How Gaming Habits Affect Life, Sleep, and More - Nick Ballou | grokludo 21

Nick Ballou researches gaming habits and their effects on quality of life. He recently released a study with an unprecedented amount of data collected on gamers' play habits, and in addition to showing us his findings, the database is now open for anyone to use.

Crucially, this study used on-device software to measure gaming habits. This differs from most studies in this field, which rely on self-reporting from participants (and all the human/memory biases that come with that).

As Ballou mentions, this new data shouldn't be thought of as a pure source of truth. It has its own biases – but the discrepancies between what was recorded and what was self-reported is a story in itself.

Some of the main early lessons include a confirmation that time spent gaming has no bearing on quality of life – nor does it affect quality of sleep.

Another emerging story is that of neurodivergence within the gaming community.

The main study included 2,000 participants, out of which 362 identified as autistic and 501 as having ADHD. That's a high representation, while it's possible there's some unintentional selection (Do neurodivergent people frequent the online places where participants were recruited? Are neurodivergent people more willing to participate in a study like this?) I'm inclined to believe this echoes the thoughts of Dr Tony Attwood in a previous episode.

Attwood said the representation of autistic people in the general population is around 1 in 36, but speculated that within the gaming community it was much higher. This study, while not confirmation, suggests that proportion could be as high as 6.5 in 36.

There will be a steady release of findings from this study over the year, and Ballou is hoping other people will join in. Academics, data scientists, citizen journalists, or anyone simply curious, can use the data freely.

I hope you enjoy, and here's to the year ahead full of great grokludo chats!