Gamers aren’t solitary freaks

Due to past bad experiences, I’m hesitant to link to Yahoo! News for anything (as I’ve had linkrot before on this blog), but it’s the link I have right now: New Data Shatters Video Game Player Stereotypes. Due to my hesitance, here’s the highlight: Gamer statistics.

• Forty-five percent of gamers volunteer at an average 5.4 hours per month.
• Sixty-one percent of game players engage in some type of religious activity for several hours each month.
• Ninety-three percent of game players read books or daily newspapers, while sixty-two percent often attend cultural events, such as concerts, museums, or the theater.
• Fifty percent spend time painting, writing, or playing an instrument.
• Ninety-four percent follow news and current events, and 78 percent report that they vote in most of the elections for which they are eligible.

From the article:

According to a survey conducted by Peter D. Hart Research Associates, computer and video game players spend more than three times the amount of time exercising or playing sports, volunteering in the community, reading, or engaging in religious, creative, and cultural activities than they do playing video games. In total, gamers spend 23.4 hours per week on these activities, compared to 6.8 hours per week playing games. Avid gamers — those who play games 11 or more hours per week — spend 34.5 hours per week on the activities mentioned above.

“Gamers are everywhere and they’re everyone. They are your friends, neighbors, co-workers, relatives, and kids, they lead responsible and caring lives, balancing their enjoyment of interactive entertainment with many other activities important to a well-rounded lifestyle,” said Douglas Lowenstein, president of the ESA, the trade association representing U.S. computer and video game publishers. “Indeed, those who continue to portray the game population as single-minded loafers are living in their own fantasy world.”

Equally striking at a time when anti-video game groups are attempting to blame games for contributing to obesity, the Hart research found that 79 percent of all game players report exercising or playing sports at an average of 20 hours a month.

Whenever something bad happens that people think is somehow related to video games (such as violent crimes), that gets a lot of press coverage, but I’ve heard no mention of this aside from a couple of articles on the ‘net. I really wish news like this got wider press coverage.