According to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the average age of adult video gamers is now 35, and video gamers are also fatter, less healthy and more depressed than non-gamers.
The study used data from 500 adults in Washington aged 19-90. About 45 percent of the adults studied reported playing games. Washington was chosen because Seattle has the highest Internet usage level in the US.
The CDC team, says the BBC, studied the perception of “mood, personality, health status, physical and mental health, body mass index (BMI) and quality of life” of the gamers.
The study found that female video gamers were less healthy and were more depressed that non-gamers while male gamers had higher BMIs.
CDC’s James B. Weaver added:
“Health risk factors, specifically a higher BMI and a larger number of poor mental-health days, differentiated adult video game players from non-gamers. Video game players also reported lower extraversion, consistent with research on adolescents that linked video-game playing to a sedentary lifestyle and overweight status.”
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For the first time in its history, the BBC will be transferring an original online comedy to one of its main TV channels, moving the show “Fresh” over to BBC2.
The show, about the lives of college freshman, started as five-minute webisodes and was so popular that it will move from its online home to a place on BBC’s “Switch” block where it will have full 30 minute episodes.
Additionally, the BBC announced it had “commissioned U.K. digital production company Conker Media to create and produce an interactive, digital thriller, “The Well,” aimed at teens,” says Variety. if successful, the show will air on the BBC2’s “Switch” block as well.
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The Office of Communications (Ofcom), the independent regulator and competition authority for the communication industries in the United Kingdom, could eventually derail the BBC’s proposed new set-top box project, dubbed “iPlayer in hardware”. The regulator wrote to the BBC Trust outlining several concerns it had about the new project and their consequences for competition.
“Commercially-led propositions which seek to compete with Canvas should not be unfairly prevented from accessing BBC content,” it read. It also has concerns about technical standards, user interface (EPG), the BBC’s partnerships with other broadcasters and program quality standards.
Project Canvas is a Linux-based box that attempts to update Freeview with PVR functionality, web access, IPTV and other features. It won’t be manufactured by the BBC, but the broadcaster wants to set a specification that other broadcasters can use. It’s also promised not to aggregate content for the box, or give preferential treatment to BBC content in the Canvas spec.
The BBC Trust has yet to determine whether to let the BBC proceed with the project. “There is a danger television viewers could ultimately be divided into two groups - those with internet connected functionality and those without,” the BBC’s Richard Halton told IPTV World Forum in February. “The BBC would like to ensure that, as before, there is a choice in TV between those who wish to take a subscription and those who don’t.”
