Wild Gamble

Casinos across the world play host to . They put their money up for grabs in return for electrifying shocks and potential, exponential fortunes. I speak of course of gamblers, and with the advent of the Internet, their ranks have been divided. Nowadays gamblers have been split into casino and online factions with very different respective motivations for each. But what exactly are they? University of Chicago scholars have recently released speculation into the matter. The findings suggest that online gamblers use the medium because they feel greater control over the games.

In this particular study, researchers organized interviews with thirty gamblers, twenty from casinos and ten intimately familiar with online variations. The data was collected metaphorically through the use of pictures the participants brought in. Subjects were chosen randomly from a group of newspaper ad respondents. They were all self-proclaimed serious gamblers. Smell, taste, audio, and visuals were used to interpret and equate gambling on various levels, with interviews accompanying each of the tests as clarification. By the end, the study has drawn conclusions from the future of gambling to the pastime’s growing addictiveness.

Somehow, the study seems fishy. From the looks of it on my end, the authors seem to have collected fortuneteller-esque information from metaphorical associations on the part of the participants. I can definitely see how the associations would have helped them gather data on the psyches of different species of gamblers, but the unrelated leaps and bounds they take strikes me as exaggeration. Based on the experiences of these thirty men and women, the scholars have determined the fate of a hobby. Much of their speculation also seems contradictory to their own findings. For instance, online gambling is called out repeatedly for possessing a greater potential for addiction. After all, it situates itself in the home and bundles itself with the accessibility of the Interwebs. But wait! Isn’t casino gambling far more explosive in terms of excitement than online gambling? Wouldn’t that excitement serve to attract players on a greater level? To me it seems largely counterintuitive. Oh and a larger sample of gamblers wouldn’t hurt their research.

The article actually has great insight into gambling as a pastime and its changing face in the end though. Most of the conclusions they draw are indeed relevant, and their attempts to further gambling as a healthy, community-building pastime are respectable. Still, when scholarly observation devolves into metaphor-based prediction like this, I become fairly confident it’s little more than a hootinany.

Cellular Poison

Texting and talking off the chain is accepted as normal behavior for kids these days, that’s for sure. Everyone’s gotta communicate, right? But what if all that nonstop chatting served as an indicator for something deeper down in the human psyche? Well, a 2006 South Korean study conducted on 575 high school students explains that it just might. Depression, Watson! Dr. Jee Hyan Ha believes that today’s astronomical teen cell phone usage does in fact signal degrees of depression amongst the demographic.

Students in the study were asked to indicate the number of times they used their phone daily, as well as take a standardized evaluation to measure depression. Results revealed that students who whipped out their cellular phone 90 times per day were significantly more depressed than those who only used their phone 70 times throughout their waking hours. On a scale, 21 and over suggesting clinical depression, the “major” users received average results around 12 while the lower talkers saw 7s in general. Yikes!

We can take these results to heart, meaning that young adults, whose lives hinge on communication with peers, look to their phones for happiness and affiliation on a daily basis. Or we can question the means and methods of the experiment.

Problems with research methods, or at least with reports on the methods, definitely arise as far as I’m concerned. First, as Americans, can South Korean data possess any relevance to our nation’s youth at all? Pardon my villainy, but Korea has had a history of questionable communication addiction. Youth in that county have been exposed, at least in the media, as chronic addicts. I recall tales of videogame marathon-induced death. Most likely, as called attention to in the article itself, real depression would be marked by nonexistent usage of the device. Total disconnection from society is a known signaler of depression. 

Second, what exactly does “phone usage” entail? If not specified on the questionnaire, the teens might have included times when they merely looked at the phone to get the time.

And finally, if twenty texts is the difference between being depressed and being happy, then I’m not so sure the standardized depression test is exactly reliable. After all, who in the world could notice such a difference in phone usage? Cell phone usage, at least for me, shifts every day. I may use it for texts or calls ten times a day, or I may use it sixty. With such variations, how could there even exist a stable link between usage and depression? Also, it could be possible that an unseen, underlying factor is the true menace. Say a biological disposition for apathy: it could account for both boredom-enhanced mobile usage and depression.

Anyhow, the research shown definitely has a few noticeable kinks and flaws, but I do feel like it holds a sizable amount of agua.

Our Toddlers Love Robots

University of California researchers found, in a Sony-sponsored study last year, that toddlers in fact have a shocking propensity to bond with robots. The experiment saw a child-size robot named “QRIO” introduced into a children’s classroom at the University, caught amidst a group of impressionable youngsters. Surprisingly, it was embraced wholeheartedly.

“QRIO” was controlled by observers and made to laugh, walk, dance, and sit periodically. His behaviors were accepted by the children after only a short while, and they grew noticeably more comfortable with him. Apparently they also began to respect him as a they would a human over their 27 sessions together. This was observed by the researchers in the ways the children made contact with or touched the robot. The toddlers started out touching “QRIO’s” face, showing their removal from him as a human entity, but as they grew more familiar, they began touching him only on the hands or arms. The interactions were reminiscent of those between two regular toddlers, researchers expounded. Kids also threw a blanket over QRIO when his battery power drained, as if putting him to bed. Even more positive responses were collected from the toddlers when QRIO adopted a full spectrum of emotion during the last three sessions.

I feel like the research here was conducted wonderfully, with a random sample of toddlers, who were selected for their unaffected perception of robots. A commendable control was set up in the form of another robot named “Robby,” who was not programed for any action whatsoever. The kids treated the control with no affection whatsoever, displaying human behavior and familiarity’s true importance in the matter.

Sony researchers also earn my respect for their wariness in carrying out further action. They point out, and rightly so, that negative effects may still be yet uncovered. I think most would agree with me when I say that social transition would likely be paired right along with widespread robotic companionship. Children might, for instance, begin to find greater solace with their motherchip-guided automatons than with same age kids in school. We might suddenly discover people shrinking away from their own society due to greater comfort in another. Nevertheless, the results from this study are fascinating. If children were brought up with no preconceived notions about robots- no fear of them- then the things could certainly become a  mainstay of our society. Independent companions who comfort rather than put at unease: that is what humanity stands to gain out of this type of careful, heartily constructed research

It’s a brave new world out there. We must simply be wary of the possible repercussions of our actions.

Get Healthy! (In Second Life…)

Promoting health, wellness, and beneficial dieting habits, the University of Houston has hit the ground running with a new project. The only problem? It will take place exclusively over the famously immersive Internet game, Second Life.

Researchers will be striving to shower subjects in healthy eating and exercising practices, hopefully rubbing off useful methods for preventing obesity and other illness in the process. The plan is to grant Second Life currency to those participants who spend their time on the virtual treadmill or bike, or to those eating healthy within the game world. Volunteers will also be able to commune with one another in a friendly environment, sharing experiences and helpful advice in the process. From the sound of it, the project will set up a virtual property within the game world for anyone who wishes to join in the fun as well. A worldwide contest will be established between countries as well, with members of each nation competing against each other with regard to health-consciousness and fitness in the Second Life world. Will the Canadians take Norway? Only time will tell.

Essentially, the University wants to promote healthy decision making all over the world. There’s only one problem as far as I’m concerned: it’s a game.

Their efforts have only the best interests at heart I know, but I feel like the promotion may have a greater chance of diminishing international wellness rather than increase it. Sure, plenty of the participants will gather boatloads of useful, beneficial information, but couldn’t they also get suckered into one of the most addictive online games of all time? Learning about carrots, peas, and bikes is a great thing in and of itself, but when that knowledge comes hand in hand with an unhealthy, time consuming habit, is it still so wonderful? I’m worried about little Davy, the average 19-year old fellow who just so happens to participate in a big University’s wellness promotion, then struggles for weeks on end with a Second Life addiction. After all, subjects and volunteers are rewarded with in-game currency, which encourages continued time spent within the game, buying new furniture, homes, or otherwise attractive items. The participants may become so distracted with their “second life,” that they go all but comatose in their first one. To me, it just seems like a bad idea. Perhaps the University of Houston should requite partakers with real-life spoils instead?

With reality’s hourglass quaffing down the sand, the project’s sought-afters could find themselves tossing away their time in a virtual world. We can only hope the diligence and drive of the participants stands this test.

Could Today’s MMOG Addicts be the CEOs of Tomorrow?

A study conducted by Byron Reeves, Thomas W. Malone, and Tony O’Driscoll, published in Harvard Review, explains that they very well might be.

It almost sounds ridiculous. The business forerunners of tomorrow could potentially be hiding within the withdrawn online gaming populace. According to the authors, these Massively Multiplayer Online Games often craft perfect environments for leadership of a team. Players in many of these games must ban together under ‘guildmasters’ to slay dragons, climb mountains, and conquer planets much as business employees pool their skills under managers to overcome challenges and draw in mounds of moolah. The article explains that similarities are surprisingly very common between the office and fantasy-littered environments. To name a few: partakers are rewarded for their overcoming of obstacles and must learn to deal with failure in spades; leaders delegate jobs to others; and the trial of new strategies plays a vital role. All in all, these two very separated worlds do seem to share many likenesses. Looks like using World of Warcraft or any other online game to train managers may not be so farfetched after all.

Of course, differences exist, and the text acknowledges that. For one, the infrastructures of multi-national conglomerates tend to be a smidge more intricate than those of virtual, 40-man raiding groups. Failure and loss also amount to a lot more when dealt in reality. Obviously, no one ever grasped the gravity of losing millions of dollars by dying a few times within the walls of a virtual world. Still, the advantages of having lived in one are almost undeniable.

Though I’ve only read abstracts of the actual study itself I feel like I’ve grasped a sufficient amount of what the authors were looking at and who they sampled to gather their information. And being a former World of Warcraft-er myself, I can at least vouch for most of what the authors found on the virtual end. The similarities are definitely there. In fact, I pondered this very possibility on occassion while playing the game. I was placed in leadership positions once or twice in my hardcore ‘guild’ and found the position as stressful as all get-out. It’s not exactly a fun place to be in and struck me as more of a job than a means for leisure. But if stress levels can indicate the similarities between real and virtual leadership, then I can most definitely attest to this article’s value. Hopefully, I and those who played with me got as much out of the endeavor as this study anticipates.