New Survey Links MMOs And Depression

[Elurindel]

I'm amazed that they were able to gather up all seven thousand people that play Everquest 2.

 

[Erana]

I'd say depressed people are attracted to MMOs.

I used to to an MMO purely for the socialization, and I'd be on there now, socializing, if it weren't for the damn patch issues I keep having. I wasn't depressed necessarily, but I was having terrible hormonal imbalances that led to near-perpetual PMS. Not fun.

But really, the Escapist fills in the same void, and I'm not depressed. Stressed, yes, but not depressed.

However, if I indulge too much into the Escapist, or an MMO, which is worse due to the social connections and the instant gratification systems, I wind up not doing all that I need to do. And when I don't get enough sleep, I'm cranky. If I don't eat at regular intervals, I'm cranky. And if I am not where I want to be academically, I'm cranky. And too much of that sort of thing makes me miserable and angsty.

 

[oneplus999]

Seriously though, there's like a 9% difference? That's not that much, I think.

Whether or not this is statistically significant depends on your sample size and variance. The fact that they have 7k responses is likely to be more that enough to establish that difference. Also there's the fact that they are published

 

[Ronwue]

I don't think this survey was well enough done. I have played MMOs for a good 4 years and have met more people from other countries than I would have met in my entire life. And I am not the only one.

 

[oneplus999]

I don't think this survey was well enough done. I have played MMOs for a good 4 years and have met more people from other countries than I would have met in my entire life. And I am not the only one.

That's why they call it a "survey" and not "anecdotal evidence".

 

[otakonbr]

scientists do these surveys every now and then, but to say that they PROOF something is another thing... what´s next? God of War promotes decapitation?I don´t think so... surveys about videogames are tending to be more and more negative towards videogames, and that is very concerning... depressed people also watch movies, read books and listen to music... i wacthed on bbc, a survey that was made by the Glasgow University that depressed people like romantic movies, but that didn´t cause much trouble for the filming industry... when it´s videogame, however, there´s aways a war against the press and goverment to try to prove that games aren´t satan´s work.

 

[fuckwit]

Well of course they're depressed if they're playing Everquest 2 all the time. You lose XP when you die in that game. It's ridiculous and has no connection to reality at all.

 

[oneplus999]

These are some of the most ignorant comments I've ever read. You people who are saying "This proves nothing" have no idea what you are talking about. THERE IS A CORRELATION. IT DOES NOT IMPLY CAUSATION. End of story. This is a statistically significant correlation, which means that there is a very low probability that this relationship was due to chance. For example, if you took some of the stupid comments here, like about drinking water and watching movies, and actually did a study, you would have to ask, is there a correlation between amount of water drunk in depressed people versus non-depressed people. THIS IS DIFFERENT FROM ASKING IF PEOPLE WHO ARE DEPRESSED DRINK WATER. If water is irrelevant, you would find no statistically significant difference in depression between ppl who drank little water and ppl who drank a lot. Here, they did this with amount of EQ2 played, instead of water. Of course, you might understand this if you had actually read the article.

 

[captainwolfos]

The only thing I find depressing about most MMOs is the fact you have to pay to play them -_-'

 

[xMacx]

Seriously though, there's like a 9% difference? That's not that much, I think.

Whether or not this is statistically significant depends on your sample size and variance. The fact that they have 7k responses is likely to be more that enough to establish that difference. Also there's the fact that they are published

True, though when you've got a sample that large, you've got to consider the probability of making a Type I error. It would be interesting to see the study itself, especially a power analysis and the number of comparisons run on the data, etc. I would not be suprised to see a relatively inflated alpha in cases like this. (Note - no way to tell this without seeing the article & the data. Just saying.)

This is a good case where it's probably statistically significant, but may or may not be practically significant. Not nearly enough information in the article to know what we're talking about. If I grab a copy of the proceedings or if the authors post anything, I'll see about putting up a link.



Also, it is pretty awesome to see some people talking semi-objectively about the details of the test itself rather than trying to pick something apart (or build it up) because it doesn't fit their mental model of a particular phenomena.