If it's undetectable, doesn't that make it a $100 bill?

On top of this, it's much easier to say jobs should be designed to have clear, incremental goals than to actually implement them. It only works well in basic manufacturing jobs ("you get __ XP for making each widget!"), not complex, ambiguous knowledge work like most of us do. It really comes down to: how do you measure performance? The easier you can answer that question for a position, the easier it is to create a token reward system, whether the token is candy, XP, or cash.

Old farts perhaps (and some young clueless ones), but there is a rich history of collaboration between computer science and psychology. We're not all Luddites. As a grad student in psychology (not associated with this study) who does conduct research with adult video game players, I can certainly comment on basic methodology. I would need to see the actual journal article to make bold pronouncements regarding the specifics, but assuming they are not completely incompetent researchers ...

1) It doesn't matter that the study was "only" 4 months. Individually you're right, +/- 4 months on a developmental marker is not a big deal at all. But this was not a change occurring across one or two children, this was across the treatment group. A systematic societal delay, even if it's just 4 months, is worth talking about. Do we need further data? Of course, I'd love to see the follow-up at a time greater than 4 months to see if these kids remain behind the curve. But neither you nor I has collected that data, so the 4 mo data will have to do for now to generate hypotheses regarding longer term effects.

2) You make a valid point regarding a single video game, but I don't believe it is as applicable to a gaming system. As long as there continue to exist good titles that I have not played, my 360 use will not decline any huge amount. I get tired of individual games, not the system itself. I do agree that it would have been nice to compare these random control trials kids to long-term exposure kids, but any results would have had major sampling confounds so it makes sense the researchers did not include them (assuming they didn't -- who knows what was left out of the press article).

As you point out, it would be difficult if not impossible to compare kids with and kids without video games (in a study with random assignment) through high school. But we could look at kids like the ones in this group to see if the gap remains years in the future. In other words, do these kids recover when their peers start playing games, are they permanently behind 4 mos, and what can they do to compensate and/or catch up (i.e., parental monitoring?).

You mention goofing off as a confound. Again, these kids were randomly assigned to PS or no PS. If goofing off caused the decline in learning (and was solely to blame), it would have done so among the no PS kids and there would have been no effect for owning or not owning a PS. That wasn't the case, so the PS caused a decline in learning. Now, it is possible that other activities hurt learning even more (i.e., TV) but that would only mask the effect of owning a PS and make it look smaller than it is.

The biggest thing that worries me is an expectancy or pygmalion effect given that parents presumably knew (or at least guessed) the purpose of the study and teachers may have known about the study (they probably did, since teacher feedback was collected). Most importantly, did teachers know which kids were in each condition? Teacher-student pygmalion effects are fairly well documented. That could totally kill the results. We need the journal article to know whether the teachers were blind to the treatment.

You conclude that the results are invalid without having read the journal article, so having not read it either, I'll say it sounds reasonable to me. Earth-shattering news? Not so much. Important to actually empirically test it (not just another correlation survey study)? Definitely. For every common sense belief we confirm with decent science (so everyone can say "well duh, I knew that!") we disconfirm another.

If this content was already on the disc, didn't they fail at the new EA model? It should have been "DLC" that was free to owners of purchased versions of the game (via an unlock code) and $5 to owners of used copies of the game (via $5 unlock code). To charge everybody for something already on the disc is greedy and lazy. What's amusing is that people would apparently be less outraged if only greed were involved -- that is, if the content were withheld and you had to download it.

One possible explanation: If reporters consciously or subconsciously expect old drivers to be crappy drivers, they may be more likely to report the ages of older drivers.

What program are you in? My classmates in organizational behavior are passionate about the field and many have prior experience. Like anything else I'm sure it all depends.

Not anymore. On my newer Win 7 system (multicore, 8GB RAM) I can happily play Mass Effect 2 with uTorrent, Virtual PC, Outlook, and Firefox active in the background and Alt+Tab around when I feel like it. I could never pull something like that off before. I have no illusions that it's all thanks to Win 7 -- it's the shiny hardware letting me do this -- but Win 7 is in no way impeding.

Gleaning information from very large data sets is very possible, even if gathered in ways that are not strictly rigorous. However, we have to be extremely cautious when we interpret the findings. One of the first things you learn in Stats or Research Methods 101 is that everything becomes significant in a large enough data set. If you have billions of data points and pick any two variables, you should find a statistically significant relationship. It won't mean anything, but someone with an agenda OR someone who doesn't know what they are doing can report it and make it sound real. With great power comes great responsibility! ;)

Or not. I don't doubt that your description is accurate for a minority of PhD students, but good luck buying or "hanging in there" to get the one I'm working on. I'm a) researching new enough topics that there's nothing to regurgitate to my professors (I know more about them than the topic; they are invaluable for the methodological and other support skills that are just as important as the raw knowledge) and b) working in a largely independent fashion (as it should be), sans hand holding. Remember though, the entire point of a PhD is to gain world class expertise in a very specific area. I think mixing it's/its a few times in trade is a reasonable sacrifice.

It was nice to be able to tinker with early Apples because there were few alternatives. But as much as I enjoy a good rant against Apple, I fail to see the problem. Buy your kids something else. Either he thinks the latest Apple SHINY is more important than his child's opportunity to get under the hood or he doesn't, and there are (or soon will be) numerous alternatives that are not as tightly locked. Life is about decisions and trade-offs.

I did a quick search and found http://www.onlinevolunteering.org/en/index.html and http://www.volunteermatch.org/. I haven't used either, so I'd be curious to know if somebody here has and what the experience was like.

You've got it: Networking. Assuming your experience matches the position as well as the other blob of qualified applicants, they're looking for somebody who will "fit" the organization. That's where a contact gives you an edge by telling the hiring manager you play well with others or at minimum that you're not a douchebag.

I've been researching leadership and teams in MMOs for the past few years as part of my grad program in organizational psychology. In particular, I've studied players of EVE Online and looked at leadership behavior among guild/corp leaders as well as their followers. I'm still crunching the latest longitudinal data, but the early results point to average levels of transactional leadership behavior (a more managerial style; exchange based; you do X, I'll reward/punish you with Y) but strikingly low frequency of transformational leadership behavior (charismatic, visionary, empowering leadership; generally considered the "best" style of leadership).

Jargon aside, EVE players do not appear to be learning how to be better leaders by playing EVE Online. MMOs might help build follower skills (complete this quest/work assignment and I'll give you a gold piece/paycheck!) and make you a better wage slave, but I haven't seen empirical evidence that MMOs are teaching anyone how to be a leader in the workplace, as claimed by TFA. There are anecdotal stories from a few guild leaders, sure, but for now only guild leaders of large guilds should even consider putting MMO experience on their resume.

Finally, MMOs aren't going to teach /. readers about technology in the workplace. I am sorry if I crush anyone's dreams.