The latter half of my ‘fruits’ from a Daily Mail search.

Doctors are now claiming that playing too much on your 360, PS3 or Wii could give you the “same highly negative character traits associated with a form of autism“.

Dr. Charlton (Why do these people have almost expected names) studied almost 400 members of an online MMORPG, called Asheron’s Call. What the entire article said, is that 3% of these players exhibited similar symptoms to Asperger’s Syndrome, a form of autism, where you basically have problems forming relations, and communicating. He even says that many of these symptoms are already present in people that are ‘normal’.

OK, here I go again.

• Do not consider analysing players of an MMORPG for game addiction. That’s skewing the results, and represents a tiny portion of gamers as a whole. The sample just proves how small the game is. Anyone who’s been playing it since it’s release date in 1999 is addicted anyway, so this report just warps the results, damaging the reputation of video games further.
• 3% is still an absurdly low figure. If we assume that he tested 400 people, that means 12 people had symptoms of Asperger’s Syndrome. aka 388 people showed no symptoms whatsoever. Not to mention, some of these people might have genuinely undiagnosed Asperger’s.
• Asheron’s Call is a Pay-to-play MMO, and as such people will of course spend more time on it than most computer games, because, quite simply, they want to get their money’s worth.
• PC Gamers are amongst the worst for spending time online, quite simply because it requires a lot more than just pushing the power button and inserting a disc. If you really want to skew the results, do the same on World of Warcraft. If you want a genuine sample, choose console gamers, and monitor them. I spend less than two hours a day on Live, but I spend a load more on the computer (mostly ratting out publicity stories like this)

In conclusion, this report has been deliberately set up so it’s already giving them the results they want to hear. And even then, it’s a small percentage. So, take today’s paper with no salt, no sugar, straight to the recycle bin and save yourself the trouble.

Tags: videogame addiction, aspergers, syndrome, autism, asherons call, daily mail

I saw this, and I had to post it. I was just looking around for stuff to submit to Kotaku, and I found this. I seriously thought this stuff was over and done with. Obviously I was wrong. From the Daily Mail (Seriously; why do I bother reading the paper anymore?):

“Amro Elbadawi died from a knife wound to the throat after a fight with another teenager last week.

Internet photographs of him published soon after his death show Amro posing with a group of sinisterly masked youths.

But his father Sabri Elbadawi, 60, a mechanical engineer, last night claimed his son was a star student who had nothing to do with gangs but instead loved maths and science and had ambitions to become a doctor.

He said violent computer games and aggressive music were leaving teenagers with no respect for life.”

I have to ask myself what possesses someone to blame such a broad spectrum of entertainment, to the point of essentially saying that whoever put the knife to this teen’s throat is no longer responsible for his actions, because he played Gears of War, or enjoyed Resident Evil.

I’m going to be highly controversial here, so skip if you’re going to make drama: What the hell is an obviously immigrant family blaming one of our industries for the death of his son, when it’s quite obvious that he is one of the many people that costs the state despite holding down a job?! The kid was in pictures, hanging around in gangs! Take your rose-tinted glasses off, Sabri, and see the world for what it is. Your son was in a gang, and he got the bad end of it. I’m not saying it’s right, but don’t even consider flipping this onto violent video games and aggressive music, when your son put his own life in danger and suffered the consequences.

Tags: videogame violence, aggressive music, scapegoating, i call bullshit, daily mail