They're not your grandfather's video games. But your grandfathers are playing them
A new survey from the Entertainment Software Association found that nearly two-thirds of Americans ages 5 to 90 play video games an hour or more per week. And the players include older Americans: nearly half of Baby Boomers surveyed and 36% of the Silent Generation.
"The average age of the video game player today is 36 years old, and each year it ticks up a bit," said Stanley Pierre-Louis, ESA president and CEO. "One of the things we've seen over time is the continued growth of those who play games and those who stick with games."
The survey defines video games as anything online involving gamification, said Pierre-Louis, meaning that video games in the survey include puzzle games such as Wordle and mobile apps such as Candy Crush or Bejeweled .
The growth is in part due to shifts in behavior because of the Covid pandemic – raising questions about the effect of the increase on mental and physical health.
"One of the things we've seen since the pandemic is people consuming more media, especially on their phones," said Beth Hoffman, assistant professor at the University of Pittsburgh's School of Public Health. "It makes sense that, similar to what we're seeing in terms of more people spending time on social media, they are also playing video games and doing puzzles."
In some cases, the health benefits are clear. Research has shown benefits to senior citizens from doing mental exercises, and games such as Wordle , crosswords or Sudoko are easy sources of brain stimulation.
Even the newly appointed Pope, 69-year-old Pope Leo XIV, plays Words with Friends, according to interviews with his brother, said Pierre-Louis.
"It just shows the scope of games – that everyone plays and there is a game for everyone," he said. "We have to think of video games and who plays in a much broader way than traditional norms would dictate."
The top two reasons that survey respondents in the Baby Boomer (those born from 1946-1964, as defined by Pew Research Center) and Silent Generation (born 1928-1945) listed for playing games are passing time and relaxing (77%) and keeping their minds sharp (65%). Of those generations, 73% report playing puzzle games, while 55% play skill and chance games and 20% play arcade and other games.
Often, seniors start out with digital adaptations of real-life games, and then sometimes move on to other video games. "You may have started playing bridge online, but then you discovered Candy Crush," said Pierre-Louis. "The on-ramp may be something that you are very familiar with."
Those game preferences contrast with younger generations. Generation Z (born 1997-2010) chooses shooter games as its top choice, whereas Generation Alpha (born 2011-2024) prefers arcade games.
As for how they play, more than three-quarters of all generations report playing video games on mobile devices, with Generation X the highest at 87%.
For other platforms, there are stark differences across generations. Nearly 70% of Generation Alpha report playing games on a console, versus just 7% of Boomers and the Silent Generation.
The population most likely to play more than an hour per week of video games is boys in Generation Alpha (88%), followed by Generation Z boys (85%) and Generation Alpha girls (78%).
Excessive video game play is linked to numerous health concerns, such as a sedentary lifestyle, perception of violence, sleep deprivation and depression. But there can also be upsides to game play, especially when those games have a social component.
"There's positives here that we can think about how to accentuate, and negatives to think about how we can minimize those," said Hoffman.
The report noted that most people who play video games regularly have some social component to them, be it Words with Friends or Fortnite with friends.
In the report, 82% of parents who play video games said that they play them with their children, and 52% said they did so at least weekly. Of all players, 55% said that they play video games with others weekly. The majority of game players surveyed from Generation Z and Millennials (born 1981-1996) said that they had met friends through video games who they would not have met otherwise.
Parents in the report also compared video games to other forms of online entertainment, with 70% saying that they preferred their children spend time playing video games than on social media.
Still, said Hoffman, it is worthwhile to question the value of socializing through video games if it is replacing in-person socialisation – a group of 10-year-olds playing Fortnite with each other online, for example, rather than playing at a neighbourhood park. And with video games now a fact of life in both young and old generations, more study is needed to develop best practices.
"It will be an important area of future research to look at what matters when we are looking at recommendations," she said. "Is it total time? Is it certain times per day? If people are playing video games before bed, is that associated with less sleep? It's interesting to tease out some of these nuances." – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette/Tribune News Service
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The Star
3 days ago
- The Star
'Farm babe' versus 'food babe' influencer rivalry is a lopsided battle
(Reuters) -Michelle Miller stands in a field of corn, stalks stretching above her perfectly styled hair, holding a tiny microphone and addressing an audience online. She was farming genetically-modified corn in Iowa in 2017, she says, when a tornado hit. Now a social media influencer who goes by the name the "Farm Babe," Miller says the wind knocked her corn flat on the ground. But in a feat of botanical fortitude, the plantsbounced back. "So when you ask farmers: why are they growing these GMO seeds?" she says in the video, "it's because the genetics hold up." Millerhas starred in hundreds of videos, often set in fields and on farms, since she began her influencing career. She aims to debunk what she sees as misperceptions around farming perpetuated by another universe of influencers, many of whom are now closely aligned with Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., and his Make America Healthy Again, or MAHA, campaign. But unlike Miller's GMO corn, arguments in favor of the status quo in U.S. food and agriculture are increasingly falling flat, especially on social media. Among the most prominent of those MAHA influencers is Vani Hari, who blogs as "The Food Babe" -- Miller says her ownname is a self-conscious spin-off. Hari has gained millions of followers by railing against processed food, GMOs, pesticides and other mainstays of the U.S. food system. Although Miller partners with powerful interests in the food and agriculture industry with huge marketing budgets, her message is not gaining as much traction as Hari's. Her Instagram account, for example, had just over 43,000 followers in early August, to Hari's 2.3 million. The bloggers' uneven rivalry speaks to the ascendance of a movement that has put conventional food and farming in its crosshairs, and Big Agriculture's struggle to respond. Hari and Miller, both in their 40s, emerged as food commentators in the 2010s amid a boom in social media influencing, when a single post going viral could help rocket its author to fame and fortune. Their rise also coincided with growing national attention on the relationship between food, obesity and chronic illness, with then-First Lady Michelle Obama spearheading new regulations on school nutrition and promoting vegetable gardening and exercise through her "Let's Move!" campaign. Hari grew up in Charlotte, North Carolina, where she said she was largely raised on ultra-processed foods, to which she attributes later chronic health conditions, from eczema to endometriosis. An appendectomy in 2002 launched her on a quest to understand the source of her health issues. She pored over books on nutrition at the library, from which she concluded that her diet was at the root of her diseases, and those of many other Americans. "I wanted to investigate: what was it about these foods that made me feel so bad?" Hari said. Hari began writing a blog in 2011 as The Food Babe, a name suggested by her husband, with the aim of educating her friends and family. The blog reached well beyond her immediate circle and led to book deals and the creation of Truvani, a line of supplements now sold at Target and Walmart. More recently, she has become a sort of mascot of the MAHA movement, though she is a registered Democrat, according to public voter registration records. At a press conference in April, at which Kennedy announced the administration's intention to phase out synthetic food dyes, Hari was an opening act, appearing in a bejeweled white suit before a room of press and MAHA supporters. When Kennedy took the stage, he called her an "extraordinary leader." She said she does not have a formal role in the administration. Miller wanted her own pulpit after she began noticing Hari's content in 2014. A commercial farmer of soybeans, corn and livestock in Iowa at the time, Miller said she posted a comment on Hari's Facebook page taking issue with her claims about the toxicity of GMO crops. After that, Miller said, she was blocked. So, she launched a rival blog. "I really took it upon myself to be a myth buster for the industry," she said. Hari did not respond to questions about blocking Miller or others who make critical comments. Hari has published books blasting corruption in the food industry as well as her own cookbooks, and sells subscriptions to her blog. The supplements, however, areher main business, Hari said. She declined to disclose the company's value. Miller, who said she is not registered with either political party, travels about 300 days a year, doing paid speaking engagements, farm visits and branded partnerships with companies like Tyson Foods, Domino's Pizza and the California Beef Council. She also writes a column for an agriculture industry trade publication. She declined to say exactly how much she earns, but her published fee for speeches ranges from $2,500 to $15,000. Mariah Wellman, a professor of advertising and public relations at Michigan State University who focuses on social media and wellness, said both women likely earn in the high six figures for their work. But they speak to different audiences. And the constraints of traditional public relations may hinder pro-agriculture messaging, while the MAHA crowd's comfort with social media helps propel its narrative. "When you think about large brands and large agricultural companies, they are headed by a demographic that's not super comfortable with influencer culture," said Wellman. She said that such companies often find it hard to keep up with fast-moving social media trends as they like to vet their partnerships carefully. 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Scientists say there is not yet a large enough body of evidence to show whether synthetic food dyes cause these problems. West Virginia in March banned some synthetic food dyes from being sold in the state, and Arizona and Utah have recently banned a list of synthetic food dyes in school meals. Communications firm Edelman found in a large, global public opinion survey taken in 2024 that people, especially those aged 18-34, are increasingly disregarding the advice of credentialed medical providers in favor of recommendations from friends, family and social media. As Lauri Baker, a professor of agricultural communication at the University of Florida, says:"In almost any study we've conducted, people are more likely to trust someone who looks like them, thinks like them, who they believe is like them." (Reporting by Renee Hickman. Editing by Emily Schmall and Claudia Parsons)
The Star
4 days ago
- The Star
Is Hollywood inspired by the CIA, or the other way around?
AT the CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia – beyond the handsome granite seal on its lobby floor and a wall of stars carved in honour of the agency's fallen – experts are at work in the complex tasks of spycraft: weapons-trained officers, computer engineers, virologists, nuclear scientists. But there are also storytellers, makeup artists, theatre majors and ballerinas – Americans who probably never thought their skills would match the needs of a spy agency. Yet the CIA, or Central Intelligence Agency, thought otherwise. Though it rarely gets the spotlight, there's a revolving door of talent between the United States' premiere intelligence agency and its entertainment industry, with inspiration and influence often working both ways. The agency is targeting professionals at the intersection of arts and technology for recruitment, CIA officers told The Times, and continues to cooperate with entertainment giants to inspire the next generation of creative spies. In July, the agency assisted a New York Times bestselling author on a young adult book examining the foundations of the CIA laid during World War II. Scenes from a major upcoming film production were just shot at its headquarters, a logistical feat at an intelligence campus tucked away in the Virginia suburbs behind rings of security perimeters, where officers roam cracking down on Bluetooth signals. Another popular streaming TV series will be back at Langley to film this fall. But their collaboration goes far deeper than that, officers said. Creative minds in Hollywood and the entertainment industry have long had a role at the CIA, devising clever solutions to its most vexing problems, such as perfecting the art of disguise and harnessing a magician's ability to cast spellbinding illusions. Indeed, in the 1950s, a magician from New York named John Mulholland was secretly contracted with the agency to write a manual for Cold War spies on trickery and deception. These days, the officers said, creative skills are more valuable than ever in such a technologically complex world. 'You're only limited by your own imagination – don't self-censor your ideas,' said Janelle, a CIA public affairs officer, granted the ability to speak under her first name at the request of the agency. 'We're always looking for partners.' An elusive history David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst and author of Damascus Station and other spy thrillers, offered several theories on why the agency might be interested in fostering a robust relationship with Hollywood, calling it 'a two-way street.' 'There definitely have been operational applications for espionage,' McCloskey said. 'It's probably the exception to the rule, but when it happens, it's compelling.' It's easy to see why CIA leaders would be interested in Hollywood, he said, in part to shape impressions of the agency. 'But their bread-and-butter business is receiving people to give secrets,' he continued, 'and part of that is getting close to people in power.' 'The closer you are to Hollywood,' McCloskey added, 'that's a really interesting 'in' to having a lot of interesting conversations.' Some of the CIA's most iconic missions – at least the declassified ones – document the agency's rich history with Hollywood, including Canadian Caper, when CIA operatives disguised themselves as a film crew to rescue six American diplomats in Tehran during the Iran hostage crisis, an operation moviegoers will recognise as the plot of Argo . 'Argo was almost too far-fetched to even believe,' said Brent, an in-house historian at CIA headquarters. 'It's almost more Hollywood than Hollywood.' Art imitating life: Ben Affleck, who directed and acted in 'Argo', attending the film's premiere at the Regal Gallery Place Theaters in Washington DC in 2012. — TNS Canadian Caper was both inspired by Hollywood and relied on Hollywood talent. Agent Tony Mendez had been a graphic artist before joining the agency and helping craft the mission. Another key player was John Chambers, the makeup artist who gave the world Spock's ears on Star Trek and won an honorary Oscar for his trailblazing simian work on Planet of the Apes . He was awarded the CIA's Intelligence Medal of Merit for his work on the covert rescue effort. Just a few years before, Howard Hughes, then one of the world's richest men and a tycoon in media, film and aerospace, agreed to work with the CIA to provide cover for an effort by the agency to lift a sunken Soviet nuclear submarine off the floor of the Pacific Ocean. Deploying Hughes' Glomar Explorer under the guise of mineral extraction, the CIA was able to salvage most of the sub before The Times broke a story blowing its cover – 'the story that sunk our efforts,' in CIA parlance. And another mission was made possible thanks to a device invented by a professional photographer – a gadget that later became the inspiration of an over-the-top scene in the blockbuster Batman film The Dark Knight. In Project Coldfeet, CIA agents gathering intelligence on a Soviet station erected on a precariously drifting sheet of ice in the Arctic needed a reliable extraction plan. But how does one pick up an agent without landing a plane on the ice? The answer was the 'skyhook': Balloons lifted a tether attached to a harness worn by an agent high into the sky. A CIA plane snagged the tether and carried the agent off to safety. In The Dark Knight , Batman makes a dramatic escape deploying the same kind of balloon-harness contraption. 'The superhero spy' CIA leadership often says that acceptance into the agency is harder than getting into Harvard and Yale combined. Yet the agency still has challenges recruiting the type of talent it is looking for – either in reaching those with unconventional skills, or in convincing them that they should leave secure, comparatively well-paid, comfortable jobs for a secretive life of public service. It is no easy task managing work at the agency, especially with family, CIA officials acknowledged. Deciding if and when to share one's true identity with their children is a regular struggle. But Janelle said the CIA tells potential recruits there is a middle ground that doesn't require them to entirely abandon their existing lives. 'People don't have to leave their companies to help their country and to work with CIA,' Janelle said. 'People come here because they love their country and know they can make a difference.' Janelle is part of a team that regularly engages with creatives who want to portray the agency or spies as accurately as possible. 'Some producers and directors reach out and they do care about accuracy,' Janelle said, 'but they ultimately pick and choose what's going to work for the film or show.' CIA analysts have also been known to leave the agency for opportunities in the entertainment industry, writing books and scripts drawing from their experiences – so long as they don't track too closely with those experiences. Joe Weisberg, the writer and producer behind the television series The Americans, and McCloskey, who is working on a fifth novel focused on US and British intelligence, were both part of the agency before launching their writing careers. And as CIA alumni, they had to submit their works for review. 'There's a whole publication and classification-review process,' Brent said. That process can be a bit of a slog, McCloskey said: 'They quite literally redact in black ink.' But it is far more difficult for nonfiction writers than novelists. 'There could be bits of tradecraft, or alluding to assets, or people at the agency, which are clear no's,' McCloskey said. 'But with novels, it's not that hard to write them in a way to get them through the review board.' Try as they may, studios often repeat the same falsehoods about the CIA, no matter how often they are corrected. Officers and agents aren't the same thing, for one. And as disappointing as it may be for lovers of spy thrillers, the majority of officers are not licensed or trained to carry weapons. 'One thing Hollywood often gets wrong is the idea that it's one officer doing everything, when it's really a team sport here,' Janelle said. Zero Dark Thirty , an Oscar-winning film released in 2012 about the hunt for al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, was widely acclaimed but criticised by some within the intelligence community over the credit it lends a single, fictional CIA analyst for tracking him down. McCloskey sympathises with the writer's dilemma. 'I can't have 35 people on a team. From a storytelling standpoint, it just doesn't work,' he said, acknowledging that little in the field of espionage is accurately captured on screen, even though there are plenty of former spies available to work as consultants. 'There's no lack of sources to get it right,' he said. 'It's that the superhero spy – the Jack Ryans and Jason Bournes – are pretty much the Hollywood representation of espionage.' However inaccurately glorified and dramatised, the agency hopes that Hollywood's work can keep the revolving door moving, inspiring atypical talent to join its ranks. 'We have architects, carpenters, people who worked in logistics,' Brent said. 'People might not realise the range of skill sets here at CIA.' And as Canadian Caper showed, sometimes spycraft requires stagecraft. It's possible that what's needed most to complete the next mission won't be oceanography or data mining, but costume design. Or maybe another ballerina. — Los Angeles Times/Tribune News Service
Borneo Post
7 days ago
- Borneo Post
Former Superman actor Dean Cain swaps cape for badge in ICE induction
Already a sworn deputy sheriff and reserve police officer, Cain says the move came after his recruitment video for ICE went viral. – AFP photo LOS ANGELES (Aug 8): Dean Cain is taking his hero act from Metropolis to the US-Mexico border. The former Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman star is set to be sworn in as an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officer, the BBC reported today — joining one of the most controversial law enforcement agencies in the United States. Cain, who played TV's Superman from 1993 to 1997, told Fox News yesterday: 'I will be sworn in as an ICE agent asap.' Already a sworn deputy sheriff and reserve police officer, he said the move came after his recruitment video for ICE went viral. 'I wasn't part of ICE, but once I put that out there and you put a little blurb on your show, it went crazy,' he explained. According to the BBC, the Department of Homeland Security will officially make him an 'honorary ICE Officer' next month. DHS assistant secretary Tricia McLaughlin hailed the signing, saying: 'Superman is encouraging Americans to become real-life superheroes by answering their country's call to join the brave men and women of ICE to help protect our communities to arrest the worst of the worst.' Cain says it's about stepping up. 'People have to step up. I'm stepping up,' he told Fox News. 'Hopefully a whole bunch of other former officers, former ICE agents will step up, and we'll meet those recruitment goals immediately and we'll help protect this country.' The BBC notes that ICE is in the middle of a massive hiring spree — looking for 10,000 more personnel to double its ranks. The roles go beyond deportation officers, with openings for attorneys, criminal investigators and student visa adjudicators. To sweeten the deal, the agency is offering up to US$50,000 (RM211,465) in bonuses and student loan help. The push is part of US President Donald Trump's pledge to increase deportations to one million a year, a promise that's brought an uptick in immigration raids — and nationwide protests from critics who call them unlawful. In true Hollywood style, the recruitment campaign comes with old-school propaganda posters. Think World War Two designs, stamped with 'America Needs You' and 'Defend the Homeland' alongside images of Trump, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem and other officials. By Wednesday, Noem told Fox News the campaign had pulled in over 80,000 applications — with ICE even scrapping the age limit to boost numbers. With Cain's induction next month, the man who once fought TV villains as Superman will be joining the real-life front line of US immigration enforcement — a role far removed from the red cape, but one that's already making headlines. – Malay Mail Dean Cain ICE agent Superman
