Silly research time! A study done by a Korean doctor lists criteria which supposedly show whether or not you are prone to game addiction.
Picture: Halfbottle/Shutterstock
Reported by Kuki News (via tipster Sang) as well as on numerous other Korean sites, the study was spearheaded by Doctor Uh Ki Joon* at research centre Korea Computer Life Lab. Dr Uh looked at 654 cases of teens addicted to video games.
From that pool, the doctor gleaned that you are prone to video game addiction if you meet the following criteria.
– Male teenager (in 98.2% of the cases, this was true)
– Part of a nuclear family and don’t live with extended family (88%)
– No religion (66.1%)
– First-born child (65.6%)
– Have siblings (54.7%)
– Have a stay-at-home mum (53.2%)
– Closeness with parents described as “normal” (34.9%)
– High school student (32.5%)
Eh… Um. Yeah. These are pretty big brushes we are painting with to draw all sorts of odd conclusions. Might as well add “Is human” and “Has computer” to the list.
Dr. Uh’s big conclusion was that once a youth reaches middle school, the stay-at-home mother will have difficulty controlling online game play time. That’s why, according to the doctor, it’s necessary for fathers to intervene. He also thinks online game prevention should begin at elementary school level. Why not start in the womb?
*Not pictured
Comments
17 responses to “You Might Be Addicted To Games If You Believe This Dumb Study”
Am I the only person who feels as though their gaming time dramatically increased when I became an adult? My family wasn’t exactly rich enough to buy new games outside borndays and Christmas, so once I started earning money I was buying games weekly.
Nope. Game time definitely went up once I could afford to buy my own stuff.
Opposite for me :(. Growing up my Dad loved to play games, so I was lucky enough to get to play whatever he was playing too. As an adult for me now it’s not so much the availability of games but more the time to play them, between working full-time, maintaining a household, and dabbling in making my own games. DAMN ADULTHOOD!
No. Once I was an adult, I had the disposable income to buy games whenever the hell I wanted. Prior to that, I basically needed to wait until birthday/Christmas to get new games.
Although once I got married and had a mortgage to pay on a house, as well as other “responsibilities” like paying bills and raising a child, I suddenly didn’t really have that disposable income anymore…so for the most part, I’m back to waiting until birthday/Christmas 😛
I still find time to play games though, even though it’s not as often as I used to. My wife is awesome in that she understands I need my gaming “me” time.
I’m in the same boat as you.
It was half an hour after school and maybe 2-3 hours all up on weekends. Now that I’m not living with my parents and am an adult, its a couple of hours most nights and too many hours on weekends haha.
I used to play a metric crap-ton of games in high school…
and I still played more once I graduated university. I had a 6-month period of funemployment where I basically just played games and… er…. ‘ate sandwiches’… it was glorious.
This^
grew up on gba and gcn with limited games, started working 2010 and now have a decent library of old games that i allways wanted.
And new ones.
same for me, while I used to put more time in to one specific game now I probably play more on average. Plus I don’t play any sports any more which took up time.
You can tell how deep I am in a relationship by how little gaming I can fit in.
My brothers and friends always commented that they knew I’d been seeing someone a lot if I dropped off the face of the planet. But otherwise? It’s like… all I do. Apart from work. Damned inconvenient, that thing.
Yep. Despite the fact I work full time, exercise, am completing research for my masters and happily in a relationship, my game time has still increased exponentially. As I grew I think I just got more interested in my hobbies and as I learn more, the value of it grows.
Granted it says prone to, not “are”. If you are a teenage boy living in a semi broken family situation who has nobody to share the computer with and has no religious obligations then it’d be likely that you spend a lot of time on the computer to get away from the bullshit of that situation. Not suggesting the study should have any faith put in it but I can see where the conclusion is being drawn from.
Im prone to getting addicted to phone games more than console/pc.
Destroy your phone.
🙂
Maybe the author has forgotten cultural differences between ourselves and the Koreans? There are definitely cultural influences that we would look at and go that’s silly/nonsense etc, but is pretty accurate for Korean families. Gaming addiction is an increasing problem in Korea, that’s why these studies get attention.
This is the biggest bunch of bullshit I’ve ever seen. This supposed doctor has merely extracted statistics from a bunch of people who were diagnosed with gaming addiction. There is no *evidence* to suggest that the characteristics of these addicts are *causative* as opposed to coincidental. All you can say from this is that teenage boys are more likely to be diagnosed with gaming addiction than teenage girls, and so on. There is nothing to show what makes someone prone to being addicted.
Stats ate fun, even if the conclusions are bullshit.
Interesting that only 20.3% of game addicts in this sample set are the oldest sibling in a family, while 34.4% have older brothers/sisters – I wonder if this roughly correlates with average family sizes?
Edit: oops wrong numbers
I got a fever, and the only prescription, is more videogames!