VenusGaming

Last week, the Washington Post cited a study by a sir Douglas Gentile that claimed 8.5% of American youths have behavioral addiction to video games. The Post described it as “the first nationally representative study in the United States on the subject.” The Post went on to say:

The study found that 88 percent of the nation’s children ages 8 to 18 play video games. With 45 million children of that age in the country, the study would suggest that more than 3 million are addicted “or at least have problems of the magnitude” that call for help, Gentile said.

The story was shocking, and was quickly all over the media. But Gary Langer, director of polling at ABC News, was quick to question the results. Langer said, “his study was conducted among members of an opt-in online panel – individuals who sign up to click through questionnaires on the internet in exchange for points redeemable for cash and gifts.” In fact, the group that conducted the poll doesn’t even offer a sample of error - which Mr. Gentile did.

Douglas Gentile was quick to retract. “I guess I’d assumed they had gathered the population initially as part of a random probability sample . . . I missed that when I was writing this up. That is an error then on my part.”

85% of statistics are made up, aren’t they?

So the dramatic “1 in 10 teen gamers addicted” is, at best, a great exaggeration, and at worst, a flat out lie. The data was highly inaccurate, and should have never been used in something that was (and it was!) published in a scientific journal. All it indicated was that about 100 of the voluntary surveyees showed signs of pathalogical addiction. That’s nothing we can draw conclusions about.

This is why I hate the media reporting on the video game industry: they often grab data that is misinformed, skewed, or otherwise non-representative of the gaming population, and make grandious claims that end up becoming cited by the common man for years to come. Bravo for media men like Langer for rooting out the truth.