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Attractive People Are Less Likely To Play Video Games, NBER Study Says (nber.org) 159

Posted by msmash from the how-about-that dept.
From a paper on the National Bureau of Economic Research: We investigate the relationship between physical attractiveness and the time people devote to video/computer gaming. Average American teenagers spend 2.6% of their waking hours gaming, while for adults this figure is 2.7%. Using the American Add Health Study, we show that adults who are better-looking have more close friends. Arguably, gaming is costlier for them, and they thus engage in less of it. Physically attractive teens are less likely to engage in gaming at all, whereas unattractive teens who do game spend more time each week on it than other gamers. Attractive adults are also less likely than others to spend any time gaming; and if they do, they spend less time on it than less attractive adults. Using the longitudinal nature of the Add Health Study, we find supportive evidence that these relationships are causal for adults: good looks decrease gaming time, not vice-versa.
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Attractive People Are Less Likely To Play Video Games, NBER Study Says More

Attractive People Are Less Likely To Play Video Games, NBER Study Says

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  • Obligatory (Score:2, Troll)

    by drinkypoo ( 153816 )

    On the internet, no one knows you're a dog. Unless, of course, you put up a real profile picture.

  • Unless, of course... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Chris Mattern ( 191822 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:05AM (#64717792)

    ...it's made by Strong Bad.

  • Of course. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Qbertino ( 265505 ) <moiraNO@SPAMmodparlor.com> on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:07AM (#64717794)

    One of the primary motivations for escapism is not having that many good chances in the real world. A problem attractive people don't have that much as ugly people. Hence gamers and other escapists are more likely to be on the not so attractive side of the spectrum. This totally makes sense and pretty much lines up with my personal real world experience. For myself and others I meet.

    • We had a breathtaking girl in our friends group at university. She suffered from it. Whenever we went out, people would give her ostentatious looks. She 'd be shouted at by the "tough" guys. The whistles, ... She definitely did not enjoy the attention. We found a trick. We went to places with lots of old people. That was surprisingly entertaining.
      Also for the most beautiful people, the world can be ugly. She did not play video games though.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by ac22 ( 7754550 )

        And did you know that rich people struggle to find friends who aren't interested in their money? It's heartbreaking, it really is.

        • I just go places with lots of old people.

          • Re:Of course. (Score:5, Funny)

            by rknop ( 240417 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @11:12AM (#64717964) Homepage

            I *am* old people.

            • Most of us six-digit and less /. nerds are old, especially the lower digits.

              • Re: (Score:2)

                by hawk ( 1151 )

                Not me!

                I was 24 when I joined, and am still 24!

                OK, so it's odd having children older than I am, with grandchildren approaching, but . . .

                I just harassed too many people for being old. they were like, 25!

                SO when the time came, instead of having a 24th birthday, I had my first annual 24th . . .

                Now if someone would just explain this to my knees. OK, and my ankles, who feel obliged to announce that I'm standing up for[ for everyone to hear. And my eyes . . .

                hawk, perpetually 24

              • Most of us six-digit and less /. nerds are old, especially the lower digits.

                Speak for yourself!

                I mean, I'll admit that just yesterday I got asked whether I should get the senior discount, but I swear the lighting was bad, and I had been up all night. It was while I was at the hospital to attend the birth of my grandson. And I said "yes". I mean why pay more than you have to?

                Okay, okay, I guess you can speak for me too.

            • How many people are you? If it's more than one, "old" is a euphemism for something.

        • Re:Of course. (Score:4, Funny)

          by Ed Tice ( 3732157 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:42AM (#64717890)
          I wish for the opportunity to be pitied for my wealth.
        • Thanks. That made my day ;)

        • And did you know that rich people struggle to find friends who aren't interested in their money? It's heartbreaking, it really is.

          I'm up to the challenge.....let me please win Powerball Jackpot....

        • I guess this is one reason why you should make friends while you're young. I think it's generally harder to make friends when you've grown up, regardless of your wealth or social status. Maybe it's because you get more locked into certain roles and careers, and people are more like to see you through these roles. Being rich is just one such role.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by lsllll ( 830002 )

        We had a breathtaking girl in our friends group at university.

        Do you still have her number? Don't hold out on me, bro!

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        For ladies it's definitely a mixed bag. For men though it's mostly upsides.

        • Its a mixed bag for everyone, I'm sure you can come up with examples for some men, why maybe there men that don't like to be looked at too. I definitely don't want someone who I don't find attractive to ask me out either, saying no would hurt their feelings and upset me. The main difference is that society has taught us that men all potential rapists so be wary, not so women.

          The thing is its an overall a benefit to be attractive for both men and women, if it was such a big problem she could of disfigured he

          • She could have "disfigured herself". She could have spent less time doing her hair, stop washing it. We just avoided high hormone people. But you do have a point. All she had to do to avoid the reactions was wear a burka.

      • We had a breathtaking girl in our friends group at university. She suffered from it. Whenever we went out, people would give her ostentatious looks.

        From my experience, having a natural beauty is not enough to attract such strong reactions, you have to dress accordingly and use make-up, otherwise most people around won't easily notice. Beautiful girl + sloppy clothing = out of rude guys attention.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      I wonder if we are confusing cause and effect here. Maybe less attractive people have to work harder at being socialable and entertaining to have rewarding social interactions, so find the cost/benefit ratio is a little closer to video games and split their time differently.

      You also have to wonder about the quality of the social interaction. It's flattering having people stare at your body and complement you in the hopes of getting laid, but ultimately it's pretty shallow. Maybe people who don't get that se

      • Re:Of course. (Score:4, Informative)

        by Voice of satan ( 1553177 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:57AM (#64717924)

        Looks are skill. Or at the very least effort. It takes work to look pretty. Diet, exercise, going to a good hairdresser, be smart enough not to get tattoos, choosing your clothes or choosing good advice on how to choose your clothes. Using makeup correctly...

        • All that effort is required for femmes maybe, but mascs can very often get away with simply cooking at home, having a job or hobby that requires regular physical exertion, a haircut within the last month or owning their own clippers, clean clothing that fits, and a shower that morning. The tattoos depend on the kind of femme they are hoping to attract.

          • ...a haircut within the last month or owning their own clippers...

            Don't forget the option of "brush your teeth and throw on a hat". It's good to be a guy sometimes.

        • So yeah for some people looks are a skill. Some people really do have to work out it. But there's plenty of people who can eat whatever they want and never gain weight because of their metabolism and who are just naturally healthy.

          So it's an example I've got a wide range of unpleasant little health problems that make life just that much harder. That in turn snowballs. Add to that a history of alcoholism in my family (I managed to make it through childhood as a teetolder so I escaped that one but it did m

          • Straight teeth are actually a question of diet.
            If the teeth are not used enough by eating stuff that needs strong teeth, they just grow randomly out of the jaws.

            Here in Thailand braces are a status symbol: look I am rich enough to afford braces! And usually they are full with fake jewels, or those artificial ones.


            I think people drastically underestimate the effect hereditary factors have let alone societal ones like your access to good quality health care.
            Yes they do underestimate it. If your own live is ru

        • Never been outside of your country ???
          Obviously.
          Normal countries are full with beautiful peaople who do nothing for beauty. They are born like that. In other countries people ruin their beauty. In the year 2024: that is your own fault.

          If your definition of "looks good" is based on a hair dresser ... or having no tattoos ... wow wow wow. Make up, just lolz. Most men in my environment want ladies: without any make up. And a tattoo is a matter of taste. If the tattoo is Poppeye on a ladies arm, that does not

          • Diet ... you only need "diet" if you had bad eating habits before.

            Wrong, Mr. Smug, absolutely, utterly wrong. I'm coming up on my 75th birthday and I not only have to watch my diet, I have to take pills from 12 different prescriptions daily. Part of it is because of my age, of course, but I have to watch my diet because of LADA diabetes caused by indirect exposure to Agent Orange in Tonkin Gulf back in '72. Not everybody who has to watch their diet and take lots of pills is paying for bad choices ear

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by hawk ( 1151 )

            ugly animals are, indeed, rare.

            And I would not have believed it until I saw one, but there ar indeed ugly calicos!

            But she was a good mother to a couple of other feral cats--one day, I saw her carrying an air rat larger than herself along my fence to feed her kits.

        • Looks are skill. Or at the very least effort. It takes work to look pretty. Diet, exercise, going to a good hairdresser, be smart enough not to get tattoos, choosing your clothes or choosing good advice on how to choose your clothes. Using makeup correctly...

          Sorry but that's a load of crap. All of what you are talking about is little more than polish. There are people who are naturally pretty and naturally ugly. You can get both of them the same effort and same expense and there will still be one prettier than the other short of intervening surgery. It's not even about Diet or exercise. I eat like a slob (literally just ate an entire chocolate bar because I have no self control), and haven't stepped foot in a gym or a running shoe in over a decade, yet I weigh

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by keltor ( 99721 ) *
        You also have to wonder about the methodology and selection criteria - many of the "attractiveness" studies get debunked.

        There was a study that actually had pictures which got posted to the Internet and it was obviously that someone had a particular bias as many of the unattractive people were definitely attractive.

        Often these studies are self-selected as well because you fill out a survey, so of course narcissists are less likely to play video games unless it's via streaming because there's nobody to prais

        • Re:Of course. (Score:4, Interesting)

          by larryjoe ( 135075 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @12:29PM (#64718150)

          You also have to wonder about the methodology and selection criteria - many of the "attractiveness" studies get debunked.

          There was a study that actually had pictures which got posted to the Internet and it was obviously that someone had a particular bias as many of the unattractive people were definitely attractive.

          Often these studies are self-selected as well because you fill out a survey, so of course narcissists are less likely to play video games unless it's via streaming because there's nobody to praise them playing Final Fantasy at home on their PS5.

          This study uses "attractiveness" as evaluated by an interviewer. Based on the data in the paper [nber.org], we can conclude that (1) females are more attractive than males [or maybe that most of the interviewers were male and rated the females as more attractive] and (2) that teens are more attractive than adults [or maybe that the interviewers were attracted to teens].

          It's interesting that the paper's introduction acknowledges how attractiveness affects how people are viewed and treated (e.g., evaluations of teachers, grades given to students), and yet the paper completely ignores these effects on the data gathering process for this paper.

      • What I wonder (worry) about is the potential long-term impacts of appearance on personality. What if being ignored and rejected a little more often when young snowballs into lack of self-confidence and then bitterness and resentment over time? Then you have both your looks and how you treat people working against you.

      • Re: (Score:3)

        by hawk ( 1151 )

        >I wonder if we are confusing cause and effect here.

        Absolutely.

        Playing video games causes ugliness!

    • One of the primary motivations for escapism is not having that many good chances in the real world.

      Perhaps that self-selection bias is one aspect. However, to be judged attractive you usually need to be in-shape and that requires plenty of exercise. Playing computer games is time spent being very inactive and the more time you spend playing the less time you have for physical activity and so the less likely you are to be in good physical shape and hence attractive. So I suspect there is some cause-and-effect here where playing computer games tends to make you less attractive too. Yes, there will definit

  • So... I was in a dorm full of tech people. I was the only one that did not play games. Felt a bit weird, but now it all makes sense.

  • Control for variables (Score:4)

    by Anubis IV ( 1279820 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @10:15AM (#64717812)

    Did they control for the ability of the person to groom themselves? Serious question. It may simply be that the people who play games are worse at grooming themselves to look attractive. Unless they gave everyone a makeover with a professional, it's hard to draw much from this, since it may simply point to matters of taste, rather than physical traits affecting preferences.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by keltor ( 99721 ) *
      This is a study of a study which is a 20000 person study using surveys and health data. Given the conclusions drawn I'd say it's 100% bullshit because the data simply doesn't have that kind of information in it.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by SirSlud ( 67381 )

      No. People who study things and write papers about it and basically spend a ton of personal and professional effort on stuff often forget to ask the kinds of questions it takes somebody else 5 seconds to think of, so it's a good thing you're here. I would send them a letter.

      • No. People who study things and write papers about it and basically spend a ton of personal and professional effort on stuff often forget to ask the kinds of questions it takes somebody else 5 seconds to think of, so it's a good thing you're here. I would send them a letter.

        We used to tear apart peer-reviewed papers on a weekly basis when I was in a research lab. From p-hacking to papering over inconsistencies or gaps in their data to outright failing to acknowledge gaping holes in their methodology, these are exactly the sorts of obvious issues we'd see all the time that would cause us to question how or why those papers were accepted in the first place. You could tell a lot of conference and journal editors were phoning it in. The good papers and conferences/journals are muc

    • Did they control for the ability of the person to groom themselves? Serious question. It may simply be that the people who play games are worse at grooming themselves to look attractive. Unless they gave everyone a makeover with a professional, it's hard to draw much from this, since it may simply point to matters of taste, rather than physical traits affecting preferences.

      Despite mythbusters proving the alternative in this case you can't polish a turd. No amount of grooming makes some people turn pretty. It is a sad reality that underneath it all for every person who has a preference, some people look beautiful and others look ugly, and that preference often stays locked on the people regardless of how they groomed themselves.

      • Oh, for sure. I'm not suggesting it's all down to grooming, but I am pointing out that if you aren't taking it into account, you're failing to control for a significant variable that will impact your results.

        More or less, I'm trying to draw a distinction between a stable notion of attractiveness for any given person vs. the instantaneous attractiveness that can vary significantly based on lighting, camera choice, expression, tiredness, health, and any number of other factors, of which grooming is a signific

  • Ah, but can someone become more attractive if they reduce or eliminate the number of hours they spend playing video games?

    • And no, I can't proofread.

    • From TFS: "Using the longitudinal nature of the Add Health Study, we find supportive evidence that these relationships are causal for adults: good looks decrease gaming time, not vice-versa."

      But one would think it's possible, to some extent, by spending more time on grooming, hygiene and physical fitness. Though if you're fundamentally ugly, shaving the neckbeard and losing weight can only take you so far.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cstacy ( 534252 )

      Ah, but can someone become more attractive if they reduce or eliminate the number of hours they spend playing video games?

      You are not attractive if nobody can see you, so if you're at home playing video games, instead of out in the real world where there are people to see....

      If a nerd falls in the forest of Endor, is he attractive?

      • Re: (Score:3, Funny)

        by Tablizer ( 95088 )

        If a nerd falls in the forest of Endor, is he attractive?

        The fauna are really asking, "Does it taste good?"

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by keltor ( 99721 ) *
      Given that these are based on surveys, it's probably more about narcissists don't play video games by themselves since they need to find external validation.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Ah, but can someone become more attractive if they reduce or eliminate the number of hours they spend playing video games?

      If they spend their new found time working out in a manner that produces a nicely toned body that they didnt have before then absolutely, yes. It also helps at least for guys of my generation to not be gamers in getting an initial in with a lady as some ladies do not have a positive view of gamers. I'm of a generation that had very few female gamers though. I'm also a gamer.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      Oh, also I forgot the most important reason not gaming might make someone more attractive, social skills. Even playing multiplayers games with communication between players using something like discord doesnt really develop the proper social skills for scoring with whatever sex one is into. One needs real world experience to develop social skills.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Maybe. Or not. But would I want to do that in the first place?

  • Everybody knows that.

  • Maybe playing video games turn good looking people into uglies?
  • ...with spending time on /.?

  • Escapism (Score:3)

    by Turkinolith ( 7180598 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @11:03AM (#64717944)
    In a surprise to nobody, turns out when you've been dealt a genetic lottery win that you don't have to practice escapism as much.
  • If the physical attractiveness a cause or effect?
  • In related news, people who obsess over their looks (and outward image in ways more than physical) to an unhealthy degree lie about their gaming usage times on surveys because of self-presentation bias.

  • Too busy getting laid.

  • You interrupted ... (Score:4, Funny)

    by PPH ( 736903 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @11:44AM (#64718040)

    ... my Solitaire game to tell me this?

  • There is no single measure of attractiveness, so this is bunk to start with ....

  • All my Girlfriends play games. Or do games on phones not count?

  • ...I don't think this really surprises anyone, does it?

  • You play more games instead of going to gym, dancing, outdoor ...

    you are getting fattier and uglier...

  • I never knew how handsome I was, until now!

  • Video gaming makes you fat. QED.

  • NBER? More like NODUH.

  • Depends on the game (Score:5, Funny)

    by Hoi Polloi ( 522990 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @01:58PM (#64718446) Journal

    If you've done the same boss 100+ times you probably look like the kids from the WoW episode of South Park at that point.

  • *Henry Cavill has entered the chat.* (Score:4, Informative)

    by newcastlejon ( 1483695 ) on Monday August 19, 2024 @02:59PM (#64718648)
    nt
  • Back in the day, multiplayer games would require friends to actually be in the same room. They were all guys of course, and of probably average attractiveness but gaming was a bit more sociable. Hot girls playing games though? Or indeed any girls? Very rare!

  • That explains all those hours I spent in the arcades :)

    Also explains my Atari 600XL.

  • Great.

    All this time I have been playing FAF and I come to find out almost 18 years later after Forged Alliance was released I was beaten with an Ugly stick when I was young at some point.

    Just horrible!

  • Seriously, if they let us mod entire summaries, there'd be nothing on the front page.

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