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Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

wsj.com

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Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#111

Post by chrisco255 »

chrisrhoden wrote: post #96
chrisco255 wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you? You telling me you got no innate enjoyment out of those activities? No rush or thrill when you scored a goal or caught a pop fly?

Given your tone, it sounds like you sincerely believe that I am more likely to have positive feelings about doing well in a game than a girl is for reasons that are not cultural / social.

That's the premise of the article but not the premise of what I'm saying. I think that enjoyment in sports and games in general is an innate part of human psychology. I suspect there are differences on average across a population in what types of games or sports they prefer and that may be more cultural. But the general pattern is there isn't a civilization existing or past that hasn't had some sort of sporting or gaming events, and "play" is also found in many other species.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#112

Post by denkmoon »

charliesharding wrote: post #55
Vrondi wrote: post #5

The article claims that inside games "most communication is through text". This makes me think they haven't seen very many real gamers. There's no mention of voice chat's extensive use inside games for everything from gameplay to homework advice from buddies. Pretty clueless.

In higher level competitive scenarios, yeah voice is predominant. However, that is by no means the majority. They only seem like a bigger segment of gamers because they're loud and make themselves known. All they said was that most is done through text, which is true

That's an assumption. I'm pretty certain there is no data on text vs mic use in casual games, and my anecdotal experiences suggest the opposite. There is also a qualitative difference between "gg ez :^)" and chatting on mic.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#113

Post by numismatex »

mjevans wrote: post #82
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is superficially compelling but I fear that it is ultimately argument from ignorance. It is true that we don’t know everything. You even offer a fairly elaborate example of something that we don’t know whether it happened or not. It could be true. The problem here is that you offer no evidence to support whether it is true or not. Now it’s story time and instead of evaluating the studies and working wit…

It's worth considering that in complex systems sometimes it is impossible (or extraordinarily unlikely/expensive) to be able to disentangle specific elements and that thus they might always be present, even in a rigorously considered study. Arguably the only ethical way of removing external social conditioning might be to find a regional social setting which lacks that specific element in order to evaluate the statis…

Especially in communities. For ease, people lump things such as social media and gaming in with "addiction". I'm sure 100 years from now in many cases the "social media addicts" will have a subset that leans toward success beyond their local community, and the gamers have a longer life expectancy than many in their community. I'd rather my kid game than go outside even in our middle-class neighborhood. I'd rather have my kid keep in touch with friends via social media than having them all in my kitchen when I'm not home.

There're tradeoffs, pros and cons to social media and gaming, but framing it in an addiction narrative isn't helping matters. This is what led many Chinese people to put their kids in "camps" that used Electro Convulsive Therapy to "fix their internet addiction". This is born of ignorance, and the addiction narrative.

I think elements can be intuited, and more studies done, but when you're bashing the cheapest forms of entertainment and social contact, and safest to boot, as addictions... that's just ignorant.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#114

Post by numismatex »

Vrondi wrote: post #5

The article claims that inside games "most communication is through text". This makes me think they haven't seen very many real gamers. There's no mention of voice chat's extensive use inside games for everything from gameplay to homework advice from buddies. Pretty clueless.

Ingame VOIP to "social group" Discords. It used to be largely TeamSpeak and Ventrilo. If they're not talking Discord populations then they're definitely out of touch. If they're not talking ingame VOIP they're dinosaurs.

Paging http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#115

Post by fzeroracer »

Funes- wrote: post #89
whatshisface wrote: post #53

All of the games I played as a kid were clearly designed for boys and young men (featuring all of the typical things like guns and heavy machinery that men are well known to like more than women). That's just how the market was. If it's like that today, then it is no wonder that boys exhibit signs of enjoying video games more.

>all of the typical things like guns and heavy machinery that men are well known to like more than women Okay, so either men liking guns, heavy machinery, and videogames more than women comes from a inherent, biological difference between men and women, or it all comes from a huge, complex social construct that has been cultivated and dominant for centuries. Which one is it, then?

It's from the huge and complex social construct. I think this has been fairly well documented throughout the evolution of video games, specifically when you start looking at the golden era of arcades and games like Pac-Man (whose demographics consisted mostly of women).

With the home console revival and growth of PCs, games were marketed primarily towards young men as the default demographic. There's also the fact that what's considered for men vs women can vary drastically depending on whether we're talking about the US, Korea, Japan etc.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#116

Post by throwaway41251 »

seph-reed wrote: post #109
ineedasername wrote: post #81

The original (more clicky baity) said "brain differences", which really isn't born out by the article. It seems highly likely that these preferences are socially constructed. I have two kids under the age of 10, and both play video games with the same fervor & intensity. Neither are allowed on social media yet. (yes, that's a sample size of 1, so it's hardly authoritative, just a case-in-point) Also, at least some of…

> two kids under the age of 10 I think puberty might have more of a splitting effect on the human mind than anyone is saying. Also, food for thought, humanity as a whole is probably still way too primitive to have a greater nurture than nature ratio. If you look back, primitive people appear to be more nature than people now. Looking forwards, it's probably going to continue. Therefor, we must be somewhere in between…

"primitive people"

Please don't use words like this.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#117

Post by lazzlazzlazz »

Vrondi wrote: post #5

The article claims that inside games "most communication is through text". This makes me think they haven't seen very many real gamers. There's no mention of voice chat's extensive use inside games for everything from gameplay to homework advice from buddies. Pretty clueless.

The vast majority of in-game communication is through text, across most games. Voice is picking up momentum (via Discord, etc.) but it's still text

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#118

Post by abathur »

NoodleIncident wrote: post #66

Here is one of the actual studies, which is much less annoying to read: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6234325/?mod=ar... I was particularly interested in the participant selection section; they did go to an effort to select male and female participants with similar gaming habits. However, this doesn't mean that the only explanation for the different "craving" response is a fundamental difference betwee…

It isn't massively distinct, but another way the observed differences could still be due to nurture rather than nature is that the connectome of the subjects could literally be shaped by how we raise and socialized the genders. This is more like an expanded version of the parent argument--these experiences play a role in structuring the eventual-participants brains, and the study is (unknowingly) measuring past-exprience rather than biological destiny.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#119

Post by xyzzyz »

stevenhuang wrote: post #95
solidsnack9000 wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This argument is superficially compelling but I fear that it is ultimately argument from ignorance. It is true that we don’t know everything. You even offer a fairly elaborate example of something that we don’t know whether it happened or not. It could be true. The problem here is that you offer no evidence to support whether it is true or not. Now it’s story time and instead of evaluating the studies and working wit…

> you offer no evidence to support whether it is true or not. The point is that it illustrates the study may not have taken such considerations into account. It calls to question the accuracy and efficacy of their results.

There are and will always be considerations not taken into account. Raising them is thus a fully general counterargument, and as such is best ignored. If you don't want your potential confounders be ignored, the burden of proof is on you to provide evidence that these confounders actually matter.

Re: Brain research on boys’ preference for video games and girls’ for social media

#120

Post by urreallydumb »

kanox wrote: post #61
Vrondi wrote: post #5

The article claims that inside games "most communication is through text". This makes me think they haven't seen very many real gamers. There's no mention of voice chat's extensive use inside games for everything from gameplay to homework advice from buddies. Pretty clueless.

I play a lot of games but never used voice chat. But I never play multiplayer either.

Every game I have ever played required voice chat. But I only play board games.
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