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Comment by ineedasername | Hacker News Reader

The original (more clicky baity) said "brain differences", which really isn't born out by the article. It seems highly likely that these preferences are socially constructed. I have two kids under the age of 10, and both play video games with the same fervor & intensity. Neither are allowed on social media yet. (yes, that's a sample size of 1, so it's hardly authoritative, just a case-in-point)

Also, at least some of the preference males have for videogames over females is that a majority are designed & marketed with a male audience in mind.

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"It seems highly likely that these preferences are socially constructed."

People love to think this way, but study after study suggests that those preferences are at least partly biological. It's one of those cases where there is a disconnect between the scientific understanding and the beliefs of the general public (including policymakers).

See for example this research work: https://www.math.kth.se/matstat/gru/5b1501/F/sex.pdf:

"Results showed that the male infants showed a stronger interest in the physical-mechanical mobile while the female infants showed a stronger interest in the face. The results of this research clearly demonstrate that sex differences are in part biological in origin."

> two kids under the age of 10

I think puberty might have more of a splitting effect on the human mind than anyone is saying.

Also, food for thought, humanity as a whole is probably still way too primitive to have a greater nurture than nature ratio. If you look back, primitive people appear to be more nature than people now. Looking forwards, it's probably going to continue. Therefor, we must be somewhere in between, and I get the feeling we're still pretty green.

What do you think would be the origin of those particular social influences?

I can vaguely justify it for games - early programmers were men (for reasons) and they made games so early gamers were also men... if game companies picked up on that, the advertising could propagate that initial imbalance until present day.

What about social media? It only became popular in the past few years, seemingly out of nowhere... Maybe it was just filling a void (boys were playing games, girls had nothing to do so they spent time on social media) but this seems a bit forced argument...

And perhaps will change dramatically when puberty hits.

>"brain differences", which really isn't born out by the article. It seems highly likely that these preferences are socially constructed.

What we do and experience in our life shapes our brain. So anything that says "brain differences" without further detail is at best pop neurology.

For the downvoters, here's more on the topic: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/london-taxi-memor...

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