For years, the conception has been that gamers are anti-social nerds who spend all their time locked away in basements or bedrooms, staring at a TV screen and blasting their way through a console or PC video game title while ignoring their real-life family and friends. However, based on a recent study from Twitch and Lifecourse Associates, those old stereotypes are not necessarily accurate – at least not anymore.

A recent article published by PC Magazine detailed the Twitch/Lifecourse study, which found that gamers are not the anti-social goons many of us thought they were, but that they are in fact more likely than non-gamers to view friends as the most important part of their lives, to maintain good relationships with family, and to hold a positive outlook on their future. Similarly, the study also found that gamers are actually less likely than non-gamers to spend their time watching TV alone, suggesting that “anti-social” may no longer be a descriptor that can be attached to gaming individuals.

Of course, this is all assuming that people who play games casually on their smartphones fit the description of “gamer,” which is the assumption that Twitch and Lifecourse are making with this study. In fact, the most used device among the gamers polled in the study was the smartphone, which 72 percent of gamers ranked above computers, tablets, or gaming consoles – all of which are more serious platforms for gaming – as their top device.

Because of this high rate of smartphone use, it is likely that the Twitch study is actually skewed a bit in its findings. In the past, gamer stereotypes have been applied to individuals who spend hours playing a game in any given day. Nowadays, with smartphones and apps pushing gameplay into a more mobile realm, a huge percentage of phone users are playing games, but are doing so in spare moments throughout the day rather than for hours at a time. Whether or not these individuals qualify as “gamers” is open to interpretation, but it goes without saying that their presence in the Twitch study would skew results in a more social direction.