Male Brains 'Wired for Videogame Obsession' 125
thinkzinc notes a story indicating that, according to a new study, men have a harder time putting down a controller than women do. Researchers at Stanford did brain imaging work on a group of young test subjects while they played a simple PC game. Besides the 'obvious' conclusion that men were more 'aggressive at gaining territory on the screen', the tests also indicated that male brains showed more activity in the reward and addiction components of the brain. "The lead author, Dr. Allan Reiss, noted that most of the video games that are popular with men are territory and aggression-type games. 'These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females,' he said. Other recent surveys indicate that about 40 percent of Americans regularly play games on a computer or console, but young males are two or three times more likely than females to feel addicted to video games, Reiss said. "
In other news... (Score:2)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Questionable? (Score:5, Funny)
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The Result... (Score:2)
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also (Score:1)
Isn't it the other way around? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Isn't it the other way around? (Score:4, Funny)
I have a theory on why some women would enjoy a game that involves cutting a long snaky thing into pieces before it can get to them, but I'm not going to get into that here
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Haven't found the games addictive for females? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Can't really study something so heavily biased and expect the bias to go away.
Try them on a game like Animal Crossing or Nintendogs or something and if guys are still more likely to get addicted than I'll buy the verdict.
For some anecdotal evidence one of my relatives is a total anti-gamer except for 3 games, Diner Dash, Animal Crossing, and Guitar
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and in other news. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:and in other news. (Score:4, Insightful)
They only ran the test on 22 people, and all they did was play a single video game. How can they possibly draw any meaningful conclusions from that?
And how is the an issue with "the male brain" rather than, for example, "men living in America who have had previous exposure to video games." How can they be even a little sure that the entire history of guys liking games more than girls isn't cultural (I'm not saying that it is, btw. Just that this study does nothing to account for anything like that).
He might as well be basing his study on Phrenology, for all the science that he's putting into this.
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Neither the bear's religious persuasion nor the Pope's toilet habits could be determined, however.
In other news... (Score:3, Funny)
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I'll wager (Score:2)
Or whatever they call themselves again.............
WOMEN! That's it.
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Kent Brockman: The weather service has warned us to brace ourselves for the onslaught of Hurricane Barbara. And if you think naming a destructive storm after a woman is sexist, you obviously have never seen the gals grabbing for items at a clearance sale.
Marge: Hrm... that's true... but he shouldn't say it.
Well, I think the conclusion is obvious (Score:2, Funny)
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What is wrong with males' strengths (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What is wrong with males' strengths (Score:5, Insightful)
It just goes along with how men are portrayed in most commercials and sitcoms as bumbling, sex starved idiots who have to be set straight but the level headed woman.
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I can live with that.
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This is not to say there are racist Caucasians, or that oppression is a good thing, merely that humans can never swing to the center when then lash out against one side. How many staunch Democrats (to use one side as an example) who have lost faith in t
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I'm in the same boat. (Score:1)
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I like being a barbarian. (Score:3, Insightful)
The majority of these things paints males as much closer to barbaric creatures.
I see nothing wrong with that. I like being barbaric. I like to scratch my nuts when I first wake up in the morning. I like to just shrug it off when women talk about their feelings (Here's a clue, ladies. If you're not my wife, I don't give a flying fuck about your feelings). I like to eat leftover pizza for breakfast and wash it down with a colder beer. I like porn. I like loud, nasty rock 'n roll. I like sex and violence.
After I'm done with my day's work I like to fire up a game and beat the everlovi
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Misleading title.. (Score:1, Troll)
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I call bull! (Score:4, Insightful)
It has more to do with the person then the gender! She can wale on me in UT and I make rockin' brownies.
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Re:I call bull! (Score:5, Funny)
Wait a second...
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Study which finds that women are more likely to contract breast cancer was determined to be invalid due to scientists discovering that some men have breast cancer.
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GF + Sims = zombie (Score:3, Interesting)
I think it has to do with attention span. Those who love constant stimulation like my gf get a serious high from video games like the Sims where there is always things going on.
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Sure? (Score:3, Funny)
Warning (Score:2)
Bogus science (Score:2)
Five bucks say they were students in the researcher's class.
Im not addicted! REALLY!!! (Score:1)
Really, I'm not! (Score:2)
I just don't want to right now.
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Why would you do that!?
Says more about Slashdot editors than brains. (Score:5, Insightful)
That is VERY offensive. Men in the U.S. are the targets of an extreme amount of hostility. I'm guessing that the person who wrote that headline knew that being hostile toward men is in fashion, and wrote it to get attention for the advertisements.
Quote: "These gender differences in the brain may help explain why males are more attracted to, and more likely to become hooked on video games than females," he said.
Fraud: He has not shown any gender differences in the brain. He has shown that, at the time, those particular subjects were using their brains differently.
The article does imply something useful about brains, however. The fact that Slashdot editors wanted us to see it may be an indication that the editors are not in touch with reality. Maybe that's because the editors spent so much time playing games rather than trying to relate to reality.
If you want to experience a society where men aren't hated, go to Brazil. However, don't fall in love with the first woman you meet, like many of my acquaintances.
I can deal with misandry (Score:1)
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Obviously (Score:1)
Q: What's all this about Brazil? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's reasonably easy, for me anyway, to find women in the U.S. who are personally very interesting and are responsible. They are often valuable employees, for example. It is difficult to find a woman in the U.S. who I would consider marriageable. My women friends say the men in the U.S. are just as bad, and I have every reason to believe they are right, but ha
Give me a fucking break! (Score:3, Insightful)
What I do suspect is that you love your women to be submissive, to accept the man as the head of the household, and to believe in serving him. This is your prerogative - if you find a woman who is like that, go for it.
However, lack of submission has abso
The fact is... (Score:2)
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Being a SNAG won't help you here. (Score:1)
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Yet, here we are, still arguing.
Back on topic though.
"Any man who tries to "handle" a woman is an idiot."
True. I was using "handle" as shorthand for enjoying independent behavior. Handling
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Wayyyyyyyy TMI.
Are we level 70 internets debaters yet?
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You might have something there.
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There are some women in America who treat men badly, just as there are some men in America who treat women badly. Then there are people who treat other people well. Those are the people you should really spend your time and energy on.
I'm not sure why any Slashdot post mentioning gender always turns into people bitching about what women are like or what men are like. In my experience, the
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Anecdotal, but meh
(and no, she's not a prostitute)
It all depends... (Score:2)
As there are no further details on what the game actually encompassed, we can assume 'gaining territory' was the sole purpose of the game. Duh, men have a tendency (either because of nature or nurture) to be more aggressive, and if the purpose of the game is to be aggressive they will enjoy it more. Nearly all games cater to thi
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Men have spent years getting desensitized to blowing someone's head off. (Or I should say are more likely). They're also more likely to have spent a great amount of time mastering the control schemes. A huge hurtle to overcome.
My Mom was addicted to a game called "birds" for about a year. All the game was was a territorial game. You fly around drawing a line and sealing off "territory" until the birds are trapped in small li
Women + Shopping? (Score:2)
Female Brains are wired for...
Mine isn't (Score:1)
Disability (Score:1)
where's the surprise? (Score:1)
men seek to dominate or subjugate the world around them, often through force.
women seek to collect objects of beauty and nest themselves in comfort.
hunting and catching an object of sexual desire is not all that different from leveling in WOW or winning races & collecting cars in Gran Turismo.
had to laugh at the "womens brains wired for compulsive shopping" because just look at our examples from popular culture: women and shoes! precious
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Wrong Title (Score:1)
News at 11.
Flawed methodology (Score:2)
Male brains wired for video game obsession, because everyone knows a girl wouldn't get obsessed with The Sims or World of Warcraft. Nope. Only males.
In other news, little girl brains are wired to enjoy playing with toys (now that sounded ambiguous), a research revealed by surveying boys and girls when given Barbie dolls to play with.
Meanwhile all the women are... (Score:1)
Link to actual paper (Score:3, Interesting)
Here's the actual paper: Hoeft_2008JPsychiatrRes.pdf [stanford.edu]
I emailed the progenitor of the paper about the "kind of video game" issue. I posit that word jumble games and MMORPGs are the sort of games that are likely to addict women.
If he ever writes back (unlikely), I'll post.
-l
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-l
Unless it's Rock Band (Score:2)
No Shit (Score:1)
Hunting party... (Score:2)
And for those seeing this as an attack against men, just look at it another way: women lack the brain wiring that gives us guys the
Weirdly, the fact that men program most games... (Score:2)
Men Who Care (Score:2)
http://orangehammer.ytmnd.com/ [ytmnd.com]
This clip is a guy screaming his head off as his guild nears victory and then kills Ragnaros in World of Warcraft for the first time (and lots of his guildmates cheer too.)
Somehow, I can't imagine many women getting THIS worked up over what amounts to some orange pixels on a screen.
Re:studies (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is it not controversial to investigate whether certain races are more prone to certain illnesses, but it is controversial to offer a drug that seems to have more health benefits to one race than another?
Well I'll answer my own question. Some of the concern is based on justified anger over past atrocities committed by people who called themselves 'scientists' (e.g. infecting blacks with Syphilis). But when that anger translates to 'In 2008 I won't accept a drug that is targeted for my race because it might be a plot to harm us', I think we're talking tinfoil hat time.
Why is it not controversial to suggest that one gender has more physical strength than another, but it is heresy to even wonder whether one gender might have more intelligence/compassion/aggression/addiction than the other?
My suspicion is that people get more sensitive when we're talking about the mind vs. the body, because then the subject is the core of who we are. Fine, we're all sensitive about that. But what justifies a knee-jerk reaction that this is just 'junk science'? As a scientist would say, prove it!
By the way, personal anecdotal evidence suggests that this study is on to something. I know that my son and I are certainly prone to being hooked on territorial/aggressive games, while my daughter and wife don't show such tendency. And this pattern extends to other people I know. This is not proof, just commentary.
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While people can absolve themselves by citing some scientific report about their behavior, it would just be an excuse like any other. Conversely someone could become more aware of their nascent nature and t
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For example, building castles on loose sand is generally considered...well dumb, however there's all sorts of things that could be learned from it. New ways of overcoming challenges, novel approaches that *can* be transferred to a more testable environment, etc. Responsible scientists also would analyze the limitations of that knowledge gained...such as a g
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As a scientist would say, prove it!
No, not so much.
This study isn't on to diddly. Males are more territorial/aggressive; you don't need a study with 22 subjects playing video games to tell you that.
If a study wanted to generalize about "men vs women" and how they respond to video games, you would need a larger sample of both genders than 11+11, at least several kinds of games (some designed by men, some designed by women), etc. You would also need to apply some sort of statistical analysis to the results (another reason why large sample siz
Re:studies (Score:5, Informative)
Just so we're clear, the Tuskegee expiriments did not involve infecting black men with syphilis. I know it was a minor point in your post, but it was inaccurate, is a common mistake, and I think given it's historical significance it's important to get it right. The men already had syphilis, and when the study began there was no known cure for it. 15 years into the study penicillin was known to cure it, so there was no reason to continue the study other than to watch poor uneducated black men die, which they did, and furthermore the men were lied to to keep them from getting cured.
But the study did NOT involve infecting them men with the disease directly. In some ways that's worse, because the study seems to have started off as a good study by good scientists and then morphed somehow into preventing patients from getting cured entirely because of their race. An evil study like "let's infect black men with syphillis" is something only comic book villians will waste time doing. A good study eventually turning into evil, I don't know how that happens or how we would prevent that today.
It's about use vs. abuse (Score:2)
The reasons studies showing differences between sex, race or whatever, especially in mental areas should be swept under the carpet is not that the studies are false. Sex is determined by hormones and race by genes, both OBVIOUSLY have hypothetical causality with human brain's function that you would have to be an idiot to simply discount without some serious research to disprove. The brain is part of the body and is shaped by the same factors as it, thus as our brain is different to other species because of
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Look at some of the quotes the "researches" spew out.
They basically call men a bunch of conquerors, pillagers, and tyrants.
I could look at the same exact results and say men are more focused, goal-oriented, and value success.
I could say the data shows that women are lazy, unfocused, and wouldn't do well in the competitive areas of business, politics, etc.
We all know that the average man will be more competitive / serious about things like your typical video games.
Do the same study wit
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I agree. Any time I see an article titled "X's brains wired for Y" I figure it's junk. Brains aren't computers. People aren't "wired." Perhaps "male brains" are more socialized to be territorial. I think making any generalization from a sample size of 22 is a bad idea, as well. I would be interested in a similar study that tried to control for socialization.