Thinking about Video Games [Academic Survey]

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  SlavOz on 22/02/2020 - 16:46

  +2

  This sounds very interesting. I'll fill this out when I get home, as I'm always fascinated by the relationship between video games and mental health.

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  fenric on 22/02/2020 - 17:58

  +2

  Done. Though I blame my lack of sleep and general grumpiness on having small children :P
  Good luck with the research.

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  Mike88 on 22/02/2020 - 19:30

  +10

  Survey seems to imply the negative affects are caused by gaming. For myself it is the complete opposite where negative affects are a result from my life outside of gaming and I enjoy games to relax just like any other hobby.

  • 

    EightImmortals on 23/02/2020 - 09:26

    +1

    Those questions were in there too. :)

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  Screamingeagle on 22/02/2020 - 20:57

  +4

  The survey seems to have the message "all video games are bad". I have to say video games are just like any other hobby. You play them because they are fun and relaxing and you enjoy doing it.

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  garetz on 22/02/2020 - 21:56

  +7

  This survey has an inherent bias against gaming.

  • 

    pegaxs on 22/02/2020 - 23:11

    +3

    That’s what I noticed. Some questions I wanted to answer yes too, but it was skewed like “gaming” was the cause of that issue, and it wasn’t…

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  original15 on 22/02/2020 - 22:51

  +1

  Hey mate
  I don’t want to be a savage but having been through similar course requirements I’ve gotta highlight some things, my supervisors would have grilled me for these. Those who evaluate your research and thesis will be savage.
  ?you’ve got spelling/grammar issues in your PLS and the first few questions( “not right or wrong” “effect” instead of affect on pls)

  ?Interesting going with Open text for ethnicity and for country, save yourself some work/make participant UX better and replace with radio button/pick list.

  ?Interested in the inclusion of open text for main game played - did you consider including a genre pick list?

  ?Hours played per week felt like a ridiculous sliding scale. It did go up to 140 hours yeh?

  ?Not sure if your Q11 is an established measure however from a measurement perspective q11.4 asks us to rate frequency but the question also includes “continuously” - see how this is different to the others and a bit off

  ?You have a scale that jumps from “not at all” to option 2 being “several days” what about people where it is applicable for a single day?

  Good luck! Have completed, was always painful getting data

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  p1 ama on 22/02/2020 - 23:58

  +7

  I'm an academic economist/statistician, I've worked on similar sorts of research project. In terms of the collection of data, I have a few general suggestions.

  1) You're simply doing a static analysis, not a dynamic analysis. In other words, you simply observe how many hours of video games a person plays and their mental health. You don't actually monitor how these variables change over time. That means that even if you do find a correlation between video games and poor mental health, you're not able to establish whether that's because a) video games leads to mental health issues, b) individuals with mental health issues tend to play more video games, or c) some other factor is causing them both (e.g. someone who is bullied at school might have mental health issues AND play a lot of video games - so there's actually no direct link between the two). You may well find some correlation, but that in and of itself is rarely interesting from an academic perspective.

  2) Survey based data where people have to opt-in is always problematic because you get people with stronger opinions being those who tend to take the time to complete a survey. It's the classic problem of reviews online being overly negative. Most people who write a review or complete a survey do so because they want to send some sort of a message. This is particularly true of surveys that are conducted online. If you want to collect data on this, you're better off contacting some video game conventions, for example, attending there yourself and asking people to participate. When you collect data in person, there's at least some incentive for people to want to finish it.

  3) Your data will largely not be useful for your analysis because there are far too many questions and the questions are nowhere near directed enough. Most of your questions are quite vague and open-ended. A lot of them require quite a lot of judgement from the person answering the questions. I think you're better off directing your focus onto a much more specific area. The (1-2-3-4) style of grading rarely works well for this sort of thing in my experience.

  I don't want to seem like I'm overly criticising your research, but my suggestion is to focus on something that's a bit more concrete - the relationship between video games and mental health seems far too general. For example, you might want to focus on the effect of video games on educational outcomes, or the effect of video games on a specific mental illness. You could focus on video game addiction and the effect on relationships and/or work/school. I think more specific topics will help you direct your questions better and you'll get much more useful data from that on which you can actually do analysis.

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  JustASmoothSkin on 23/02/2020 - 02:23

  +2

  Few issues I have with the questionnaire, It is clearly a look into video game addiction and the effects that It can have on the mental health of a individual but does not take into account other issues that may effect ones mental state.

  Examples:

  • Questions 21-23 focus on the mental state of a individual over the last 2 weeks, Personally my last two weeks have been rather stressful and depressing. None of it could however be attributed to video games but my answers would still in fact skew the results towards a negative result (Actual issues stemmed from dating issues which has since been remedied and I am happy and productive again ;P )

  • Question 9 focuses on actual game time, due to many reasons. IE Current priorities, Lack of new games that I want to play my weekly game time has plummeted. (AVG 10 Hours p/w currently) Other questions that should be asked to gauge the priority of games in ones life is:
    *If a game has caught your attention, How many hours of your free time (In a week period) would you devote to it? With options being Some(0%-30%), Half(31%-60%) and Most (61%-100%) (I can personally drop over 100 hours a week into a game if I find it enjoyable with 2017 being particularly fun Nier/Persona/Monster Hunter
    *A question on how long you would like to play video games if you didn't have other priorities is also something I believe is missing.

  • Question 19 asks why we play, Games can allow people to explore complex moral questions, Listen to wonderfully composed music, view abstract and wonderful visuals and even grow to like video game character and provide some social interaction (which for some people can be preferred when real people can be difficult)

  Personally, I love video games and don't believe they have ever had a negative impact on my life. I have used video games to escape poor home situations, To alleviate my boredom when money is tight, to feel like I can achieve something without losing something else, to have predictable social interactions, to bond with real friends, to relax, to decompress from the daily grind, to white noise my mind to avoid dwelling on things that I could not have changed or predicted.

  Everyone is likely different, Video Games have undoubtedly saved my life. Without them I would either be at the bottom of a bottle, end of a pipe or in front of a train. I also attribute my placid personality to them, as I know I always have a safe comfortable place to sort through my thoughts and I won't be judged.

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  mantra on 23/02/2020 - 10:56

  +1

  while filling out survey, feels as if you'd be unable to capture useful data, needs more context

  i agree with points made by @p1 ama , comparing general mental health and video games is too broad, can only weigh in on my situation

  currently on severe end of autistic spectrum
  rate low on DASS scales for Anxiety/Depression with no overt behavioral issues
  negative or unresponsive affect from pharmaceutical treatments
  75%+ of time experiencing severe sensory and/or cognitive impairment

  lifes an intense battle, particularly when nobody knows how to support these complex needs

  never able to feel comfort thus no enjoyment
  all forms of entertainment cause distress, gaming to least degree
  often helps block intense sensory and associated frustration

  don't particularly like playing video games, have to remind myself to play them, if not impairment affects 95%+ of time
  bored easily, finding self switching between games
  often figuring what to play to satisfy need of stimulation while not overstimulating
  find self playing game modes requiring least cognitive flexibility

  hard to understand/explain, but here's some relevant experiences of mine

  when playing video games;
  - support worker noted i communicate more effectively (with others in my room, i don't engage online)
  - i can form coherent sentences in thoughts more often
  - short breaks within long gaming sessions allows greater focus with far more clarity, helps achieve essential tasks (personal hygiene, feeding self etc) with less risk of sensory impairment
  - helps relaxation for sleep

  attributing gaming least stressful as always needing stimulation from more than one source, i can tap my feet, while i operate the controller, which i'm interacting with what i see on the screen, while i’m hearing what i interact with, a sort of predictable isolating/encapsulating sensory experience that helps me shut off from the unpredictable home environment (eg. noisey family, birds/cars/planes outside, etc)

  hopefully this gives reasons why survey may not be useful data, why it maybe better to limit target focus/demographic

  for those who don't understand autism, it can be hard to understand my capacity to write this, on rare occasions my thoughts flow, but unable to redirect thoughts from writing, (e.g. to look at survey again, other comments posted, etc) due to cognitive flexibility going off on my own tangent of thought without distraction is the only way i can communicate/transcribe thoughts

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  Kail on 23/02/2020 - 17:08

  +3

  Tried to fill out survey but the questions were too weird, they were clearly biased towards the conclusion the researcher obviously wants to achieve.

  They assume the survey taker has an addiction to gaming. I play tons of games but don't crave them, or think about them outside of time I've set aside for gaming, so most of the questions weren't really applicable. It seems to confuse "likes to play games" with "craves games like an addict". Like any hobby, gaming isn't a problem unless it starts interfering with day-to-day life.

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  Porker on 24/02/2020 - 10:03

  ugh… I feel victim to the (essentially) 'reviews' comments. I was happy to commence survey, but after reading these comments, thought otherwise…

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  Dunan on 24/02/2020 - 17:30

  +1

  Too many comments about the survey being negatively biased towards gaming. I won't be contributing my time to this study.