Study suggests males are more prone to video game addiction
By Anna Walters
Even when freshman Carla Norris is unloading rounds from her assault rifle into opponents playing Halo 3 online, her presence still suggests a trace of femininity. Norris goes by the alias, "Pecanpie11," a name she nabbed from the classic chick flick, "When Harry Met Sally."
"If I play with 15 guys on a team slayer game, and they find out I'm a girl, they'll freak out," Norris said, adding that the men she plays online are incredulous and stunned when they discover that their characters died at the joystick of a female.
"Just because I'm a girl doesn't mean I can't play video games - (gender) has nothing to do with it,"
Norris is used to sticking up for females.
"I'm a civil engineering major, so I pretty much fight for my gender all the time," she said.
Norris defies the evidence that video game play is more psychologically rewarding for men than it is for women. A recent study conducted at the Sanford University School of Medicine suggests that men's reward centers in the brain are more activated than women's while playing video games.
In the study, 11 men and 11 women were hooked up to a functional magnetic resonance imaging, or fMRI, machine and then asked to play 24-second rounds of a simple computer game. The fMRI machine generates dynamic images that show certain parts of the brain "lighting up" during an assigned activity.
The researchers found that men experienced more of reward-center thrill out of working toward the goal on the game than the women did, and, consequently, were more successful.
Sophomore Clement Uduk, an environmental science major, admits to playing some "heated games" with fellow Villa Maria residents. During the final seconds of one particularly close NCAA Football 2007 game, Uduk's quarterback failed to make a crucial tackle, enabling his opponent's wideout to sprint 60 yards for the 30-27 win.
"I just stood there spewing expletives: 'I can't believe you just did that! What the hell just happened?' and that's the PG version." Uduk cites many intense games like the one just described as a testament to men's zeal while playing video games.
But female gamers can be just as fervent about video games as their male counterparts.
"If you even watched us play Halo on a Friday night (you'd realize) there's a lot a screaming and cursing," said senior Morgan Berry, a civil engineering major who lives with two other game enthusiasts in Haggerty Hall. The three female students collectively own five different consoles.
Ryan Young, a sophomore mechanical engineering major, estimates that he owns more than 400 games and roughly 18 different consoles. He projects game play onto a screen the size of a poster in his Christie dorm room.
Young, who rarely plays with females, but would relish the opportunity, agrees with Uduk: a man's passion for video games is unparalleled.
"Guys emote their feelings more than girls do. They speak their minds a lot when they play video games," Young said, adding that some men he plays tend to swear when engrossed in play.
"Girls take failure a lot better than guys," he said. "They could be beat across the map five times, and they'll still have a smile on their face."
According to the study, the men's mesocorticolimbic center, which is associated with reward and addiction, was more activated than the women's, leading, the researchers to speculate that men tend to be more addicted to video games like the one studied.
Young doesn't think he is addicted to video games. He understands that some people could see his love of video games as addiction (and granted, he once spent eight hours trying to finish one 30 second course of F-Zero, a futuristic racing game for the Nintendo Game Cube), but Young says he isn't dependent on games.
"It's not like I sit there thinking, 'I've got to play a game; I've got to play a game,'" he said. "An addiction would be a physiological need, which I don't have."
Addicted or not, both sexes agree that a love of video games fosters bonds among gamers.
"When I tell a guy I play Halo or play video games, they're like, 'Oh really?' kind of in disbelief," Norris said. "Most guys find it kind of cool that they have something in common with a girl, other than we're all human."
Uduk agrees.
"It's an ice-breaker," he said. "I don't usually play with girls - it's not that I'd rather play with guys, I just don't encounter many girls that say, 'hey, wanna play video games?'"
Norris is not bothered by the fact that, as a female, she is a minority in the gaming world and encourages others to defy gender stereotypes.
"I know that there's this expectation that games are for guys, but if you really like doing something, you should do it, whether (or not) it's for your gender," she said.
