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Girls vs. Boys: Brain Differences Might Explain Tech Behaviors


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Girls vs. Boys: Brain Differences Might Explain Tech Behaviors

By Julie Jargon

https://www.wsj.com/articles/girls-vs-boys-brain-differences-might-explain-tech-behaviors-11569317402?shareToken=stf11a3d13d7ef4c92a3a25ed4a6e2867e&mod=djmc_pkt_evgrn

Recent research shows the brain’s rewards regions activate when males crave videogames, girls face more depression when overusing social media

Many parents of both boys and girls have witnessed striking differences in the way their kids use technology, with their sons generally gravitating to videogames and their daughters often spending more of their screen time scrolling through social media.

Emerging research indicates that brain differences between males and females help account for the split.

“It is entirely plausible from a neurological perspective that there’s an underlying biological component to this difference people are seeing,” said Larry Cahill, a professor of neurobiology and behavior at the University of California, Irvine, who has spent two decades researching gender differences in the brain.

In this column I’ve chronicled the aggression some boys exhibit when they have to shut off videogames and transition to other activities, as well as the problems some young men face when they go to college and have to juggle game time and school work without mom and dad’s help.

That led some readers to question why girls don’t appear to be having these problems. Of course, girls have issues of their own, such as smuggling “burner” phones to keep up with forbidden social media accounts. It’s just that when it comes to videogames, most girls seem to have a better handle on when to stop.

According to a 2017 survey conducted by Pew Research Center, 41% of teenage boys said they spend too much time playing videogames while only 11% of girls said they do.

Marc Potenza, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, teamed up with researchers at universities in China to find out why. Using functional MRIs, which measure brain activity by detecting changes in blood flow, the team studied neural responses in young male and female gamers, particularly in the parts of the brain associated with reward processing and craving—a motivating factor in addiction. When the men and women were shown photos of people playing videogames, those parts of the men’s brains showed higher levels of activation than those parts of the women’s brains.

Brain regions that have been implicated in drug-addiction studies also were shown to be more highly activated in the men after gaming. The researchers said the results suggest men could be more biologically prone than women to developing internet gaming disorder.

But girls and women aren’t free from problems when it comes to digital media. Data from Pew shows that, in general, women use social platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Pinterest far more than men. Many girls and women are drawn to those photo-sharing sites because they like to form bonds and find similarities, says Rosanna Guadagno, a social psychologist at Stanford University.

Even if women only use those sites more than men because that is where their friends are, many experts and parents say they have found that girls appear to have a greater fear of missing out, which compels them to keep up with what their friends are posting. Some recent studies show that girls feel the ill effects of too much social media use, such as depression and anxiety, more than boys do.

Liz Repking, a cyber safety expert and mother of three in suburban Chicago, has seen the differences in her own sons and daughter. Earlier this summer, her 15-year-old daughter said her phone was driving her crazy. She told her that she felt pressured to follow her friends’ Instagram stories and like and comment on their posts, and that it was eating up a lot of her time, Ms. Repking said.

Her sons, 18 and 21, use social media—Snapchat, in particular—mostly to communicate with friends but don’t feel compelled to keep up with what people are posting. “There’s more peer pressure and validation I see with it for her than for the boys,” she said.

In August, Ms. Repking’s daughter decided to impose some limits, such as being on her phone no more than three hours a day and checking Instagram less frequently. “When I asked her a week later how that was going, she said, ‘I’m only looking at Instagram three times a day but I can’t catch up,’” Ms. Repking said.

One might argue that multiplayer videogames are the way boys connect with friends online. But it’s different. “Videogames can be social but there’s also a physical distance because you don’t see photos, and communication is largely through text, which is more consistent with the direct way men tend to communicate with each other,” Dr. Guadagno said.

Researchers at the University of Zurich looked at how differences in brain functioning can help explain why women tend to be more prosocial—that is, helpful, generous and cooperative—than men. In the 2017 study, they hypothesized that the areas of women’s brains related to reward processing are more active when they share rewards and that those areas in men are more active when receiving selfish rewards. Brain scans conducted on men and women, in which they chose between receiving a monetary reward only for themselves or one that involved sharing money with others, supported their theory.

The Lego Group learned a lot about the prosocial nature of girls more than a decade ago when it conducted research on who buys the brick building kits. At the time, about 90% of the Lego sets purchased in the U.S. were intended for boys. That led the company to conduct more research with girls which revealed, among other things, that girls wanted more role-playing opportunities. Lego created a pastel-colored line called Friends, which sold well but was criticized by some consumer groups—including the Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood—for reinforcing gender stereotypes.

Academics who study gender differences also have faced backlash for pointing out that boys and girls aren’t the same.

“It’s not a debate that there are sex influences throughout the mammalian brain,” said Dr. Cahill. “How they all play out is what we should responsibly explore.”

Scientists say understanding those differences is critical to parents’ ability to help kids navigate the fast-changing world of tech.

Our brains haven’t caught up to modern times, says Dr. Guadagno, which is why kids’ digital behavior can feel so confusing and overwhelming to parents trying to manage it. “Human brains are wired for survival on the savanna,” she said. “They’re not wired for social media and videogames.”

Write to Julie Jargon at [email protected]

 

 

 

PHOTO: STEVEN SALERNO

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Since we are on the topic of girls vs boys...[gossip]

Who's better at lying - boys or girls?

Two girls at this year’s Young Scientist Exhibition have an answer to a question that’s preoccupied teenagers for generations.

STUDENTS AT THIS year’s BT Young Scientist Exhibition are looking into all sorts of things this year – from how to provide air conditioning for bees, to the best way to keep cattle sheds clean (both of these are real).

Some of the participants are tackling issues more likely to preoccupy secondary school students, however: for instance, who’s better at lying – boys or girls?

Linda Toomey and Megan Byrne spoke to a psychologist as part of their research before setting out to seek an answer to their question: ‘Is the potential for dishonesty affected or determined by one’s gender?’.

Their testing methods included a lengthy questionnaire, backed up by a lie detector test (with a twist).

The psychologist explained to the girls that they’d arrive at more accurate results if they asked questions over a range of categories.

“So that’s, like, interpersonal with friends, family and strangers – as well as achievements, because boys might be more likely to lie about achievements.

The girls also employed an old-fashioned steady hand buzzer game to underpin the results of their lie detector, as a kind of ‘triple lock’ on their results.

Linda explains: "We did four rounds with the lie detector. For two rounds, the participant would do the buzzer game because it would take their concentration off the lying. So it’s harder to deceive the lie detector when you’re not concentrating."

The results? Says Megan: “We found men lie 3% more often than women, and they were also better at lying. We were right in our thinking that women would lie more on emotional grounds and men would lie more to make themselves to seem superior – so about sporting achievements and things."

Scientific proof at last that males are better liars than females…

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24 minutes ago, Carbon82 said:

Since we are on the topic of girls vs boys...[gossip]

Who's better at lying - boys or girls?

Two girls at this year’s Young Scientist Exhibition have an answer to a question that’s preoccupied teenagers for generations.

STUDENTS AT THIS year’s BT Young Scientist Exhibition are looking into all sorts of things this year – from how to provide air conditioning for bees, to the best way to keep cattle sheds clean (both of these are real).

Some of the participants are tackling issues more likely to preoccupy secondary school students, however: for instance, who’s better at lying – boys or girls?

Linda Toomey and Megan Byrne spoke to a psychologist as part of their research before setting out to seek an answer to their question: ‘Is the potential for dishonesty affected or determined by one’s gender?’.

Their testing methods included a lengthy questionnaire, backed up by a lie detector test (with a twist).

The psychologist explained to the girls that they’d arrive at more accurate results if they asked questions over a range of categories.

“So that’s, like, interpersonal with friends, family and strangers – as well as achievements, because boys might be more likely to lie about achievements.

The girls also employed an old-fashioned steady hand buzzer game to underpin the results of their lie detector, as a kind of ‘triple lock’ on their results.

Linda explains: "We did four rounds with the lie detector. For two rounds, the participant would do the buzzer game because it would take their concentration off the lying. So it’s harder to deceive the lie detector when you’re not concentrating."

The results? Says Megan: “We found men lie 3% more often than women, and they were also better at lying. We were right in our thinking that women would lie more on emotional grounds and men would lie more to make themselves to seem superior – so about sporting achievements and things."

Scientific proof at last that males are better liars than females…

Girls will lie about relationships.
So in a negative way, they will lie about someone they dislike and spread rumors.
Emotional bullying.
Hence teenage girls are best served by being aware of the pitfalls of fellow peers (especially female) using social media to bully the other.

Guys will just beat each other up 

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8 hours ago, Lmws214 said:

Girls vs. Boys: Brain Differences Might Explain Tech Behaviors

Researchers at the University of Zurich looked at how differences in brain functioning can help explain why women tend to be more prosocial—that is, helpful, generous and cooperative—than men. In the 2017 study, they hypothesized that the areas of women’s brains related to reward processing are more active when they share rewards and that those areas in men are more active when receiving selfish rewards. Brain scans conducted on men and women, in which they chose between receiving a monetary reward only for themselves or one that involved sharing money with others, supported their theory.

I think those in bold is wrong.

I'm a male but I've always been helpful, generous and cooperative :grin:

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Maybe this is too serious for this thread (and a bit of a digression), but I think we need to acknowledge that the genders are not, and never will be, equal.

We are a sexually dimorphic species. The differences go well beyond just the physical. Our brains are very different too. One would think that in this age of force-fitting equality onto everything, research like this wouldn't be reported in the lay press - but I guess the "take home message" was crafted to be partial to females, so that's politically correct.

In terms of physical prowess - specifically, athleticism - there is no reason to suppose that men and women are equal. At practically every level above the tiny tot, there are separate events for males and females. It's well known that world champion female sport teams have been comfortably beaten by unseeded school male teams. And with the "T" (as in LGBTQ+) normalisation that seems to be the new agenda, some are making a massive mockery of the gender separation, with biological males self-identifying as females trouncing all biological females in sporting events. I don't know whether to LOL or shake my head in disgust (or both).

But wait - in terms of pure mental prowess - cognition - there's no reason that women should be worse off than men, right? But this is exactly the case in high level mental "sports" - there's a reason that the top chess players in the world are all male. Women, in fact, have a separate "Women's Grand Master" (WGM) category that only they are eligible for. Women are also eligible to earn the same GM title that men are - and no "feminist" screaming out her screeds for equal treatment has addressed this little disparity in treatment. While there are some amazing female chess players that have earned the unqualified GM title (Judit Polgar was the first), there would be very few ranked female chess players if there weren't a specific female GM title allowed to continue existing and "encouraging" them.

Of course, similar considerations hold true for sports that are a combination of the physical and mental - motor racing, for instance. Despite all the high level PR interest in propelling female drivers to the top of the grid, they never last on their own merit.

And yet, the prevailing narrative seems to be not only that we are equal, but females are impeccable compared to the much more spotty and ragged males. We live in the era of the Mary Sue trope. But note that there's already a massive backlash against this sort of "SJW" messaging - see what happened with Captain Marvel, and continued to happen, albeit on a smaller scale with Dark Phoenix and even the new Star Wars movies. Gillette made a massive SNAFU with their ridiculously tone-deaf anti-male ad. Many men have had enough of being told we're inferior, all objective indicators to the contrary.

We must accept there are differences between males and females. With some measures (such as height or muscle mass), males have a higher average than females. With other measures such as IQ, males and females have the same mean IQ, but males have a bigger spread (higher standard deviation), which means that there are more male geniuses (but also more males with intellectual deficiency). We take the good with the bad.

I do acknowledge that the society of the past used to be highly patriarchal in nature and certain very able females were very unjustly suppressed and even persecuted. There have been female geniuses in fields traditionally associated with a male bias. In antiquity, there was the hideous example of Hypatia. Fast forward about 1300 years and we have the case of Sophie Germain, the brilliant female mathematician, who had to pretend to be male to be taken seriously. Zoom ahead another few decades and we have Ada Lovelace. In the 20th Century, there's Grace Hopper, the US Navy pioneering programmer who rose to become Rear Admiral.

My point is that we need equal opportunities for all, and we should acknowledge brilliance regardless of gender. However, it is a mistake to think that the genders are equal in every respect and (especially) to constantly belittle males and make them feel guilty for real and imagined mistakes made by males in the past.

 

 

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2 hours ago, Turboflat4 said:

But wait - in terms of pure mental prowess - cognition - there's no reason that women should be worse off than men, right? But this is exactly the case in high level mental "sports" - there's a reason that the top chess players in the world are all male. Women, in fact, have a separate "Women's Grand Master" (WGM) category that only they are eligible for. Women are also eligible to earn the same GM title that men are - and no "feminist" screaming out her screeds for equal treatment has addressed this little disparity in treatment. While there are some amazing female chess players that have earned the unqualified GM title (Judit Polgar was the first), there would be very few ranked female chess players if there weren't a specific female GM title allowed to continue existing and "encouraging" them. 

We must accept there are differences between males and females. With some measures (such as height or muscle mass), males have a higher average than females. With other measures such as IQ, males and females have the same mean IQ, but males have a bigger spread (higher standard deviation), which means that there are more male geniuses (but also more males with intellectual deficiency). We take the good with the bad.

I do acknowledge that the society of the past used to be highly patriarchal in nature and certain very able females were very unjustly suppressed and even persecuted. There have been female geniuses in fields traditionally associated with a male bias. In antiquity, there was the hideous example of Hypatia. Fast forward about 1300 years and we have the case of Sophie Germain, the brilliant female mathematician, who had to pretend to be male to be taken seriously. Zoom ahead another few decades and we have Ada Lovelace. In the 20th Century, there's Grace Hopper, the US Navy pioneering programmer who rose to become Rear Admiral.

My point is that we need equal opportunities for all, and we should acknowledge brilliance regardless of gender. However, it is a mistake to think that the genders are equal in every respect and (especially) to constantly belittle males and make them feel guilty for real and imagined mistakes made by males in the past.

  

 

Grace Hopper is a legend! Well, the other examples are good too, though, I didn't really know until your post.

The one thing you've raised, and that resonates with me is the different "categories" of sports and tournaments. Men and women have never been physical equals, and having a woman's league for everything (non physical) also serves to show that there's a disparity amongst the genders. I do get annoyed when some feminist would claim that we're equals, and yet, they wouldn't advocate for the removal of woman's categories.

Not entirely related to this thread: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/vegan-cafe-man-tax-close-handsome-her-melbourne-australia-a8885711.html

A cafe run by feminist, with an 18% "man tax" closes down. And they partially blame the "fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy".

Anyway, man and woman, in our lifetime at least, will never be biologically equal. There's things that the ladies can do way better than guys, and things that guys do better than gals. We'll just have to accept nature as it is.

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53 minutes ago, Hydrocarbon said:

Grace Hopper is a legend! Well, the other examples are good too, though, I didn't really know until your post.

The one thing you've raised, and that resonates with me is the different "categories" of sports and tournaments. Men and women have never been physical equals, and having a woman's league for everything (non physical) also serves to show that there's a disparity amongst the genders. I do get annoyed when some feminist would claim that we're equals, and yet, they wouldn't advocate for the removal of woman's categories.

Not entirely related to this thread: https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/food-and-drink/vegan-cafe-man-tax-close-handsome-her-melbourne-australia-a8885711.html

A cafe run by feminist, with an 18% "man tax" closes down. And they partially blame the "fragile masculinity is and solidified the necessity for us to confront and dismantle patriarchy".

Anyway, man and woman, in our lifetime at least, will never be biologically equal. There's things that the ladies can do way better than guys, and things that guys do better than gals. We'll just have to accept nature as it is.

Thanks, didn't know about the man tax cafe. Not that much different from ladies' night and gender-specific cards (that seem oddly only in favour of the female gender). 

Most existential angst arises from trying to go against the grain of our Nature.

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1 hour ago, Turboflat4 said:

Thanks, didn't know about the man tax cafe. Not that much different from ladies' night and gender-specific cards (that seem oddly only in favour of the female gender). 

Most existential angst arises from trying to go against the grain of our Nature.

It popped up on Google Discover or something. Yeah, all along, I was thinking that ladies' night is a bit discriminatory. But, it's ok, guys chase girls, and if a club has no girls, then it will be sausage fest. 😂

That said, in Singapore (don't say other countries), there's benefit to both sides.

Gals don't need to serve NS, and in a marriage, they get covered by Woman's Charter, which is somewhat anti guy nowadays (considering that when it was written, ladies needed protection in the case of a divorce because they mostly didn't work) that both parties are usually working. And that I feel some of our laws are still antiquated, especially in the sexual harassment against guys portion.

Guys.. We get the privilege of serving NS... Hahahaha

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