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Videogame Mythbusting
AsiNisiMasa writes "MIT professor Henry Jenkins has an essay over at pbs.org that debunks eight common myths about videogames. It covers not only the topic of violence, but gender and expression as well. This is what happens when reasonable people with an education tackle the subject objectively." From the article: "1. The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence. - According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers -- 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play."
This argument always struck me as being as intellectually honest as claims that Dihydrogen Monoxide was frequently found in terminal cancer tumors. Once you realize that they're talking about water -- which is found in normal tissue -- you realize it's a meaningless claim. Similarly, if you actually think about the fact that most teenagers (or at least most teenage boys) play video games without shooting down their classmates, you start to realize that the games->violence claims are similarly bogus.
It's nice to see someone actually looking at the issue and noting that gaming and violence actually show an inverse correlation. I've always thought I'd rather someone go home and blow off steam playing Doom, Quake, GTA whatever instead of getting into fights or bottling it up until they do something drastic.
This seems like a well thought out and logical article. But unfortunately it will probably fall on deaf ears for those who support Hillary Clinton's cause to ban games she doesn't personally approve of.
Auron may be different, Cally, but on Earth it is considered ill-mannered to kill your friends while committing suicide.
This is what happens when reasonable people with an education tackle the subject objectively.
In other words, "This is my opinion, and I think I'm intelligent and well educated and reasonable, so, of course, I don't see any bias when I say that is what ALL reasonable and educated people should think. It's reasonable and educated because it agrees with my point of view."
While there aer good points, there are good points for other points of views. Just because this article says what you want to hear does not mean that other opposing points of views aren't also help and supported by reasonable and educated people.
There's always at least two sides to any discussion and if you think there is only one valid side, then perhaps you missed something in your education.
/. readers hate commenting on things if they can't argue about it
"Do you really think that the folks in marketing aren't aware that their M-rated games are popular among young teens? Do you think they don't go out of their way to cater to that 11 to 16 audience? Sure they'd never come out and say something like that directly, but I'd imagine that a lot of the marketing done for those 18 and older is really targeted at this 11 to 16 crowd."
.... "So is there any tread left or is it like throwing a hot dog down a hallway?" I found it funny, I laughed. A child may not even get the reference, but would see "Daddy" laughing and if "Daddy" thinks it funny, then it is okay to repeat on the play ground. Is FOX at fault? Should the FCC regulate television? No. Same applies to games like F.E.A.R. and GTA. Responsibility begins and ends in the home.
That does not change the fact that parents and not legislators, companies, sales guys and ad people are responsible for integrity and teaching children fair play and good form. As an adult gamer and soon to be father, I am a big game fan. I like a lot of games in the FPS catagory which are typically classified as violent. I also think Family Guy is funny. Will my child be granted access to those things? No. Why? Because as a parent I am responsible for their care and upbringing and while I feel the content is suitable for adults, it is by no means appropriate for grade schoolers. FOX is not evil because they animate and air a TV show which has what many think is obvious gender bias and thinly veiled profanity. It is their perogative and right and mine to either watch or not to. As such, I will make efforts to not play those types of games in front of my child or watch those kinds of programs with them or repeat the material in them.
Does that extend me the right to tell someone else what is right for their kids? Hell no! Their situation is different. Maybe I would like to think that they have found their child may understand the difference between appropriate and inappropriate, between games and dealing with anger. I could be a foolish optimist, but I am confident that by protecting their rights (morally right or wrong) I in turn protect my own.
Consider the recent line from Family Guy.... Stewie to a prostitute
GTA doesn't force you to break any laws outside of mission goals. If you choose to gun down a group of tourists, well, that's your choice. It's pretty much a mirror, if you are morally deprived enough to murder a protitute to get your money back after doing her, so is the game.
Justice is the sheep getting arrested while an impartial judge declares the vote void.
I'm not sure why you think that anything you make up and/or pull out of your ass is very important. You commit every single sin you accuse the author of, without any proof that the author actually committed them. You have not one single concrete point or link to evidence here, and you dismiss evidence cited by the author with handwaving. Your assertions about the juvenile crime rate are especially egregious, because you claim that his statistics should be discounted because your made-up conditions might disagree!
TFA brought up an excellent point, and one that I think bears repeating to those that think video games can "bleed" into real world behavior. All mammals distinguish between play and actual violence. TFA mentions primates, but I don't know about primates, so I'll talk about kittens.
Kittens fight. They kick and bite each other, pounce and paw with this wild look in their eyes. It looks like they're trying to kill each other, but this is how kittens play. They intentionally avoid injuring each other, and they have signs to tell the other kittens to stop if they actually get hurt. Yes, this play simulates a real catfight, as that's exactly what it's meant to prepare them for. Yet a kitten knows the difference between play fighting and real conflict.
Some people see kittens fighting, and instinctively jump in to stop them because they might hurt each other. Even more so because they're kittens - supposedly soft and sweet and helpless. I've seen humans peg the kitten who initiates play as "bad" because he is "bullying" the other kittens. Most people don't understand that the kittens are just playing.
I guess my point is, if a cat, an animal with a brain the size of a lemon, can figure out the difference between play and real, surely our own children can. We could at least give them that much benefit of the doubt.
Counter-counter claims
1. "Statistics lie" is a pretty weak argument. Even weaker is the fallacy of possibility for probability. It's also possible that the statistics cited are a complete aberration due to the influence of a martian mystery cult. It's not probable though. In any case, as a refutation, all H.J. needs to do is disprove the claim of the other. By claiming "Well, crime statistics don't prove anything", you've destroyed the basis for the claim as well (games lead to violence). The burden of proof is on the person making the argument, not the one refuting it.
2. The same. The claim is "You can't use those studies of evidence as proof of anything, because these studies are flawed". Responding "go do your own studies" is beside the point. If you try to tell me "All Robots wear Aprons" based on a study of The Jetsons, I could nullify your claim by pointing out that The Jetsons is a small sample, and fictional to boot.
3. Straw Man and Suppressed Evidence. The author does not argue for or against 18+ games. The Suppressed Evidence is that the #1 retailer in the US will not stock 18+ games, but will stock M games; so game makers will object -- not because they want to sell to kids, but because the rating limits its exposure to adults.
4. beside the point -- or maybe that is the point. Video games aren't just FPS like the public suspects they are.
5. Both you and H.J. miss the fallacy here. The claim itself is just wrong. The military does not use games to train soldiers to kill people, unless in the banal way that all military training is by definition on how to kill people, and all simulations are games. To shoot a gun, or fire a mortar, you might encounter augmented reality: a realistic mockup of the weapon in a room with projections of a battlefield around there. But augmented reality is pretty far away from "games". And the argument usually runs "militaries use games to desensitize soldiers to killing. Therefore kids who play video games are desensitized to killing". And in that sense, the major is false. Militaries do not use games to desensitize. Sensitivity to killing (and being shot at) has significant tactical value. Those armed forces that are desensitized to killing don't seem as concerned about fratricide; and those that aren't sensitive to being shot at don't use cover and concealment effectively.
7. Growing number of geeks? Dude, Geeks and Gays have been around for centuries, and the notion that either of them are growing is inherently wrong. If anything, the last couple decades has shown an increasing number of well socialized folks playing video games. I see the kids today talk about video games as if they were cool. That didn't happen twenty years ago.
8. huh? "overexposure"? where is that defined? and where is the "original claim" that shows that? and for that matter, you're holding up an experience with your niece in non-mortal combat against a bunch of peer-reviewed studies of human, primate and higher-order mammalian behavior?
I didn't see any claims that the opposing extremes of these myths were entirely accurate. In other words, he was simply debunking extremist claims of the negative impact of violent video games on children. He was NOT claiming that video games have no impact on children. Unfortunately, regulators have a habit of "picking up the torch" on issues like these. Then, they blindly run with it as though the existence of this torch is evidence enough of its superior integrity. This is, unfortunately, a common theme in society in general. The fact is, there needs to be some middle ground, which doesn't *completely* restrict the video game market or its users. As the author of the article states, "parents need to share some of the responsibility for making decisions about what is appropriate for their children." Herein lies the true root of the problem. While you can restrict the legal age for purchase of these games, law cannot entirely make up for a lack of proper parenting. However, there is one advantage to creating laws that restrict the sale of mature content to minors: namely, parents will be more likely to realize the necessity of preventing their children from playing such games if there is a hard legal opposition to it. For this reason, I encourage such laws. However, as with any law that restricts the sale of a particular product, there will be a necessary market shift. As with the tobacco industry, the video game industry will have to change its advertising techniques to correlate with correct legal practices. The author of this article obviously agrees: "Clearly, more should be done to restrict advertising and marketing that targets young consumers with mature content [...]" That being said, we should remember that the goal of such restrictive law is to force parents into the decision-making process, rather than to completely dispense of the consumer's right to choose its media for entertainment.