/nɪk bəˈl̴u/ postdoc @oiioxford - video games, wellbeing, open research. Trying to make science as trustworthy as it purports to be.
London / Oxford
Joined March 2012
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I don't want to get my hopes up about this lawsuit, but I can think of few other undertakings which have greater potential to improve the future of science.
Two days ago, a lawfirm filed a federal antitrust lawsuit against 6 commercial publishers (incl Elsevier & Wiley) in the federal district court in New York.
They allege a 3-part scheme on part of publishers. 🧵
lieffcabraser.com/antitrust/…
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
🎮 🕹️ Globally we spend at least half a trillion hours a year gaming.
@oiioxford researcher @nbballou shares his research on how gaming can be good for you in a new @bbcideas x @oxsocsci film - watch now: youtu.be/MuF4LH-RvwE
ALT A young man wearing a gaming headset with a built-in microphone. He is lit by blue, purple and white lights. White text reads 'Gaming and mental health' under a white BBC logo.
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
A student of ours is looking for help collecting data and they’re looking for participants who play Minecraft.
Please participate if you:
☑️Have 12 minutes for a survey
☑️Play Minecraft on PC
☑️Love science
☑️Are over 18
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏
oii.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/S…
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
This week, I am at #CHI2024 to present our latest paper. “Not All the Same: Understanding and Informing Similarity Estimation in Tile-Based Video Games” arxiv.org/abs/2402.18728. Co-authors: @CIGbalance, Laurissa Tokarchuk, @SamPSnodgrass and @creativeEndvs.
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
Nick gave a great talk on generative AI and scientific fraud earlier this year, and the slides are now online. I found it really eye-opening and it gave me a lot to think about. Highly recommend checking it out!
the study of mine I'm by far proudest of has finally (FINALLY) been published. 🙌
featuring:
- platform-wide scraped gaming data
- open science/registered report
- 6-waves longitudinal
- equivalence testing and interpretable null relationships
🔗doi.org/10.1037/tmb0000124
big thanks to @dingstweets @cjsewall9 @jacktionman David Zendle, Laurissa Tokarchuk - you guys are the best🙏
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
One for my academic friends - have you seen any mention of 'brainrot' in screen-time-adjacent literature? A ppt mentioned it in a qual interview and I'm interested in whether this has been covered before from an objective standpoint.
Nick Ballou (is mostly on a Tw*tter hiatus) retweeted
New Talk: Scientific Stories And Why They Matter
This is a talk I gave at @nbballou and @o_withington's recent Open Science event at Queen Mary. It's about telling the stories of scientists' lives, about whose stories get told, and why it's so important.
youtube.com/watch?v=RLuZ4CkD…
Interrupting my twitter hiatus with news that I am #PhDone! Were there ever a time to shamelessly self-promote, I suppose this is it.
Thesis goal: Clarify how games affect mental health, positively and negatively, with unified theory, rich behavior data, and transparent methods.
ALT Cover page of a PhD thesis reading: The Basic Needs in Games (BANG) Model of Video Games and Mental Health: Untangling the Positive and Negative Effects of Games with Better Science by Nick Ballou Supervised by: Prof Sebastian Deterding, Dr Laurissa Tokarchuk, & Dr David Zendle Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Couldn't have done it without the stellar supervision team (@dingstweets, Laurissa Tokarchuk, and David Zendle) and the @iggiphd squad.
Shout-out to coauthors: @JoIacovides, @richardmryan3, @csrigby, @helsby_laura, @jacktionman, @cjsewall9 ❤️👏
I've taken up a position at the Oxford Internet Institute: @ShuhBillSkee, @ThomasHakman, @vuorre, @KarenLauraMans1, @SakSGhai, @krstoffr
Looking forward to the next phase of this work and other things (after a long holiday break) 😴