Hey guys, a couple months ago I posted a survey within this forum for a research project I was involved in. Since I received so many great responses I just thought I would share the results of my research with you.

My initial research question was how GPA would be affected by the amount of time you spent playing video games. Obviously not everyone here is in school, but it was good to get responses from those that are, as well as some feedback from those that are not.

My findings on this question were pretty stereotypical and what you might expect. I compiled all the data into an excel file, and then for each category of the amount of time spent gaming I took the average of the GPAs within that category. Then I graphed the data onto a scatter plot graph, and assigned a equation and a correlation coefficient to the trend line. My sample of data included about forty-five observations of usable data from my survey as well as some in-game interviews, and with a number of blatant exceptions there was a negative correlation between the variables. As the amount of time gaming went up, the average GPA slowly decreased. Obviously this doesn't apply to everyone, but on average there was a strong correlation between the variables.

I believe strongly that this is not due to the playing of video games themselves, but rather the choice that is being made to game instead of working on school. Obviously, gaming could be replaced by a number of different extra-curricular activities, which could easily account for many of the exceptions within the data. But for the most part, on average and for myself, I often find myself gaming instead of studying and this can be harmful to my grades.

Thank you again for all your incredibly helpful responses! If you have any questions about my research just comment below and I will respond when I can.