Study: Average Gamer is Overweight, Depressed

[xaira]

im an overweight 18 year old gamer, but at least im not a depressed 35 year old, thats just sad.

 

[Supertrek32]

This just in! The bathroom is the most dangerous room in your house! You know, the room that usually has wet, linoleum floors and large, metal protrutions from the walls, as well as plenty of random chemicals stored throughout? Yeah, that room. You're most likely to get hurt in there.

Seriously, why are we wasting money on these studies? The statistics they described are your average american, so obviously that's going to be the average gamer.

 

[RADIO_ACTIVE]

[citation][nom]agentjon[/nom]Guess I'm not the average gamer or American.6'1 male @ 173lbs.[/citation]
No you are the average matchstick

I am kidding, please don't take it personally

 

[badaxe2]

[citation][nom]fulle[/nom]The average American is roughly that age, overweight, and depressed.[/citation]


Hit the nail on the head! They should also poll Japanese and European gamers. Of course, that might not mesh with the Western agenda of debasing the videogame industry as the root of all our problems.

 

[thearm]

Of course the stats are going to be high in Seattle Tacoma. Everyone is depressed there. It rains all the time if it's no gloomy and they one of the the hightest rates of anti-depressent usage.

 

[Guest]

The problem is with the word 'average' - i'm British and lived in the USA for a year. I can tell you that offically the average American citizen is more overweight than the average British subject, but from what I saw there are no more fat Americans than there are fat Brits - what you have is a problem with the top-end of US citizens distorting the average.
I mean - when you guys go for it you really go for it - whether it is the economy, moon landings, sporting events or weight. It's like the nation woke up sometime in 1969 picked on some mildly overweight guy and thought "OK we've put man on the moon, now let's see exactly how big we can get this ba****d before he actually explodes". Honestly - there were no more fat people in Baltimore than I see on the streets of Oxford (in fact there were probably far more fit people there), it's just that the top 1% of them were so huge they would actually stop the traffic* if they walked around over here.
That study is junk - it probably consisted of 551 healthy, well adjusted individuals and some 550lb redneck couch potato who interviewed with a gun to his own head.

*I'm talking about the really big guys now - the ones where you have to look at their shoes to work out which way round they are facing

 

[Guest]

ct1615,

No you don't need sample data from 10K sources,
but you DO need a RANDOMIZED sample. Taking all from one specific area is not random, it's targeted. This is no different than standing outside of an abortion clinic and asking everybody who walks out if they are pro-life or pro-choice. You don't necessarily need a huge sample, but you do need to cover all bases equally (city vs. suburb vs. rural, different age groups, different races/cultures).

 

[-unknown-]

[citation][nom]ct1615[/nom]I assume you are not college educated and just slept through all of stats class. Although 552 gamers is a low number to get an accurate measure, you need no where near 10k people.[/citation]
You realize that a sample size of 10,000 people would only represent 0.003% of the population size, right? Heck, you would need way more than 30,000 if you wanted to actually have some concrete figures for any productive discussion around the topic.

As you mentioned, in terms of practicality, 552 isn't a bad number to perform a survey with when applied to the context of a small region but the study made conclusions and spread it over to an entire nation of over 300,000,000 people.

Let alone the obvious fact that one city alone does not constitute a good representation of an entire nation (especially one of the size of the US), 552 out of 300,000,000 is only 0.000184%. That's a horribly minuscule sample size to conduct for a study focusing on demographic. As an earlier member mentioned, the data supplied would be suitable for studies on depressed individuals, not "average Americans".

 

[Major7up]

Wonder where they conducted this survey...my friends and I who are gamers are all in shape and get regular exercise. We don't base our lives on video games but they are damn fun though.

 

[Devastator_uk]

The survey comes from just 552 gamers, with that small number all from the same location they could have been there for other reasons too, like for a donut convension!

 

[phantomtrooper]

18, gamer, underweight and not depressed. everyone knows one state is a good way to measure the entire country. in fact lets just let washington vote for president they are all the same as us right.

isnt the average person in the seattle-tacoma area 35, fat, balding, and depressed.

 

[mlopinto2k1]

[citation][nom]agentjon[/nom]Guess I'm not the average gamer or American.6'1 male @ 173lbs.[/citation]Yea, your kinda like the average american who has anorexia. =P Just teasin'! Anyway, I am 5'11 and weigh 215lbs but, I am not "overweight". But, I still get depressed reading some of the comments on here.

 

[-unknown-]

[citation][nom]gtg2009[/nom]ct1615,No you don't need sample data from 10K sources,but you DO need a RANDOMIZED sample. Taking all from one specific area is not random, it's targeted. This is no different than standing outside of an abortion clinic and asking everybody who walks out if they are pro-life or pro-choice. You don't necessarily need a huge sample, but you do need to cover all bases equally (city vs. suburb vs. rural, different age groups, different races/cultures).[/citation]
I think you're putting too much focus into the amount of work required to poll 10K versus what that means in terms of statistics.

552 is a manageable number to work with when you're dealing with a population size that is 100-10000 times that size. Anything bigger than that and you're just having to make way too many assumptions to the point where the study becomes very unsubstantiated.

Yes, polling 10K would take a lot of work but if you're trying to perform a study on a population size of 300,000,000 or more, 552 is simply too insignificant a sample size.

It would be similar to performing a study on our solar system and from that extrapolate that each solar system has an average of 9 planets (8 I guess if you count Pluto out)... its just a premature conclusion.

 

[SoiledBottom]

I wonder what the results would be if they did the survey in some place like miami beach.

Soiled

 

[Guest]

552 is a small number compared to the US population. However, it's much higher when compared to the number of gamers. Besides, a 552 person survey that accounts for all factors holds much more weight than a 10K person survey done on people all in the same area

 

[WheelsOfConfusion]

[citation][nom]chripuck[/nom]Good thing I don't fit the profile of a fat depressed gamer.[/citation]
Same here! I hardly ever play games!

 

[homerhellboy223]

[citation][nom]Sraigux[/nom]I am underweight and perfectly content.[/citation]

There is also the type that is underweight because they play games more than they eat and eventually become depressed. It's an evil addiction and can starve someone to death if not balanced.

 

[jellico]

Federal Center for Disease Control.... (the FEDERAL part tells you everything you need to know), in a study that will be submitted to the American Journal of Preventive Medicine. Let me ask you all this; have these eggheads ever actually PREVENTED anything? Most of these so-called studies that come out are nothing more than correlation analyses' done on existing databases. Do any of these people do bona fide research anymore? Or do they just pump out inane, banal crap on a regular basis in order to maintain a steady flow of federal funding?

I'm sorry, but my tolerance for this sheit has long since reached its threshhold. These are the same blatherskites who put out studies, periodically, warning of the dangers of violent video games; studies which are, in turn, seized upon by ignorant lawmakers on both sides of the aisle as justification for yet further intrusion into our lives.

 

[dextermat]

This statement is just scratching the surface:

1) main reason why gamers spend so much time on games and less in real life is a society problem
50 years ago, when you started a business you would most likely get rich, now you are taxed over taxed and whatever money you have left is barely enough to live from it.

same thing when you work

In my last job i was getting 8 $ hour.

I found out that when i skipped Friday i had a difference of 20 $ on my pay check. Common i rather stay at home than go to work (witch cost gas 5$ + food 5 $) and get 10 $ for 8 hours work.

Most middle class people are in this situation, that's why they need to "escape real life"

I must say that the elite (government) really know how to manipulate people to get their money from the people pocket and make them believe in a false American dream. Witch is pretty sad

Anyway this is just prologue on a big book i could write on modern society

 

[ravenware]

Oh please save us from ourselves!

....who gives a shit?