Study: Average gamer is 35, fat and bummed

This is a very interesting article as it completely agrees with the typical stereotype of what a gamer is. A male or female around the age of 35 years old who is depressed and overweight, that is the exact picture that video game makers think of when they are marketing their video games. The also envision that the person is living in the basement of their parents home and that they are completely socially awkward. Things to note is that the study was done in the Seattle area for the reasoning of it is the 13th largest in media use, I think it was for the reasoning that the weather isn't the greatest their so to get a good result on people who stay in and play video games made Seattle the smart choice. They say that females tend to play video games because they are depressed and they use the video game playing to self medicate their depression. It gives them an escape to their reality and enables them to live in a carefree world. They also found out in this study that the gamers use the internet, video game media, or other forms of social media to not only look for friends but look for love. They rarely use face to face interaction and feel a lot more comfortable talking to others over some medium. This is an interesting social concept as people who play video games use social mediums to talk to others because they probably either do not feel comfortable with the way they look or their social skills. The integration of video games becoming so prevalent as well as other forms of social media I would think would change this stereotype as I would believe it would give people the ability to practice talking to others and increasing their Interpersonal skills. The fact that they are fat just hits the idea that gamers are people who never work out and who sit around all day and either play video games or are couch potatoes. It is interesting that this study correlated perfectly with the typical gamer that we stereotyped in class. It is also something intiruing to read that the reason this study thinks that females play videogames is for the fact that they are depressed and this gives them a way out of reality. It gives people who read this article something else to think about in regards to the pros and cons about the video game medium. People always say isolation and obesity are the huge negatives but if it can become some sort of mechanism to cure chronic depression and enable someone to get through a turbulent times the pros would greatly outweigh the cons. This debate is one that will go on as long as video games go on and keep becoming more and more innovative. It will be soon that 3-D games will be created and people will not be looking to escape their reality figuratively but literally.