Exploring Enthusiastic vs. Excessive Gaming!

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nathansharer

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Howdy folks,

After clearing this with Kyle ahead of time (on the condition that I come back and share my results - something I'm more than happy to do), I was hoping that ya'll could give me a hand with this.

As part of my dissertation research, I am interested in examining the relationship between specific psychological characteristics in regard to online gaming habits. I am hoping to use this research to better explain the difference between enthusiastic versus excessive gaming and reduce the often overused and inaccurate "gaming addict" term.

I am currently looking for individuals over the age of 18 who would be willing to complete the *anonymous* survey (it will take approximately 10-15 minutes). Your completion of this survey will assist in helping to establish a better understanding of the connection between gaming habits and psychological traits. The study is online and can be found at http://www.surveymonkey.com/GamingSurveySharer.

I've actually had a really great response rate so far and am close to the number of respondents that I'm looking for based on my power analysis. Therefore, the survey will only be up for about another week. I'll be crunching numbers/running stats/preparing a discussion section over the next month or so and I'll have some findings to share after that.

If you have any questions/comments/feedback please feel free to talk to me about here or through the email on the first page of the survey.

Thanks for taking the time to check it out and/or help me out!

-Nate Sharer, Ed.S.
Doctoral Candidate
Marshall University Clinical Psychology Psy.D. Program
 
Please bear in mind in your data, that many of us are exclusively PC gamers, and that there are many online non-MMO games for PC as well.
 
Survey seemed to lean way towards the socially fucked up side of people. Filled out, and give me money when you graduate your doctor scum you!
 
Filled it out...

The games that I play the most basically didn't fall into any of the '3 categories' : MMO, Console Game, Farmville. There are other types of games you know...

So according to the survey I play a ton of online videogames but my total hours of gaming was like 2 because I had 0 for MMO, 0 for farmville, and 2 for console games...
 
Filled out, but sorry OP, I think your survey is severely lacking as you aren't a gamer yourself and didn't take into account the type of gaming culture prevalent on this forum.

A poor survey is worse than no survey, as it can lead to false conclusions.
 
Hey everyone,

Really appreciate the quick responses/questions/feedback. It's awesome to get enthusiastic replies. Let me try to respond to a few of you.

Obi_Kwiet and Intel_Hydralisk - I recognize there are other kinds of games. I've actually been an avid gamer since playing Hangman on my parents' Tandy 1000. The focus of this particular research project is strictly examining specific genres of online gaming that each have unique components that drive my hypotheses. Other genres could certainly be examined - just not for me in this particular study. Sorry if you are feeling left out on this go-around!

Pigwalk - That really is not my intention, my intention is to be thorough enough to build a strong case to differentiate between excessive and enthusiastic gaming. I'll get back to you after I get out from underneath the loan debt! Sadly a profession of love and not particularly a ton of money. And definitely the worst doctorate to get - nobody even calls their psychologist Dr.!

Anonmoniker - At the risk of feeding a troll...I will defend the program. Since you seem to have some expertise in methodology, I'm sure you did enough research to know that the data you cite comes from 2007, 4 years after Marshall started the Psy.D. (not Ph.D.) program and long enough to have graduated exactly 4 people. Since the "rankings" were purely based on a subjective 1-5 scale rating by people with a variety of associations to academia, you can understand why a brand new program probably wouldn't have the recognition to score highly. We've actually had a solid, APA approved program that just matched 100% of our students to accredited internships - a percentage much higher than more than half of those "highly ranked" programs. Finally, you took my survey, you didn't read my methodology -- so I'd be shocked if you knew where I was gathering all my subjects, the rationale for using gaming forums, and what statistical analyses I plan on running. But thanks anyway if you took the time to take the survey despite your distaste!

Zero82z - Just curious, what seems loaded?

I appreciate the participation and the curiosity. I'm more than happy to continue discussing any comments/questions/feedback here or through the email contact found on the first page of my survey.

Thanks again,
Nate
 
Ducman69 - thanks for checking it out. Sorry that I didn't specify whether I am or am not a gamer in my initial post - I didn't realize how much of a response I'd get to be honest. I am a gamer, I've been a gamer for more than 20 years dating back to the 80s. I got Dragon Warrior with my Nintendo Power subscription, I started playing MMOs with The Realm, I used to have 8 tv/xbox Halo LAN parties with my buddies, and I continue gaming today. Sadly I don't get to play as much as a grad student. As a gamer and a clinician, I'm actually interested in reshaping much of the research on gaming addiction (a term I think is a misnomer) and some of the perceived bias that people who play games for 30+ hours a week have a problem. In fact, I believe time spent gaming actually has little to do with excessive gaming. It's a problem when it causes functional impairment - and this is something the field has essentially failed to address. Hopefully a piece of this research will help paint a clearer picture. I'm interested in looking at the habits of hardcore and casual gamers alike. I am hopeful this research will help challenge some stereotypes. Does that clarify any of your concerns?

Thanks for the feedback,
Nate
 
nathansharer said:
Zero82z - Just curious, what seems loaded?
Click to expand...
The survey overall seems focused on how gaming negatively impacts people. It didn't seem to me that there was any way to answer the survey in a way that gaming activities had a positive influence on my life, only a negative or neutral one.
 
Zero82z - Gotcha, I can understand that. I am in agreement that some of the research and stigma out there certainly are loaded in the way that somewhere along the line many in the field (and public) decided there is a causal relationship between playing a lot of video games and have negative life consequences without much data to back it up (or at least clarify what that connection looks like). This particular survey is not looking to explain any kind of causation, but rather for correlations between those who acknowledge functional impairment from gaming and some select psychological symptoms. I also hope the data will help better explain the perfectly healthy enthusiastic hardcore gamer who plays a ton but still gets along just fine in life. That profile has been woefully ignored. I'll also agree that while this particular dissertation is not aimed at identifying causation of positive gaming outcomes - there is definitely a need for it.
 
ya, your survey is far far too limited to get any real results.
build a strong case to differentiate between excessive and enthusiastic gaming.
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how can that be done if you limit the survey so much..
 
MrGuvernment - Thanks for checking it out and asking about it. I'm not exactly sure what you mean by limiting my survey so much. In this particular study there are specific genres I am examining. The limitations were not created out of ignorance, but have been very purposeful. Comparisons can be made and results can be discussed within the context of those genres that will be meaningful.

I am operating from very specific hypotheses that I will be glad to share/discuss when I close the survey in about a week. I realize I didn't ask about things like RTS, card games, PC FPS, etc. For this project, those games are outside the scope of what we are interested in. I'd love to have the time/resources to examine as many different kinds of gaming as possible, but that's just not plausible or even desirable to do in one study. Do you know what I mean?

Hopefully, when I run the analyses and have some outcomes to report on, it will make sense (fingers crossed!).
 
Zero82z said:
The survey overall seems focused on how gaming negatively impacts people. It didn't seem to me that there was any way to answer the survey in a way that gaming activities had a positive influence on my life, only a negative or neutral one.
Click to expand...

I felt the exact same way. It seemed geared towards people whose main focus of life was gaming, vs examining gaming as just another facet of a normal persons life.
 
The 'How healthy is your physical environment?' question's answer choices don't seem appropriate.
'How well are you able to get around?' seems too vague, especially the 'get around' part. Is the question concerned about physical capability, geographical knowledge, etc? The answer choices for this question also don't seem appropriate (bad grammar could lead to confusion).
'How often during the last 6 months...' '...have other unsuccessfully tried to reduce your game use?' Other is missing an 's.' As an added bonus, the answers to this question can be taken two ways as it doesn't account for successful tries or total tries.
'How often during the last 6 months...' '...were you unable to reduce your game time?' Implies the need to reduce game time. Answering never could mean you failed each time, even if you never tried (or had the need to). Tsk, tsk.

Seems a tad redundant to ask for your date of birth then on the next line age.
 
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Snowknight26 said:
'How well are you able to get around?' seems too vague, especially the 'get around' part. Is the question concerned about physical capability, geographical knowledge, etc? The answer choices for this question also don't seem appropriate (bad grammar could lead to confusion).
Click to expand...

I... uh took it to mean..... ya know.... and answered as such :eek:
 
Snowknight26 said:
The 'How healthy is your physical environment?' question's answer choices don't seem appropriate.
'How well are you able to get around?' seems too vague, especially the 'get around' part. Is the question concerned about physical capability, geographical knowledge, etc? The answer choices for this question also don't seem appropriate (bad grammar could lead to confusion).
'How often during the last 6 months...' '...have other unsuccessfully tried to reduce your game use?' Other is missing an 's.' As an added bonus, the answers to this question can be taken two ways as it doesn't account for successful tries or total tries.
'How often during the last 6 months...' '...were you unable to reduce your game time?' Implies the need to reduce game time. Answering never could mean you failed each time, even if you never tried (or had the need to). Tsk, tsk.

Seems a tad redundant to ask for your date of birth then on the next line age.
Click to expand...

Cut the guy some slack will you? He's just trying to get some data. If the survery puts your panties in such a bunch then go to the upper right corner and click on the big red X and close the window.

I participated and I hope the data helps him. The questions were pretty easy to understand and it seems he wants to find a baseline to what would be consiered casual and excessive gaming. For example, I used to play WOW years ago but found it just took too much time from my life so I quit even though I really enjoyed it. Raiding (Vanilla WOW) for hours just to end up with a repair bill was not commensurate to the reward so I quit.
 
BTW OP some gamers here are immediately offended when someone even hints that their gaming may be excessive. Its a natural defense mechanism.
 
regarding the part from “Have you ever played Massively Multiplayer Online Role Play Games (MMORPGs) such as....” and the few pages after it:

if someone played a little MMO and browser-based games in the past but currently only playing other types of pc games, the survey won't give him a chance to mention his avarage playing time. I found my self answering with "0" to most questions though steam is saying about me at this moment "Playing time:64.6 hrs past 2 weeks"
 
Continuing to get a solid response rate since posting to the board - thank you very much.

I understand the hesitancy when someone starts throwing around the word "excessive gaming" and you make a good point, fdiaz78. I realized as an outsider it's reasonable to have to explain why your intentions are not nefarious.

Pigwalk, firas - I would just ask that if you take a survey to keep an open mind and understand that there would be no way to ask about all kinds of gaming. It's also nearly impossible to guess at what pieces of a survey are being compared/analyzed. At this point, it's just a survey where people try to best describe some of their own psychological factors and answer questions about their gaming habits. There is no implied causation of anything simply by having questions in a survey. No single answer is bad, wrong, or descriptive of a person's life in total and that is not the intent of the survey. The questions capture a snapshot of just a few parts of someone's life and will be treated as such.

Shadowknight26 - The particular questions you have a problem with are taken verbatim from two instruments that have been consistently found to have strong validity and reliability. In fact, one instrument is an Internationally commonly used instrument among medical facilities. So, the vast majority of respondents to these instruments were able to answer these questions without being confused or overwhelmed, sorry if you were not. The birthdate request is a 2nd check to assist in weeding out any minors since I only have human subject IRB approval to use answers from adults - a common practice. I'll own the missing 's' as a typo and again, sorry, hope taking this survey didn't ruin your day.

Thanks again to those of you giving the 10 minutes (ish) of your life to taking the survey, I know you don't owe it to me and am pleased that you'll be a part of this project.

-Nate
 
@Nate

I am curious what your hypothesis is so far. If you would not like to state it in the thread due to the inevitable "RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE" posts you could pm me instead.
 
NaturalViolence said:
@Nate

I am curious what your hypothesis is so far. If you would not like to state it in the thread due to the inevitable "RAGE RAGE RAGE RAGE" posts you could pm me instead.
Click to expand...

His hypothesis is: Excessive gaming and its effects on waistlines, skin tone and disruption of mating rituals.
 
fdiaz78 said:
BTW OP some gamers here are immediately offended when someone even hints that their gaming may be excessive. Its a natural defense mechanism.
Click to expand...

Well some may, but me for example... I know my gaming is still 'excessive' (probably more from the fact that I have the free time to spare right now), but it's completely different from when I was playing WOW for example where I'd forgo obligations to play.

The best question in the survey was the fill in the blank to explain why my habits are better than they used to be.
 
I started to fill it out but I play so few online games--and no MMOs for nearly a year--that I don't feel like the candidate you're looking for.
 
I can't answer your survey I feel it does not have a category for me. I play 40+ hours of games a week, maybe more yet almost none of that is MMOs, console gaming or facebook games. It's all PC gaming and there not a category for that. If you want to rewrite your survey so that I actually fit into it then I would be happy to contribute but as of right now I feel the survey is poorly written.

With you categories your survey says "Greyspectre spends 1-3 hours a month playing videogames and is happy with his life" Which could not be farther from the truth as I game every day, usually for a couple hours it's just PC games so instead of the 1-3 hours a month your survey indicates I am in the 40-70 hours a week zone. Some of which are online some of which are offline.


What about the people who on the PC put hundreds of hours into Counterstrike, UT or COD? Where to those people fit?

I would guess that a good deal of the forum members here will fall under the same category as me as we are all PC gamers for the most part, yet a good number of us don't play MMOs.
 
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nathansharer said:
Pigwalk, firas - I would just ask that if you take a survey to keep an open mind and understand that there would be no way to ask about all kinds of gaming. It's also nearly impossible to guess at what pieces of a survey are being compared/analyzed. At this point, it's just a survey where people try to best describe some of their own psychological factors and answer questions about their gaming habits. There is no implied causation of anything simply by having questions in a survey. No single answer is bad, wrong, or descriptive of a person's life in total and that is not the intent of the survey. The questions capture a snapshot of just a few parts of someone's life and will be treated as such.
Click to expand...

all what you will know about me from the survey is:
I spend 0 hours playing MMORPGs
0 MMORPGs played in the last 30 days
0 hours playing Internet Browser (Facebook) games
0 Internet Browser (Facebook) games played in the last 30 days
don't play console games
100% of playing time (which is 0) I spend playing "other" type of games
over the last 30 days,spent 0 hours playing MMORPGs, Internet Browser (Facebook) and console games

so this survey about excessive gaming will not tell you I spend 4.5 hours everyday gaming and that I drive my car to work at 7:30AM and park it at 7:00PM after work ;)
 
I would have filled this out, but that 15 minutes would have cut into my available gaming time. :D



But seriously, I filled it out.
 
I started filling it out but gave up because even though I play online games, they're all PC games that aren't MMO or social networking games. Also I've "played" MMOs, yet I'm not currently playing one so haven't played one in the past 30 days, an option that really wasn't available on the survey (in the past 3 years I've sunk maybe 300 hours into MMOs, but 0 hours in the past 6 months).

The online games I play are mostly PC first person shooters or racing games or single player action/adventure/RPG/FPS/racing.
 
Yeah I had to list 0 as well, because I haven't played an MMO since WoW launched. It's been almost six years now, I only played the first two months it was out. So I listed that I had, but at this point it seems entirely irrelevant. I may have at one point in my life asked a teenage girl out on a date, but I certainly wouldn't do that now. Giggity.
 
I filled it in, I think some of the information may appear conflicting due to the nature of the questions, for example MMOs tend to be played in shorter more aggressive bursts, I've not played in months but when I do play I rack up a lot of hours quickly because It's a service I'm paying for, kind of like making the most of paying for an "all you can eat" buffet by paying once and then over doing it, this is driven (at least for some) by wanting to make the most of their purchase. I hope this is taken into consideration with comparisons because MMOs are unique in that they require a subscription compared to almost any other type of game.

It also makes it hard to come up with averages played per day, week and even month, if you play for 3 months and then take a break for 3 months the average may look low when actually during the 3 months of play you're devoting every moment of your spare time.

I am interested to know how you're going to define the line of "excessive" versus "enthusiastic" and what sort of ratio of games/socialising you find is balanced, for many gamers gaming online is simply part of their social life rather that an substitution which many other people might consider it. You'll find there are some people like me who generally have very good lifestyles where we earn a decent living and function very well in the "real" world but prefer to retreat into gaming worlds simply because they are more stimulating and interesting.

Excessive is subjective term here so I'm interested in how you are going to base metrics off this.
 
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The time played for world of warcraft characters is a rather useless metric without context for how long someone has been playing also. Someone with 120 Days played who has played since release has on average spent much less time playing each day then someone with 80 days played who started at the release of WotLK.
 
filled it in for you, but it seemed skewed. I agree with what has been said about loaded questions, it definitely tended not to give you the ability to paint an accurate picture of yourself or your gaming habits.

I play i'd say 20-28 hours a week on gaming, and of that time, it's mainly 60% RTS games such as Supreme Commander, Civilization V or StarCraft 2, 20% FPS games such as Homefront or Call of Duty. The remaining 20% is playing fighting games on the consoles such as Marvel Vs. Capcom 3. There was almost no way to convey this through your survey.

I play maybe 1-2 hours of MMORPG's per month at LAN's with friends... so this survey really didn't paint an accurate picture of my gaming habits at all if you ask me.

I would not say I've ever been addicted to gaming, in the same way that someone playing basketball every night with friends would not be considered addicted to basketball. This is the analogy everyone fails to identify - why is it if you play 4 hours of gaming a day you've got a problem but if you play basketball for 4 hours it's fine? They're both games.

Some other questions you might have wanted to ask were things like have you ever been on a ranked or ladder system? Have you ever been in the top 10 in your city? Your state? Your country? The world? That would have earned some interesting data I think, because back in the day I would have definitely qualified myself as excessive gaming and I was actually ranked #1 in the entire world in a RTS game for approximately 1 year.

Today I would not say I'm excessive at all, as it's just a time killer now. I'm too busy running my own business to dedicate that sort of time anymore - and that's another interesting thing you might have wanted to ask... For adults who considered themselves excessive, what are they doing today? People tend to assume gamers are wasting time or won't become anything in the world later, but that isn't always true (I'm in my mid 20's, university educated, and I have a nice house / sports car and my own company etc. basically I live a good life).

Anyways I just think theres a lot of deep questions that could have yielded some really interesting data that you've ignored, but I'm no psychologist ;)

Good luck mate!
 
RyanLucier said:
I would not say I've ever been addicted to gaming, in the same way that someone playing basketball every night with friends would not be considered addicted to basketball. This is the analogy everyone fails to identify - why is it if you play 4 hours of gaming a day you've got a problem but if you play basketball for 4 hours it's fine? They're both games.
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I doubt anyone would try to argue that the basketball is negatively affecting your social, physical or mental health. Or that basketball is preventing you from performing necessary tasks for daily existance (eating, sleeping). Also, you can play basketball for 4 hours a day every day of the week? I'm impressed :p

I dunno if I'd ever consider myself having been "addicted" to gaming. The times in my life where I've spent many hours playing games was usually because I felt I had nothing better to do. Last holidays I decided I wasn't going to play any games at all and it wasn't hard for me to not play or think about games, but instead I just wasted my time on other things, lol.
 
Poll a bunch of online gamers online through a gamers forum...ooo call me Doctor! :p Taking the survey now...
 
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