The Research
Researchers from Queensland, Australia decided to conduct a research on the social effect World of Warcraft has on its users. The researchers decided to use two hundred or so participants that played World of Warcraft from one month to four years. They were looking into the social effect and negative or positive psychological effect World of Warcraft has on casual and hardcore users.
The Participants
The researchers selected two hundred or more so participants who played World of Warcraft on a regular basis and those that played as if it were their job. Of the two hundred or so participants, twenty one of them played WoW on an average of forty four to eighty two hours a 'week', and I emphasize, a week. They had a total of two hundred and six participants, so that's about ten percent of the people. If you do the math for the total amount of people registered that's quite a bit!
They asked questions to all the participants and they received yes and no answers. The questions asked were "do you regularly play with friends?" And 165 people said yes, as only 41 said no. "Member of a guild or guilds?" 179 people said yes, and 26 said no. "Communicate outside of WoW?" 147 said yes, and 59 said no. The last question is "play with a significant other?" 62 said yes, and 144 said no. The last question didn't seem to surprise me too much.
Social and Psychological Effects
What the group of researchers concluded was that people who play World of Warcraft for forty four to eighty two hours a week often have less social support and more negative psychological effects than those that casually played for an average of ten to two hours or so a week. The people that played casually seemed to get more social support in game and out of game. World of Warcraft increased more social interaction in and out the game for casual players and actually seemed to help more on a psychological level. All in all if you don't over play the game, you're doing more good than harm. Higher levels of in game social support were associated with fewer psychological symptoms. Those that played forty four to eighty two a week had more negative psychological symptoms and had less offline social support.
My Opinion
Over the course of the four to five years I have been playing World of Warcraft I feel that I am one of the sheep in the herd that have gotten sucked into playing it on a daily basis. I started in the late end of my 8th grade year and I still play till this day, but not nearly as much. That's either because I have grown out of it or the content just simply isn't there anymore. All the research came from well known colleges in Australia, the colleges are The School of Psychology and Counselling, and Queensland University of Technology. I would take these professionals words and research serious and their conclusions seem to relate to myself as well.
I hope you enjoyed the article and might be able to relate this to yourself or others and maybe prove their research right or wrong. I hope you guys enjoyed the article and keep reading what I write. Any questions or comments?
Sources:
http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.sb...ph&AN=44564373
http://web.ebscohost.com.libproxy.sb...db=aph&jid=C0X
Publisher: http://www.liebertpub.com/index.aspx
Peer Reviewed: Yes (The wonders of science!)
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