Gamertell

Dan Laton, a Psychology graduate from Victoria University, recently conducted a study on the effects of games on social well being. Gamers tend to be thought of as a group of socially awkward, shy nerds. The purpose of the study was to find out whether or not that stereotype is actually true.

His study had shown that there are no clear links between shyness and gaming, since only one percent of his subjects actually suffered from shyness. The gamers that have been found to have problems socially end up being the players of MMORPGs like World of Warcraft and Everquest. These findings have some implications for the American Medical Association (AMA) which will be readdressing whether or not video game addiction as a mental disorder by 2012 as reported by News.com.au.

Honestly, gamers aren’t the shy nerds they’re made out to be. They can be just as out going as non-gamers. As I was quoted in an article from the NEIU Independent, “gamers seek out groups but the social norms and customs of the game world are only applicable to that reality and are not valid to real society.” This means that gamers, much like other people, are social animals that seek out friends both in the real world and the game world. It is up to them to recognize which world they’re interacting with at one time. It is also up to them to act according to that world’s norms and customs.

Now the difficulty with MMOs is that they try to emulate a real society within a game. It can be a bit harder for the MMO addict to realize that disconnect, especially if they are already mentally or emotionally unstable. Then again, this isn’t to say that the games themselves are the problem. In the cases of people like Shawn Woolley, who committed suicide in 2001 over a problem he had in-game while playing Everquest, there might be underlying circumstances that were not addressed before it was too late.

If a person is shy in real-life, a game isn’t going to be the cause of it. The problem already exists. The person just uses games as an outlet. However, society is always looking for someone or something to blame for everyone’s problems and entertainment is easy to blame because, outside of satire, it doesn’t fight back.

Read [News.com.au] Also Read [NEIU Independent] Also Read [Wired] Also Read [CBS News]

image borrowed from News.com.au