Stereotypical Gamers

Gamers are stereotyped as overweight, acne-ridden male nerds that live in their parent’s basements, surviving on a diet of junk food and fizzy/energy drinks. They’re also considered anti-social, cave-bats that converse in a language that only other gamers understand. Their clothes are sweaty, and it is unlikely that you will run into them.

Even though none of this is true, gamers are mostly stereotyped only because people do not find out all the data needed to make a fair judgement and just ‘fill in the gaps’ because we do not have the total picture.

Gary M. Grobman quotes that “a “stereotype” is a generalization about a person or group of persons. We develop stereotypes when we are unable or unwilling to obtain all of the information we would need to make fair judgments about people or situations. In the absence of the “total picture,” stereotypes in many cases allow us to “fill in the blanks.”

Stereotypical 'Hardcore Gamer'

 This is the perfect example of gamers being stereotyped as a fast food dieter, and a fizzy/alcohol drink consumer in a sweaty environment.

Caroline Overington is an opinion writer for “The Australian”. In February 2010, Overington

wrote an article in which she said “anyone over the age of 30 who spends any time on the couch with a console remote in one hand, the other down the front of their pants, imagining themselves to be a combatant in some pretend city, is lame.”

She goes on to attack gamers and stereotype . “they don’t participate in life in any meaningful way”, She paints gamers as jobless ‘sadsacks’ who “with their wet hands and their weak chins,[would] never get through an interview.”

Gamers are considered as having 'no life' by people such as Overington and do not contribute to business, social life, or other common aspects because they are a bunch of 'couch potatoes'. But we gamers all know this is not true.

Critics often accuse video games of making players lazy, inept and socially awkward. Contrary to what gamers believe, we build and not burn brain cells by requiring extensive problem solving, teamwork and dynamic decision-making skills to complete a task or an objective within the game.

Also capable of building players' confidence and helping them see the world from multiple viewpoints, games can be powerful learning tools.At minimum, they readily encourage fans to fall on their face then pick themselves up and try again because of the trial and error process, promoting hands-on learning without the fear of ridicule or embarrassment.

Consider Loyalist College in Ontario, which offered students a simulation test of U.S./Canada border crossings where they played the role as guards in a patrol station, and actually saw the rate of successful test scores jump from 56% to 95%. Or the Hilton Garden Inn, which built a custom 3-D hospitality training game for the PlayStation Portable, reasoning that it's more informative and reasonable for staffers to experiment by interacting with virtual customers.

According to Dr. Jeffrey Taekman, the director of Duke University's Human Simulation and Patient Safety Center, he quotes that "serious games and virtual environments are the future of education."

Video games may soon save lives as well.

Reference: http://gamerstereotype.wordpress.com/