Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Student Loan Girl — Sat, 16 Feb 2008 06:33:00 GMT

Signs of depression:

Loss of appetite
Loss of interest in daily activities
Loss of energy
Hopelessness
Self-loathing

Recommendations for treatment:

Don’t go shopping.

Primed for Sadness, People Spend More

A recent research experiment shows that people who exhibit signs of depression tend to be more willing to cough up the dough, according to a TIME Magazine article by Barbara Kiviat (“Depressed? Don’t Go to the Mall,” Feb. 8, 2008).

Researchers from Carnegie Mellon University, Harvard, Stanford, and the University of Pittsburgh split up their experiment participants into two groups: one that watched a sad video clip involving the death of a boy’s mentor and one that watched an emotionally-neutral video clip about the Great Barrier Reef.

The two groups were then asked how much of the $10 they were getting paid for the experiment they would be willing to pay for a water bottle. Participants in the sad video group were willing to spend about four times more than those in the Great Barrier Reef video group ($2 on average, compared to 50 cents).

Researchers say the results from their experiment indicate that people who are unhappy tend to overcompensate by buying new things.

“Feeling blue causes people to have a devalued sense of self, so spending more money on a new object — which people may identify, in a way, as an extension of themselves — starts to undo that deflation,” Kiviat writes.

This “emotional hunger,” as the researchers call it, may also contribute to other acquisitive behaviors, like looking for a new relationship or trading big on the stock market.

Shift Gears and Step Outside Yourself

The study’s findings, the researchers say, hinge on self-focus: When researchers looked at how much the participants were dwelling on themselves, they found that those who were sad but not self-focused didn’t spend as much.

Cynthia Cryder, a Carnegie Mellon doctoral candidate and co-author of the study, says that spending is a common way for people to try to breathe value into their lives, but that there are alternatives for cheering yourself up besides doling out cash.

“If you’re sad, maybe you should seek out something other than shopping. A new book to read, a new friendship. Something that’s novel and attractive to fill the need you’re seeking to fill,” Cryder told TIME.

Or, she added, break the cycle of self-focus by shifting your mindset outward and thinking about other people.

“You could try to think about others by rehearsing a series of sentences that involve others as the subject,” she said.

Or try calling a friend, Kiviat offers, “and instead of suggesting a trip to the mall, ask how her day is.”

5 Ways to Get Happy Without Spending

Next time you come down with a case of the blues, instead of throwing the credit cards in your wallet and speeding off to the mall, try some of these activities instead, that cost nothing and feel great.

Go for a walk. Sometimes just getting some fresh air and experiencing a natural environment can boost your mood. And exercise produces endorphins, which serve as natural uppers. Plan your route to go through your neighborhood or a nearby park to reduce your chances of coming across a spending opportunity.

Volunteer. As Cryder points out, shifting your thoughts from yourself to someone else can do wonders for your mood and self-esteem. Instead of buying another pair of shoes you don’t need, more downloads for your iPod, or the latest Xbox game, donate your time to someone really in need.

Get rid of clutter. Sifting through old belongings you’ve outgrown or no longer need can help you appreciate all the things you have in your life. You might even discover items you forgot you had, turning a tedious task into a home shopping spree.

Trade with friends. Gather up a group of friends and swap your give-away clothing, CDs, or anything else. You’re killing three birds with one stone: socializing, shopping, and saving.

Plant a garden. Taking responsibility for something living can feel extremely rewarding and uplifting. Gardening not only provides you with a daily activity to keep your hands — and mind — busy, but it’s good for you. The American Horticultural Therapy Association says gardens have healing capabilities, improving health and well-being.

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Gaming Industry Giving Back to Its Girl Gamers

Student Loan Girl — Fri, 14 Sep 2007 03:51:00 GMT

As big-name video game companies in the multibillion dollar gaming industry search for ways to expand their market share and find new audiences in an increasingly saturated marketplace, some of them are turning to a segment that’s oft-ignored in the gaming world: Females. Working moms and stay-at-home moms, college girls and school girls are poised to embrace this technology-as-entertainment trend, and gaming companies want to find ways to tailor their products and services to this up-and-coming demographic.

Christa Phillips, one of Microsoft’s “goodwill ambassadors” who monitor player behavior in the corporate giant’s Xbox Live online gaming communities, estimates that females already comprise about 10 to 20 percent of their seven-million-strong audience, according to an L.A. Times article by Alex Pham (“A Refuge for Women in a Hostile Game Space,” Sep. 3, 2007).

And Microsoft is looking for more.

Some hardcore male gamers, flocking to the online worlds of popular, male-dominated games like BioShock, World of Warcraft and Halo, have raised their controllers in objection to female intrusion, engaging in sexually charged greetings and hostile game play.

“American society has evolved since the advancement of women’s rights in the 1960s,” writes Pham. “But the world of video gaming has been largely stuck in a time warp with its frat house culture of sexual insults and put-downs.”

Despite some male gamers' negative reception of their female counterparts, gaming executives are beginning to recognize the benefits of welcoming more women into the traditionally male industry and of creating a supportive environment for female participation.

Changing the Face of Gaming

Whereas male gamers will spend hours immersed in virtual combat zones and first-person shooting expeditions, female players tend to be drawn to games that involve puzzles, social interaction and strong story lines.

At a panel at the 2005 Game Developers Conference focusing on female gamers, a British researcher unveiled a study that found that

more so than men, women in the UK like strong plots, rich characterizations, choices in goal-attainment strategies, freedom of self-expression, novelty, immersion in atmospheric environments, games they can immediately pick up and play, flexibility, and social interaction.

A games analyst for market researcher NPD Group presented his findings that 93.9 percent of Nintendo’s female base “prefers card, puzzle, arcade, or word games” (“GDC Panel Charts Trajectory of the Female Gamer,” March 10, 2005).

Gaming companies trying to build their female player demographic are striving to recruit more female programmers and writers to create games like these, with more female appeal.

But these companies find themselves in a catch-22: They want more female developers in order to design games that entice more female players, but they need more games that appeal to female players in order to entice females into the gaming industry. Considering that women working in the gaming industry dropped to 11.5 percent in 2005 from 17 percent the previous year, according to Gamasutra.com, the companies might be facing an uphill battle (“Soapbox: ARGs and How to Appeal to Female Gamers,” Nov. 29, 2005).

Yet not all industry analysts attribute the fledgling female gaming market to a lack of females in the business. Some cite greater competition among entertainment sources for female attention.

A panelist at the 2005 GDC, for example, “hypothesized that the explanation for why women don’t prefer games as strongly as men may be the result of men watching less television (as they shift to interactive entertainment), and television programs more aggressively recruiting female viewers.”

Another panelist suggested that gaming companies should take these entertainment preferences into account and focus on cultivating the status of many female gamers as “secondary” or “nondominant” gamers instead of trying to recruit or convert women to become primary gamers, who tend to be mostly male.

Females Virtually “Go to the Mattresses”

Besides custom-tailoring their game design and marketing approach, gaming companies working to expand their female customer base are beginning to realize they must show care for their female gamers who venture into male-dominated virtual worlds.

This realization has led to strategies like Microsoft’s recruitment of monitors like Phillips, to help defuse the sometimes heated environment stirred up by veteran gamers in some Xbox Live communities.

Phillips has run her online group, GamerchiX, since June 2006 and drew her inspiration from PMS Clan—that’s Pandora’s Mighty Soldiers—an online gaming group of female competitive players.

GamerchiX, Pham explains, “functions as a virtual Grand Central Terminal for women and girls who tread into the testosterone-steeped world of console gaming.”

Phillips says she wanted her fellow gamers to have a place to turn and feel supported when they experience the trash-talking, the naysaying, and the come-ons.

“I wanted to create a safe place for all women gamers,” Phillips says in Pham’s article. “It’s a place where you can go to socialize and not have to worry about being harassed or hit on.”

Phillips’ role as TriXie in the gaming world mirrors her role as a mother of two in the real world, as she oversees her GamerchiX like a mother hen. She holds the power to revoke Xbox Live playing rights from male gaming bullies when and if she receives complaints from one of her girls of stalking or harassment.

And the hassling female gamers experience can run the gamut.

“I’ve heard it all,” says PMS Clan founder Amber Dalton in Pham’s article. “They tell you to go to the kitchen and get them a sandwich. Or they ask you if you’re hot. You can also be targeted just because you’re a girl. They all just start shooting at you the second they find out you’re a girl.”

But GamerchiX doesn’t protect its members just from male badgering; the girls must also abide by a code of ethics Phillips calls a “manifesta,” which prohibits them from engaging in virtual cat fights or trash-talking each other.

Gaming Doesn’t Make the Grade

With gaming and gaming recruitment on the rise, concerns may surface about what effect gaming will have on college students, their study habits and their grades.

A study conducted in 2001 by Todd Stinebrickner, an econometrics professor at the University of Western Ontario, and Ralph Stinebrickner, a math and computer science professor at Berea College, found that the presence of video game consoles in dorm rooms can have a detrimental effect on study habits and grade point averages (“The Causal Effect of Studying on Academic Performance”).

The Stinebrickners analyzed a randomly chosen sample of two groups of college freshmen comparable in academic ability, preparation and motivation, but separated by whether or not their roommate brought a video game console to school.

Of those with roommates who brought game consoles, 24 percent were female and 53 percent were male. On average, the group of female students with access to their roommate’s game console studied about 46 percent less and finished their first semester with a statistically significant 0.128 lower GPA than those female students whose roommates didn’t bring a game console. The male students with console-toting roommates studied 66 percent less and finished their semester with a 0.239 lower GPA.

The study was initially designed to measure how study time affects grades, but in the process resulted in these significant findings on how much distraction video games can cause for those students just beginning to develop their college study habits.

The gaming industry may be starting to exhibit more responsibility for its female players as it becomes more cognizant of their needs, but young female—and male—gamers have a similar responsibility to themselves when it comes to their gaming practices.

As the Stinebrickners’ study shows, student gamers must be careful not to let themselves get too carried away in their virtual worlds and risk throwing away their opportunities for education.

Like mom and dad always said, study hard, and then play hard.

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Student Loan Blog : Xbox

Malls and Retail Stores a No-Go for Depressed Shoppers

Gaming Industry Giving Back to Its Girl Gamers