My introduction to online games goes back to the original Adventure (aka Colossal Cave), so I have been interested in online gaming long before the term MMORPG was coined. I'm always interested in news stories that relate gaming to the real world...which is why this headline caught my eye this morning.
Are virtual-game players more depressed? | Los Angeles Times



The article is about a study recently presented to the American Association for the Advancement of Science that researched over 7,000 EverQuest II players. I'll let you read it for yourself here. I'm interested to see what comes of this study, and how it holds up to peer review. I'm also going to be looking for the response from the gaming community. This is a preliminary study - and it does not show causation - does gaming make you more depressed? or do more depressed people turn to gaming? Too soon to tell. Because depression is such a huge health issue in today's world, it is definitely something to watch.