Attractive People Are Less Likely To Play Video Games, NBER Study Says (nber.org) 159
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.
Obligatory (Score:2, Troll)
On the internet, no one knows you're a dog. Unless, of course, you put up a real profile picture.
Re: Obligatory (Score:2)
Unless, of course... (Score:5, Funny)
...it's made by Strong Bad.
Of course. (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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Also for the most beautiful people, the world can be ugly. She did not play video games though.
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And did you know that rich people struggle to find friends who aren't interested in their money? It's heartbreaking, it really is.
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I just go places with lots of old people.
Re:Of course. (Score:5, Funny)
I *am* old people.
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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
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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.
Re: Of course. (Score:2)
How many people are you? If it's more than one, "old" is a euphemism for something.
Re:Of course. (Score:4, Funny)
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LOL.
You "win" the internet for today. =P
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I'm up to the challenge.....let me please win Powerball Jackpot....
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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: Of course. (Score:2)
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For ladies it's definitely a mixed bag. For men though it's mostly upsides.
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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
Re: Of course. (Score:2)
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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.
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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)
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...
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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.
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Don't forget the option of "brush your teeth and throw on a hat". It's good to be a guy sometimes.
Re: Of course. (Score:4, Informative)
Earth.
To anyone under the age of 40 that lives in an urban area my comment is self-explanatory and makes perfect grammatical and social sense.
Lemme break it down for you.
Femmes are people that present feminine, mascs are people that present masculine.
The queer and trans side of the issue I'm going to assume you already understand.
The heterosexual side goes like this...
Some heterosexual men are femmes because they like to live in such a way that they attract women that are attracted to stereotypical feminine traits; women that like a guy that obsessively grooms themselves, has a home that looks like it came right out of a design catalogue, likes teacup poodles and going to musicals, but likes to fuck women.
Some heterosexual women are mascs because they like to live in such a way that they attract men that are at attracted to stereotypical masculine traits; men that like a woman that hunts, rides motocross, vacations by pretending to play 'Survivor', has all the tools in their garage to overhaul the vintage pickup truck they bought at a wreckers, but likes to fuck men.
All straight people are also on the spectrum of gender expression, which is multiaxial, and those axis differ in differ between nationalities and ethnicities as well.
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Nope. This is probably the iteration of the Earth that you were born on unless I made a mistake during the migration from the PreCovid() server to the Covid() server and accidentally put you in the wrong one.
It's probably likely that the standard schema for dictating social dynamics, gender and sexual identity, and what is and is not within the boundaries of the set:
Traits And Preferences That People Find Attractive Enough To Want To Fuck And Have Relationships With()
that you inherited during your period of
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It's OK for people to build a nice comfy box and put themselves in it; it's when other try and shove them in a box they made that it becomes an issue of consent.
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"Femmes"? "Mascs"? What planet am I on?
It's always funny when men that grow beards to compensate for having moobs, avoid carrying laptop bags, commute in a F-350, etc. act like they didn't know masculinity might be on a spectrum, and are also the first people to point at something and say "that's gay".
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I know more Butch Lesbians that drive F class trucks than I do men that own trucks period.
Yes and no (Score:2)
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
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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
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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
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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: Of course. (Score:2)
You are no longer in the group of people actively trying to get laid or succeed in a career; the conversation is not about you. You have literally aged out of relevance to the discussion.
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True, true, true!!!
Any tips?!
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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.
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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
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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)
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.
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>I wonder if we are confusing cause and effect here.
Absolutely.
Playing video games causes ugliness!
Cause and Effect (Score:2)
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
Re: Makes sense. (Score:2, Funny)
When is she free?
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After 25 years together I highly doubt you copulate 24/7... my guess is once a week at best, if you are lucky. That would leave *a lot* of time for video games if, big if, your partner will allow it.
Finally understand (Score:2)
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Obviously you were to bad to be invited into their team :P
Re: Finally understand (Score:2)
Control for variables (Score:4)
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.
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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.
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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
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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.
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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
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Agreed, but that's missing the point. If you aren't ensuring that everyone has a neutral or smiling or otherwise standard facial expression, you aren't controlling for that variable effectively, so people with a particular expression may errantly be perceived as more attractive. Likewise if you are taking pictures of people when they are in the middle of a 24-hour bug, they'll be perceived as less attractive, even though their affliction is temporary. Likewise if you didn't account for grooming habits. Like
Does it work the other way arond? (Score:2)
Ah, but can someone become more attractive if they reduce or eliminate the number of hours they spend playing video games?
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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.
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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?
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The fauna are really asking, "Does it taste good?"
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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.
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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.
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Maybe. Or not. But would I want to do that in the first place?
They play sex games instead (Score:2)
Everybody knows that.
Cause and effect (Score:2)
What's the correlation... (Score:2)
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Escapism (Score:3)
Cause or Effect (Score:2)
Let me correct that (Score:2)
They don't have time (Score:2)
Too busy getting laid.
You interrupted ... (Score:4, Funny)
Correlation is not causation (Score:2)
Attractive .... to who ? (Score:2)
There is no single measure of attractiveness, so this is bunk to start with ....
Wow, my GFs are ugly? I am ugly? (Score:2)
All my Girlfriends play games. Or do games on phones not count?
No ... just stupid... (Score:2)
Not understanding statistics...
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Which statistics?
That all my GFs are ugly, because they play games?
And only beautiful ladies do NOT play games?
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All my Girlfriends play games.
Saying "girlfriends" implies a number other than 1. Unfortunately, zero fits perfectly well as in "I have no girlfriends". And one can say all of them play games! There's none that don't after all :)
as an avid computer gamer (Score:2)
...I don't think this really surprises anyone, does it?
Is it not the other way around? (Score:2)
You play more games instead of going to gym, dancing, outdoor ...
you are getting fattier and uglier...
Headline's like something you'd read in The Onion (Score:2)
Akin to the story Jock Scientists Discover Gay Gene in Carl [archive.org].
Why thank you! (Score:2)
I never knew how handsome I was, until now!
why (Score:2)
Video gaming makes you fat. QED.
Nat'l Org. of Doing Unnecessary Hackery (Score:3)
Depends on the game (Score:5, Funny)
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)
Options (Score:2)
Well (Score:2)
That explains all those hours I spent in the arcades :)
Also explains my Atari 600XL.
FAF Gamer (Score:2)
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!
-1 Flamebait (Score:2)
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Re: too lazy to read it (Score:4, Funny)
So basically this study was conducted by "hot or not".
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This prepress study is a study of the Add Health Study (itself a longitudinal study of a ton of different elements, but mostly surveys and medical data). There's definitely no photo sorting that I can see
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The study it's based on was quite in depth - multiple at-home interviews per participant, conducted over a number of years. The interviews were typically well over an hour. The "attractiveness" score was a rating from the interviewer.