems.
Re:The Tucson Shooter... (Score:5, Informative)
Yep, and also what isn't mentioned is that Douglas Gentile, the lead publisher of the paper, is the former director of research for the National Institute for Media and the Family [wikipedia.org] an anti-video game group that has since dissolved. That group was given an "F" by the ESRB for "inaccuracies, incomplete and misleading statements, omission of material facts, and flawed research."
I've called out this guy's "research" as flawed multiple times - how does this prove that video games cause depression? It doesn't - you can't tell whether the depression is caused by excessive video games or if depressed people tend to play more video games. This guy's a quack and nothing is proven here.
Re:Rated M for Mentally Insane (Score:4, Informative)
He had to go to the second one because walmart does not sell ammo before 7 am. No one there denied him ammo for being crazy, just early.
His first stop, a Walmart between his house and the scene of the shooting, doesn't sell bullets before 7 a.m. It was only 6:12 a.m.
Source Arizona Daily Star:
http://azstarnet.com/news/state-and-regional/article_4ea654b2-b1a9-5ca0-ad91-8ef689b3ea5d.html [azstarnet.com]