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Research Performed to Confirm What We Already Knew
By Cameron Sorden | August 15, 2007
I just posted this over at Ten Ton Hammer as well, but I wanted to point it out here. Nottingham Trent University (which I assume is in Sherwood Forest) just released the results of their study on social relationships within and surrounding online games.
While it’s not really news to gamers that we’re not being anti-social while we stare at our oversized monitors in darkened rooms for hours on end, it is news to a lot of people. However, the more interesting part of the study were some of the hard numbers that got thrown around. Some highlights:
- Three quarters of online role-playing gamers make good friends with the people they meet in their virtual worlds, with almost half meeting in real-life situations and one in ten going on to develop physical relationships
- More than 30% of participants finding themselves attracted to another player; and 40% choosing to discuss sensitive issues with online friends rather than their real-life friends
- One in five participants believed that Massively Multiplayer Role-Playing Games (MMORPGs) had a negative effect on their relationships if their partner was not a player, while more than two-thirds felt they had a positive effect on their relationships with those who did play
- As well as making good friends online, 81% of gamers play with real-life friends and family, suggesting MMORPGs are by no means an asocial activity, nor are the players socially introverted
I think that results like this highlight just how powerful online relationships and social experiences can be for people. You hear the nasty stories about game addiction and guild drama spilling into real life conflict, but the media rarely discusses how games can be a very positive influence in the lives of players, especially for people who might not quite feel like they “fit” in with the people around them during their day to day lives.
Social experiences are no less meaningful when they take place through a computer screen or a ventrilo server. If not for online games, I’d hardly ever get to hang out with my brother. Because we play games together, I feel like I see him every day.
Topics: Random |