Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

wsj.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 199 posts

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

#121

Post by ytwySXpMbS »

numismatex wrote: post #113
mjevans wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

You're arguing gamers would have a longer life expectancy than others, and that you'd rather have your child game than go outside. Do you disagree with the widely accepted fact that exercise is beneficial to health, and thus a longer life?

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

#122

Post by freeflight »

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

Even nearly 20 years ago I was hanging out daily on voice chat servers with my Counter-Strike buddies.

It wasn't just for coordination in-game, just hanging out and talking while sometimes not even playing, because that's what even male friends do: They talk.

It's even more dominant with consoles where since the 360/PS3 era voice has also seen quite high adoption rates even more common than in PC gaming.

Then there's Discord which is very much the millennial version of "hanging out in IRC all day" culture combining text and voice chat.

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

#123

Post by dwaltrip »

xyzzyz wrote: post #119
stevenhuang wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

There isn't a general case rule you can apply here to determine burden of proof.

If the target domain is incredibly complex with major fundamental unknowns, then even robust results should not be viewed as 100% definitive.

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

#124

Post by mokus »

dwaltrip wrote: post #123
xyzzyz wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

There isn't a general case rule you can apply here to determine burden of proof. If the target domain is incredibly complex with major fundamental unknowns, then even robust results should not be viewed as 100% definitive.

IMO the “burden of proof” is a mostly vacuous concept to begin with, because it always and only ever lies with the party that wishes to change others’ minds.

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

#125

Post by majormajor »

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?

The artifacts of the social construct are all around us, starting with most Western religious texts, so... people's confidence that everything is biological and that everyone who spent millennia on indoctrination was just wasting their time surprises me. Redirecting people's biological urges is exactly what society has tried to do for ages. At this point it's gotten pretty good at it. So why do we assume that the things people are directed at in gendered ways is anything close to indicators of gendered natural ability, affinity, or talent when it comes to the brain?

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

#126

Post by hackinthebochs »

majormajor wrote: post #125
Funes- wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

The artifacts of the social construct are all around us, starting with most Western religious texts, so... people's confidence that everything is biological and that everyone who spent millennia on indoctrination was just wasting their time surprises me. Redirecting people's biological urges is exactly what society has tried to do for ages. At this point it's gotten pretty good at it. So why do we assume that the thi…

>So why do we assume that the things people are directed at in gendered ways

Because we're well past assumptions and have significant amounts of hard evidence that point towards relevant structural differences in the brain along gendered lines and behavioral differences that manifest at the earliest ages.

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

#127

Post by 6gvONxR4sf7o »

solidsnack9000 wrote: post #77
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…

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…

The whole point for randomized trials, and much of modern statistics is to argue from ignorance. You hypothesize that maybe there's something missing, who knows. A causal boogey man. Then you design a test robust to that. One term for problems this leads to is omitted variable bias. It's not about "ooh maybe this one thing is bad." It's about "this class of problem is introduced."

It's tough to make an intuitive story for why RCTs are important, so the story sounds elaborate. You don't need to offer evidence against the theory to say that the methodology is weak.

Anyways, wet streets might cause rain.

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

#128

Post by thanatropism »

seph-reed wrote: post #107
Funes- wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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?

I'm going to take off my "mature adult" hat here, and say something I think which is probably totally groundless, but I want to talk about it anyways. A lot of little boys are hyper as fuck, and I don't think that's a social construct. I think that's just how little boy bodies tend to produce energy: in excess. Also, a good description for most games might be "twitchy." I think these two line up. But in answer to you…

My father's peer group used to get in brawls with boys from three streets over for the hell of it. See also Achewood's "The Great Outdoor Fight".

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

#129

Post by baroffoos »

thrower123 wrote: post #60
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.

This sounds to me like they haven't updated their sources in fifteen or twenty years. Text chat was huge back in the Starcraft/Age of Empires era. I'm sure it exists in newer games, but I have no idea where I'd find it in most of the games I've played from the past decade.

I think text is more common for casual gaming with strangers. The only times I find myself using voice chat is when playing with friends or playing competitive team based games. If I'm just playing casual counter strike I tend to not bother putting on a headset and moving my microphone.

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

#130

Post by jacobolus »

numismatex wrote: post #113
mjevans wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 hav…

> 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.

What?

You don’t allow your kid to go outside or hang out with friends face to face? You prefer his/her social interactions are all intermediated by a computer network? This seems like a very strange and dystopian preference.

Do you actually have a kid or is this hypothetical?

Post reply on HN