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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to steph Mom never told you?

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Speaker 1: From housetop works dot com. Hey, welcome to the podcast.

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Speaker 1: This is Molly and I'm Kristen. Kristen. Today, I want

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Speaker 1: to read you a listener email listen mail first, and

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Speaker 1: it's we are doing a change it because this email

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Speaker 1: inspired the podcast today. All right, it is from our

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Speaker 1: listener Nora Nora, who wrote, my husband grew up on

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Speaker 1: video games, and even now, at age thirty one, can

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Speaker 1: waste an entire weekend with his pretend civilization. I cannot

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Speaker 1: stand video games. My dad believe they'd rot brains, so

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Speaker 1: we did not have Nintendo. I can amuse myself for

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Speaker 1: a little time with Tetris or Mario Kart, but I

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Speaker 1: just don't understand game role playing games like the Sims

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Speaker 1: that don't really have any way to win and take

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Speaker 1: hundreds of hours. Nora writes, Although I know a few

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Speaker 1: women who like video games the extent my husband does,

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Speaker 1: I think many are like me. Do men like video

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Speaker 1: games more than women? Interesting question, Noura, That shall be

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Speaker 1: our question for the day. Molly, did you did you

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Speaker 1: grow up with video games? Yes, I had a Nintendo,

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Speaker 1: but I also had two younger brothers, so I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I would have gotten into them without that

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Speaker 1: sort of that going on in the house. I had

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Speaker 1: a game Boy that I was pretty proud of, but

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Speaker 1: I only had about three games, one of which was Tetris.

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Speaker 1: Who I do like some Tetris, which was awesome. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I can. I can spend some time on Tetris. And

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Speaker 1: in college I did go through a brief Mario Kart

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Speaker 1: phase Marikart and some ill fated dance dance Revolution. Uh. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't want tontil I see more ancdotes about that.

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Speaker 1: I mean, let's just say I kinda I have about

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Speaker 1: the two left feet, so I don't get I don't

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Speaker 1: last too long a dance since Revolution, but it's fun.

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Speaker 1: I try. I do think there's a conception that girls

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Speaker 1: don't like video games as much. You know, like you said,

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Speaker 1: in college, you went through phases, but my college experience

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Speaker 1: was walking down the halls and just hearing those guys

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Speaker 1: playing very loud shooting games with the Halo right, Molly,

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Speaker 1: And in addition to my Maria Carte phase in college,

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Speaker 1: I did also spend many unfortunate hours sitting on couches

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Speaker 1: and watching guys playing Halo when you'd rather just go

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Speaker 1: out and get a pizza. Yeah, do something else, Do

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Speaker 1: something else. So let's let's answer this question. Let's see

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Speaker 1: if we can answer Nora's question of whether men in

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Speaker 1: fact do like video games more than women. Our research

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Speaker 1: first led us to a study by Stanford University School

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Speaker 1: of Medicine which hooked up eleven men and eleven women

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Speaker 1: to f M r I machines and scanned their brains

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Speaker 1: while they played video games. And what the researchers found

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Speaker 1: was that the meso quarter colymbics center, which is the

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Speaker 1: reason region of the brain that is typically associated with

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Speaker 1: reward and addiction, which will be which is key to this,

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Speaker 1: is more activated, was more activated when the men were

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Speaker 1: playing the video game than the women. And they also

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Speaker 1: found that three certain brain structures, the nucleus cucumbents, the amygdala,

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Speaker 1: and the orbitofrontal quarte, influenced each other more in the men,

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Speaker 1: and the men performed better when they were when that

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Speaker 1: circuit of three brain structures was was better connected. Gotcha.

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Speaker 1: So basically, the researchers assumed that video games would be

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Speaker 1: more rewarding and more addictive for men based on their

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Speaker 1: brain activity, right, that they get more neurological reward from

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Speaker 1: the act of playing video games, which makes sense. Your

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Speaker 1: brain likes it, therefore you like it all right, all right,

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Speaker 1: so what a but what a statistics say? The statistics

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Speaker 1: about this are interesting, Christen. You know, we went with

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Speaker 1: the sort of assumption that males would play a lot

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Speaker 1: more video games women, but as it turns out, right now,

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Speaker 1: we're in the middle of some massive rise in female gamers.

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Speaker 1: According to Forbes magazine July six, two nine articles, so

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Speaker 1: pretty recent, uh, the number of female gamers has increased

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Speaker 1: of all US console gamers compared with twenty percent a

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Speaker 1: year ago. So they're saying about two million more girls

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Speaker 1: women's just started playing games in the past twelve months,

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Speaker 1: not even counting those who have been in it for

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Speaker 1: the long haul. So right now, there's a lot of

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Speaker 1: growth around this field for women and girls. Right. And

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Speaker 1: it's interesting that you say that the statistic is specifically

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Speaker 1: about console games, like with your uh PlayStation three, et cetera,

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Speaker 1: because that's what we think of when we think of

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Speaker 1: video gamers. Because I ran across um a study. It's

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Speaker 1: the Pew Internet and American Live Projects Survey from October

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Speaker 1: to December seven to December two thousand seven, excuse me, um,

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Speaker 1: And they broke down the demographics of adult gamers in

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Speaker 1: the US. And they're defining gamer as people who play

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Speaker 1: games online or offline using a computer, cell phone, or

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Speaker 1: any other kind of gaming device, not just video game consoles.

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Speaker 1: And they found that of the people surveyed, fifty of

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Speaker 1: American adults play games. And of that percentage, men make

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Speaker 1: up give take a few, and women make up. So

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Speaker 1: there's a very slim margin between between men and women

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Speaker 1: and gaming overall, not just video games when you open

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Speaker 1: up the definition a little bit and account for people

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Speaker 1: who might do crossroad puzzles on their phone things like that.

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Speaker 1: So women do enjoy games as entertainments. Right, But you know,

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Speaker 1: why are we in the middle of this huge uptick?

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Speaker 1: And for posits that's something a little something called the

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Speaker 1: WE might have something to do with it. Right. The

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Speaker 1: the WE has been very popular, not just among men

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Speaker 1: but also among women. It has uh pretty basic games.

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Speaker 1: There's basically a ban on sexist material and graphic violence. Um.

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Speaker 1: In WE games, you have things like tennis and bowling.

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Speaker 1: In that game where you have to cook things and

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Speaker 1: they're very easy to learn, you don't have to I

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Speaker 1: personally am turned off from video games sometimes if I

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Speaker 1: have to spend too much time figuring out just how

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Speaker 1: to make the controller work. And that's why I like

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Speaker 1: the Nintendo WE controller because you just kind of swing

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Speaker 1: it around. Yeah. Yeah, that's sort of I think been

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Speaker 1: the old conception about females as they like something that's

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Speaker 1: very easy to learn but takes them a lot of

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Speaker 1: master you know, it can continually be working on your

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Speaker 1: tennis swing something like that. We takes out that element

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Speaker 1: of having to learn a whole new controller when you

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Speaker 1: can just do emotion. And this sense of multitasking really

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Speaker 1: seems to be what appeals to women. The idea that

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Speaker 1: you can, you know, work on a skill, lose some weight, uh,

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Speaker 1: learn rhythm by playing guitar hero and rock band. Uh.

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Speaker 1: It seems to be very appealing to women. Because we're

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Speaker 1: reading an ABC News article that talked about how female

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Speaker 1: players sometimes under report the number of hours they spend

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Speaker 1: playing video games and they think it might be because

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Speaker 1: of guilt, Like, you know, females that aren't supposed to

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Speaker 1: spend hours and hours in front of a computer, in

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Speaker 1: front of a TV playing these games when they have

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Speaker 1: so many other things to do. So when you bring

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Speaker 1: something in like the We where you can learn something

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Speaker 1: while you play, that's very appealing. Right. And in addition

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Speaker 1: to being able to learn something of having a video

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Speaker 1: game perhaps have a practical application, there's also a social

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Speaker 1: element to games like Guitar Hero and and We where

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Speaker 1: you're not just sitting there playing by yourself, You're you're

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Speaker 1: engaging with other people. But I think it really appeals

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Speaker 1: to women, right. That same ABC article is talking about

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Speaker 1: women most enjoyed playing video games when they can play

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Speaker 1: it with a boyfriend or other romantic interests. You know,

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Speaker 1: it's sort of again multitasking. You're kind of on a date,

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Speaker 1: but sitting on your couch and probably a lot more

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Speaker 1: enjoyable than just watching that boyfriend playing Halo Yeah, or

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Speaker 1: any game that has, you know, a very sexualized female character.

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Speaker 1: And you know, we were reading uh sena article that

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Speaker 1: was talking about a keynote speech given by Sherry grain

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Speaker 1: er Ray who's a game designer for the past sixteen years,

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Speaker 1: and she says, you know, pretty obvious things that women

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Speaker 1: might be turned off by having to play with avatars

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Speaker 1: or characters who are essentially just sex sympols, you know,

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Speaker 1: sexually explicit clothing, uh, bedroom eyes indicating their ready to

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Speaker 1: the bedroom, whereas uh, they're really looking for a character

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Speaker 1: that can make kind of an emotional connection with We

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Speaker 1: see the SIMS and a lot of these articles talking

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Speaker 1: about being the ultimate girls game because they kind of

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Speaker 1: get to shepherd these little people through their lives right.

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Speaker 1: The SIMS has been hugely popular among women, and one

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Speaker 1: interesting statistic that I ran across I thought was telling

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Speaker 1: about this idea of women being turned off by highly

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Speaker 1: sexualized female video game players was a tidbit from an

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Speaker 1: article in The Guardian that said that according to a

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Speaker 1: study that was published in the journal My My Favorite

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Speaker 1: Journal Cyberpsychology and Behavior UM, it says that up to

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Speaker 1: seventy of female players say that they choose to use

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Speaker 1: male identities while inside internet games where they're able to

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Speaker 1: design their own characters with any race, gender or appearance.

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Speaker 1: And it may be because it's kind of easier to

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Speaker 1: navigate through those worlds, especially through UM multiplayer online games

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Speaker 1: like World of war Craft, if you are actually a

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Speaker 1: male character instead of a female character. There have been

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Speaker 1: a lot of anecdotes of women who are female characters

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Speaker 1: being hassled a lot more in these online worlds than

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Speaker 1: if they're just men. Yeah, it seems like the you know,

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Speaker 1: the main problem to me as a person who doesn't

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Speaker 1: know much about video games is on the one hand,

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Speaker 1: you've got these very sexualized women, and then on the

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Speaker 1: other hand you have almost these like cartoonish stereotypes of

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Speaker 1: what video game designers think that I want, which is

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Speaker 1: like shop and do pink things. And you know, there

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Speaker 1: are a lot of I think, sort of bubbly, frivolous

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Speaker 1: games on the other side of that, and not really

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Speaker 1: knowing where you fall in the in the serious game

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Speaker 1: action middle and one thing that might change that that

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Speaker 1: we'll get to a little bit later. Um. In regard

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Speaker 1: to the SIMS, which we mentioned was so popular, there

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Speaker 1: was an interview in Forbes magazine with one of the

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Speaker 1: game designers named Will Wright, and he was saying that, uh,

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Speaker 1: the SIMS did so well with women because of the

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Speaker 1: development team on that game were women, and so they

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Speaker 1: might have been a old to design a game you

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Speaker 1: know that they knew would appeal a little bit more

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Speaker 1: to to our demographic and like Kristen said, we'll get

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Speaker 1: back to this issue of who's making the games, which

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Speaker 1: is obviously a big part of this. But to go

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Speaker 1: back to the issue we're talking about multitasking. We all

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Speaker 1: like games where we kind of feel like we're learning something, uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, doing something that's not just sitting from the television.

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Speaker 1: We're reading and Discover magazine just how good video games

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Speaker 1: are for the brain. Yeah, some researchers think that, uh,

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Speaker 1: we are not wasting time spending hours and hours in

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Speaker 1: front of video games because according to this Discover magazine

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Speaker 1: article uh from two thousand and seven, This is uh

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Speaker 1: AT tracks the research of a professor at the University

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Speaker 1: of Wisconsin named James g Or g g e Uh.

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Speaker 1: He says it's successful gamers have to focus, have patients

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Speaker 1: develop a willingness to delay gratification and prioritize scarce resources,

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Speaker 1: which Professor Gee thinks is really building up you're thinking skills, right.

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Speaker 1: And one thing he said that was very interesting to

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Speaker 1: me is, you know, we hear about athletes who just

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Speaker 1: picture themselves making the shot and then eventually they'll make it.

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Speaker 1: He sees video games as a way to mirror this

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Speaker 1: process in the brain by running through all these virtual worlds.

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Speaker 1: He says, basically that you're modeling a simulation. In this

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Speaker 1: video games are externalizing how the mind works. So basically,

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Speaker 1: if you're ever I guess ana war zone, you've already

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Speaker 1: kind of been through the simulation and would know almost

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Speaker 1: where to go. And there have been instances where they've

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Speaker 1: used video games to train members of the army and

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Speaker 1: other armed forces. Right and uh. Similarly, um, there was

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Speaker 1: a study that found that laparoscopic surgeons who played games

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Speaker 1: for more than three hours a week made thirty per

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Speaker 1: seven fewer errors than their non gaming peers. And things

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Speaker 1: like this. You know, these are good statistics for the

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Speaker 1: guy who likes video games to throw around. Women in

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Speaker 1: particular might be interested to learn about a study at

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Speaker 1: the University of Toronto that evaluates spatial skills after playing

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Speaker 1: a video game. I, for one of them, not very

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Speaker 1: good at spatial skills like reading a map. But they

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Speaker 1: were suggesting that in the study, after playing a few

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Speaker 1: hours of video games, my lack of spatial skills would

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Speaker 1: essentially be eliminated. In relationship a man after playing a

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Speaker 1: few hours of video games, Both men and women had

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Speaker 1: the same abilities at spatial skills tests interesting and as

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Speaker 1: if all of that data is not enough to persuade

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Speaker 1: you that video games might be beneficial. In October two

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Speaker 1: thousand and six, the Federation of American Scientists actually endorsed

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Speaker 1: video games as a potential means for teaching quote, higher

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Speaker 1: order thinking skills such as strategic thinking, interpretive analysis, problem solving,

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Speaker 1: plan formulation and execution, and adaptation to rapid change. These

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Speaker 1: things sound like miracle workers. Yeah, maybe I need to

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Speaker 1: go pick up a game of Halo. That's so, But

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Speaker 1: why are we not attracted to a game like Halo?

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Speaker 1: You talked earlier about how it seemed that games that

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Speaker 1: were designed by women appeal to women. More, let's talk

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Speaker 1: about who actually makes these video games? Yeah, right now,

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Speaker 1: One of the big problems might be that women simply

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Speaker 1: are not developing many video games. According to an article

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Speaker 1: in The l A Times, UH, there was a survey

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Speaker 1: conducted by Game Developer magazine found that women comprised fewer

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Speaker 1: than one in five workers in the video game industry,

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Speaker 1: and those who were in the industry were making significantly

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Speaker 1: less than their male counterparts, about ten thousand less. They

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Speaker 1: were making sixty four thousand men were making about seventy

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Speaker 1: food and what this all goes back to. We've talked

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Speaker 1: about it before, UH is girls early years in math

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Speaker 1: and science, and basically they're saying, if girls aren't encouraged

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Speaker 1: in those fields early on, then by the time you know,

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Speaker 1: it comes to recruit people who have those upper math

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Speaker 1: and science skills, the girls just aren't there. Right. Women

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Speaker 1: might just not be tracking heading on attract towards computer

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Speaker 1: programming in general. In addition to that, you know, it

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Speaker 1: can be kind of hard to think as a young

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Speaker 1: girl to be like, I want to grow up and

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Speaker 1: develop video games, particularly when up until a few years ago,

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Speaker 1: there were recruitment parties with strippers and there were booth babes.

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Speaker 1: If you went to a electronics expo of some sort,

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Speaker 1: there'll be, you know, a girl in bikini showing you

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Speaker 1: the video game. This is starting to be on the

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Speaker 1: decline according to the l A. Times, but it wasn't

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Speaker 1: very real issue for girls a few years ago. But

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Speaker 1: there does seem to be a potential benefit in getting

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Speaker 1: more women developing video games because in the same l A.

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Speaker 1: Times article, UH cited a two thousand five Michigan State

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Speaker 1: University city that found that girls rated games that were

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Speaker 1: designed by all female teams higher than those designed by

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Speaker 1: all male teams, without, of course, the study participants knowing

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Speaker 1: whether or not men or women had developed a game.

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Speaker 1: So it's very interesting, interesting stuff. I will say that

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Speaker 1: all this learning about what video games around the brain

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Speaker 1: have me convinced to play more video games. But I'm

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Speaker 1: really not a big video game expert. So if any

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Speaker 1: of you are out there, we'd love to hear what

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Speaker 1: video games you play, what your experiences with video games are.

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Speaker 1: I played some guitar here, that's all. I got a

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Speaker 1: little guitar here. You know what, Molly, I played a

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Speaker 1: video game the other night. I played this, this car

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Speaker 1: racing game, because and I love car racing games, as

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Speaker 1: in a Mario Kart. But uh, but I was pretty terrible.

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Speaker 1: I got to improve practice. Yeah, maybe I can practice

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Speaker 1: and improve my VISEO spatial capabilities and analytics to discover magazine. Um,

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Speaker 1: but speaking of mail and writing in, we've got a

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Speaker 1: little bit of listener mail. First. We need to start off,

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Speaker 1: Molly with a couple of birthday shoutouts. Yeah, we love

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Speaker 1: when our people take time out of their birthdays to

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Speaker 1: write us. Yeah, and by now. Um, this is a

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Speaker 1: belated birthday, but Molly and I would like to wish

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Speaker 1: it very happy if late birthday to Rapa in Jerusalem.

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Speaker 1: Happy birthday, and also especially happy birthday to Sebastian in Paris.

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Speaker 1: Thanks so much for writing in. Happy birthday, guys. And

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Speaker 1: one thing that we've been doing recently Molly is reading

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Speaker 1: out what people are reading, and this reading list is

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Speaker 1: from Claire. And Claire has been reading Portrait of an Artist,

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Speaker 1: a biography of Georgia O'Keeffe. Sounds interesting. Um. She's also

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Speaker 1: reading the Worldly Philosophers, Lincoln's Virtues and Brave New World,

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Speaker 1: to name a few. And on top of that, Claire

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Speaker 1: reads every Rolling Stone and in style she sounds like

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Speaker 1: a busy girl. I like that variety, a lot of variety. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So if you have a reading list to send in,

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Speaker 1: please send it on to me and Molly at Mom's

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Speaker 1: Stuff at how stuff works dot com, or your video

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Speaker 1: game list or your video game list, and of course

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Speaker 1: you can also check out our blog how to Stuff

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Speaker 1: you see what's happening, And as always you can find

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Speaker 1: more information on video games and gaming consoles and all

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Speaker 1: that on how stuff works dot com. For more on

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Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics. Is it how stuff

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