geek health

[gusl]

People who identify themselves as geeks/nerds seem prone to:
* obesity
* scrawniness
* wearing glasses
* social isolation, loneliness, insecurity
* anxiety

It's not clear which way the causations go. Please speculate.

I'm looking for explanations involving child development, peer group dynamics, innate tendencies, autistic traits, etc.

Comments

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

If you're socially withdrawn, you're probably not going to be participating in group exercise such as sports. So you end up scrawny or obese, depending on your metabolism.

Glasses seem incidental.

Social isolation, loneliness, insecurity, anxiety: it's too hard to say what causes this. Kindergarten, maybe.

[flw.livejournal.com]

When you have an arbitrary social definition like "geek" and try to link it to ill-defined phenomenah like "scrawniness"... There's no causal relationship and truthfully I dount there's any correlation between self-identified "Nerd" status and things like glasses wearing.

Perhaps some people are more likely to notice that someone is wearing glasses when they are a nerd. When the identity element is present, perhaps the secondary elements get new meaning. For instance, you might know a guy who likes to play basketball. He might say, "I like to play basketball." If he's black, you might be more likely to file that fact away because it is consistent with stereoptypes. Same goes for geeks. Lots of people wear glasses, but when you meet a geek, nerd or even perhaps a dweeb, you stare at the glasses looking for tape or paperclips.

Also, there is the "Balance of Nature" factor. People want to believe that nature "balances" automatically. So, if someone is socially inept, awkward, there is an expectation that they will "make up for it" by being "Good at math" or some such thing. I've known plenty of inept, scrawny people who were as stupid as a cat in my life. And often enough, graceful, good-looking, socially conscious folks turn out to be quite intelligent. There is no inverse relationship between ineptness, awkwardness, and intelligence. As much as we may wish nature would "balance the scales", I doubt there is any data to support such a notion.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Well, confirmation bias surely exists.

But stereotypes, silly and arbitrary as they may be, end up playing a role in identity formation when you're a teenager. Teen groups tend to make small differences larger.

The "life is fair" assumption has a name, but I forgot it.

[flw.livejournal.com]

Ah, I agree with your points. I was a bit tangential. I would definitely agree with your second point that stereotypes and labels can create a self-fuelling identity forming vortex during adolescence. So, it is not really necessary to establish the first cause. Kid is awkward. Other kids call kid "dweeb". Kid steers away from sports. Kid never gets good. Kid calls self "dweeb".

As for glasses, obesity/scrawniness, you'd really have a hard time proving your case. I think the better question is, "How much of what makes a person a 'geek' is internally defined and how much is 'externally' pushed onto them?"

I call the "Life is Fair" view "False Balance". People use this logical fallacy all the time. It takes the "win some lose some" form... so many forms for it. It dovetails nicely with confirmation bias. A nice example of the "false balance" fallacy is:

The professor examines a coin to make sure it has no flaws and demonstrates that it comes up heads or tails at about the expected rate. He gives the coin to Andy who is wearing a blindfold so he cannot see the results. Andy flips a coin 10 times. It comes up "heads" ten times in a row. Andy is about to flip the coin again. Which way will it land?

a) Heads
b) Tails
c) there is a 50% of either.

Most people know the answer is c. But no matter how hard they try, they will believe it is either a or b. They may not say it... but their brains will be screaming either, "Ten times in a row! We're on a roll! It's gonna be heads again." or "Tails is due! It's gotta be tails this time."

Random events segregate non-randomly.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

if I saw heads 10 times in a row, I would suspect foul play.

I just mentioned this "false balance" effect in my recent Rock-Paper-Scissors post: it's a good strategy if you want to lose.

Tails is Due.

[flw.livejournal.com]

Well, the story is supposed to include all the possible "protections" from foul play... One could go on and on with all the precautions that the "Professor" took. The point is that it was a fair contest. 10 in a row will come up on occassion. It happens. Perhaps ten is too many. Even a small number of succesive heads will have most people thinking the next flip will be tails. Even ONE, actually! Why? "Balance".

In fact, one flip makes the point better.

If you flip a coin as a "demonstration" most people will think it will come up the opposite next time. No need for Universe Defying odds to test the Proposition!

If the "Demonstration" flip comes up Heads, I'd guess that most people would be more likely to guess the next flip would be tails.

I will now go check out your Rock, Paper, Scissors post.

Another posibility

[(Anonymous)]

I've been slowly coming to believe that this is a side effect of the mild autism that generally defines 'geekiness'. But I think I have an original story as to how it comes about. Basically, a lot of these social factors are things that I rememember believing should not matter. In grade school I was used to puzzles and problem solving and finding correct best ways to do things, and it always struck me that worrying about body weight or social niceties and what-not was ineffecient and shouldn't matter. And so I didn't spend much time learning to deal with them. Basically, I was very well adapted to the simple, explicit domains, and ignored the complex social domains (which don't have right answers, and which don't have explicit rules).

Fortunately, sometime during undergrad I realized that this was a really stupid idea. The explicit rule-following puzzle-solving approach only works in simple domains. The moment we step outside those domains, we need more general heurisitcs and skill practice and whatnot. That certainly isn't to say that anything goes in those domains -- instead, it's that these problems are harder, and require the development of heuristics.

In a way, it's pretty similar to the transition in my life from engineering to cognitive science: the simple solutions no longer apply, and we gotta develop new ones. However, now and then it's kinda fun to step back into the simple technical world and remind myself what it's like to have nice, neat solutions for things.....

Terry

Re: Another posibility

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Difficulty empathizing and being overwhelmed by sensory input are hallmarks of Asperger syndrome (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asperger%27s_Syndrome). Many self-recognized geeks/nerds have also self-identified themselves as having this condition.

I'm not sure it's a big deal. It's a distinct cluster of behavioral predispositions, but in my lay opinion a) many don't suffer for it and b) can be overcome with practice. Not everyone can be good at everything.

[xuande.livejournal.com]

It seems to be a common belief that myopia, the most common reason for needing glasses, can be caused by excessively focusing on near work. This is something that we geeks often do, by reading many books and staring at computer screens for long periods of time.

Wikipedia says the hypothesis is a little controversial, though, with some evidence to the contrary.

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Interesting. This mechanism suggests that the effect should be stronger in older people, but my impression is that, if anything, it's stronger in younger people.

Re: Another posibility

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

Basically, I was very well adapted to the simple, explicit domains, and ignored the complex social domains (which don't have right answers, and which don't have explicit rules).

My story is somewhat parallel: I stopped idolatrizing beautiful math to focus on real-world-handling AI. This was partly aesthetic: formalizing my knowledge and reasonings retrieved through beautiful introspection, but also partly practical: I want to make useful systems that will augment my intelligence.

Understanding the low-level should make you a better and more flexible pattern-recognizer than normal people (symbolic systems scale better than connectionist systems), but in my impression, this is not usually the case. It could just be that geeks never really bother enough with those things, even when they realize they should.

So does your explanation boil down to "geeks don't care"?

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

would you care to connect this with the "good at science" and obsessive aspects of being a geek?

Re: Another posibility

[(Anonymous)]

So does your explanation boil down to "geeks don't care"?

I think I want to say slightly more than that. Yes, "geeks don't care". But they also believe that they shouldn't care. After all, it's what inside that counts, and so on and so forth. They miss the fact that social niceties and aesthetics and what-not are used as part of a highly complex social system, and these sorts of observables are used as indicators for those internal traits that are difficult to identify (or at least can be used in that way).

On top of that, there's also the fact that rigid, explicit rule/puzzle-solving is a strategy that works very very well in some domains for most geeks. I think this causes them to come to rely on that sort of strategy, and have a very difficult time switching out of it, or even acknowledging that other strategies might be more worthwhile. After all, these fluid heuristics-based strategies are very unlike the proofs and exactness they're used to, and so I think they end up treating any non-exact methods the same way they'd treat astrology or crystal healing. (That said, I'm actually somewhat of a supporter of some uses of astrology and crystal healing. But they make good exemplars.)

So yeah. Geeks don't care, don't believe they should care, and don't know how to care. And it angers me a bit, because what they're doing is saying "hey, I'm really smart, so I'm going to only focus on simple problems that I can find exact solutions to, and ignore all the really complex stuff and pretend it isn't important, and them complain about how life isn't fair."

But mostly I'm just really relieved I got out of that mindset.... :)

Terry

Re: Another posibility

[(Anonymous)]

Difficulty empathizing and being overwhelmed by sensory input are hallmarks of Asperger syndrome. Many self-recognized geeks/nerds have also self-identified themselves as having this condition.

I'm always worried about this sort of self-diagnosis. Yes, there are lots of people who do legitamately have Asperger's, and those individuals probably have real neurological reasons for being more prone to focusing on constrained domains and avoiding the complexity of social interaction. But I think that a large number of these geeks who self-identify with Asperger's are simply using it as an excuse/explanation as to why they should continue to not care and not learn to deal with complex domains. Yes, it can be overcome with practice, but only if you want to practice it. In fact, that sort of practice is exactly what everyone else does who isn't lucky enough to have really good skills at these simple domains.

Oh, and as a side note, I've never liked the excuse that "Not everyone can be good at everything." I prefer the Heinlein take on that issue: "A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects."

:)
Terry

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

I don't think there's a lot of correlation between being a geek and being good at science. There's lots of art geeks. The obsessive stuff... can't say.

Re: Another posibility

[smandal.livejournal.com]

Indeed, it's important to distinguish people who use geekiness as a defensive social posture, and those who have a bonafide neurological condition that strongly predisposes them to "geeky" behaviors; I was referring to the latter group in my post above.

For the former group, your quotation is a great retort :)

Re: Another posibility

[gustavolacerda.livejournal.com]

I'm actually fond of specialization. On the one hand, I like being a generalist: once you go too deep into something, it's easy to lose perspective.

OTOH, I think there are some things that I should get other people to worry about for me, e.g. paying my bills.