Friday, July 24, 2009

Where do guys find so much time to play video games??

This is a question that has puzzled me ever since I discovered that my husband is addicted to video games. Why is it that I'm always struggling to find free time to do stuff I like, while he's got time to play video games? And he can literally play for hours...

A new study from Michigan State University has found that girls spend less time playing video games compared to boys because they have less leisure time. Huh, what a surprise. Of the 276 MSU undergrads who participated in the study, female students spent much more time on jobs, homework, and other "obligatory" activities than male students. The male undergrads reported having almost twice as much free time per week than female undergrads. The study also confirmed what I could have guessed: once a gamer, always a gamer. Students, both male and female, who played more video games at an early age continued to do so. Amazingly, playing video games did not appear to impact a student's GPA. (According to my in-laws, my husband's grades actually got better after they got him a game system when he was younger.)

The study suggests that girls are possibly less interested in gaming because there are fewer women working in the game-design industry (it's 88% male!) such that games tend to be geared more towards guys. The researchers think that if there were more women involved in creating the games, then the games would naturally be more appealing to women. The researchers suggested that the ideal game for women would provide stress relief, brain exercise, more quality time with family/friends, and be playable in short chunks of time. I totally agree -- though playing video games still won't be the first thing I think of doing when I have some free time.

1 comment:

  1. Interesting post! Have you noticed that women seem a bit more interested in the Wii? It has a fitness aspect, as well as the cutesiness and personalization of the mii's, etc., which seem geared in part towards women.

    Oh, and your husband's "grade improvement," although technically true, is more of a long-standing joke than anything else -- the punchline being that it was not until after he was allowed a video game console that he got rid of the one rogue A- on his report card.

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