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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
"This article has no place on slashdot because it tells us things we already knew. "
You must be new here.
Seriously, though, this is an article that you would do well to send on to people who may not be avid readers of slashdot. There is so much FUD from the other side going around, it's important that people are aware that so much of what they are hearing is just FUD propaganda.
And it doesn't hurt that HJ is an MIT Professor -- his opinions will carry more weight with Joe Parent than mine or yours.
"Trolls they were, but filled with the evil will of their master: a fell race..." -- J.R.R. Tolkien on Olog-hai
I hate all one-sided arguments, [even] especially when I agree with them.
For us it's just unnerving to agree with an argument that's weak and malformed because it doesn't face any real criticism or opposition. For an awful lot of people, though, it's comforting to resort to a news source that reinforces their own biases and presents opposing views disingenuously as "straw men." Rupert Murdoch has made his empire by pandering to those who can't stomach anything like open discourse.
I don't know, though: when the simple notion of a "crime rate" adjusted by population, as opposed to a raw count of violent crimes, is supposedly hard for people to follow, how much legitimate debate can people stomach before they mutter the word "nuance" to themselves and flip the channel?
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play.
Is he sure he doesn't mean something else?
-- Cheers!
"62 percent of the console market and 66 percent of the PC market is age 18 or older."
yet
"One quarter of children ages 11 to 16 identify an M-Rated (Mature Content) game as among their favorites."
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.
Marketing Guy: No, the friendly cartoon camel is supposed to appeal to 18 year olds. It's not supposed to encourage kids to smoke!
What an odd idea, I wish the idea of consuming media would go away in terms of play and playback. Maybe when tapes and LPs would wear or degrade very slightly with every use, playing new media, when treated properly, won't degrade with each use.
TFA is written by Harry Jenkins.
Who botched the joke again?
...values from the culture around us. That includes sources like our parents, our peers and what is presented on TV. I see no reason at all why video games are different and why kids wouldn't acquire values from them. Given the number of kids who seem to be brought up on GTA it seems highly likely that there are many people around whose values have been informed by this game.
TFA is actually written by Henry Jenkins. So on behalf of the original poster...
HEEENNNRRRYYYYY JEEEEEENKINS!!!
It's like sex, except I'm having it!
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.
Of course, knowing some of Henry Jenkins' work (which I do really like) and having taken a class from him, I think that he does tend to be a little one-sided overall on this issue, not just in this article. But that happens a lot when people are trying to defend an unpopular view and the masses are against them.
Warning: Apple/Nintendo fangirl. Likes her electronics cute & cuddly. May be rabid.
"redundant" eh? someone isnt sorting correctly.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Wish I could moderate my own thread. Thank you.
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
2. Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression. Claims like this are based on the work of researchers who represent one relatively narrow school of research, "media effects." The author is quick to dismiss what turns out to be a large body of well-designed, peer-reviewed studies. For instance, he suggests studies are flawed because they are either correlation-based (looking at whether two behaviours co-occur, not whether one causes the other), because they happen in a laboratory, or because the subjects aren't always "real" video game players. As a counterpoint, allow me to point out an article that came out in the November issue of Psychological Science (a highly regarded journal in Psychology) by Carnagey & Anderson at Iowa State University. They had college age adults play 3 versions of a violent driving game (Carmageddon 2) where they were either a) rewarded for violent behaviour; b) punished for it; or c) played a nonviolent version where killing pedestrian & other players wasn't possible. Afterwards they received a set of objective measures of physiological and psychological aggression, they found that subjects who played the version that rewarded violent behaviours (running over pedestrians) showed increased hostility and aggression. Note that since subjects were randomly assigned to conditions one can safely assume a causal model in which playing a game that rewards violent behaviour does lead to hostile/aggressive behaviour. Now, I am not saying that this means kids who play GTA will go out and kill pedestrians. But I also think it's ignorant to set aside scientific evidence that violence in media has no effect on people's behaviour. It does, both in kids and adults, and both in males and females. If gamers are going to defend themselves against overly zealous politicians, it makes sense to educate oneself about the science. By flippantly setting it all aside, this article does nothing to address it.
From the article: "Here's where the media effects research, which often uses punching rubber dolls as a marker of real-world aggression, becomes problematic."
When I read this, I couldn't help but smile at how right the article author is... why? because of a story my mom told me:
Way back in the day -- before videogames ever existed -- and my mom was a little girl, her mother volunteered to let her (my mom) be a subject in a study on child behavior. So, my mom is placed in a room with all sorts of toys. One thing that catches her eye though, is a clown bop-bag... you know, the inflatable punching bags that are weighted to stand back up after you knock them over. My mom had played with dolls and kitchen sets and many of the other toys at home, but she had never seen one of these punching bags, and she was fascinated. She poked it, and it wobbled. She hit it, and it tipped, but stood back up. So, being a curious child, she hit harder and harder, trying to see if she could make it stay down. The researchers were horrified at the "violent behavior" that this girl was showing... Surely, she must have deep psychological issues, intense hatred of clowns, or must have been brought up wrong. But no, as my mom distinctly remembers, it was simply curiosity in testing the limits of a new toy. She has since grown up and had no psychological problems or aggressive tendancies at all, despite the fears of the "researchers."
Anyway, I think that many parallels could be drawn between this story and the points made by the article author. Particularly that trying to make conclusions on what a child will become or policies to govern her based on a few minutes of observation is at best flawed, and at worst, more detrimental to society than the unsupervised child would ever be.
Criminy. You should have all read this over a year ago! This essay is on a web page for a mediocre PBS gamin documentary. Here's the first Slashdot post about the show, and here's the http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/09/16
I'm not saying it isn't an interesting page, or that it isn't worth a look, just that we should all be WELL AWARE of this page's existence by now. Sheesh.
Must... think up... something... clever!
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.
As much as I like debunking fraudulent 'studies' against videogames, this one is just as weak.
"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. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester."
Let's just dissect this one, shall we?
-Rate of juvenile crime is at a 30 year low: no causal link. This could have to do with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, it could have to do with computers, it could have to do with the position of the Milky Way in the sky....sorry guys, 0 for 1.
- Criminals consume less media than others: well, 'typical' criminals are poor. Who consumes more media, a poor person or a rich person? Again, not really clearly linked to what they are talking about. 0 for 2.
- The overwhelming majority of kids who play don't commit antisocial acts. Well, yeah, the overwhelming majority of kids who DON'T play don't commit such acts, neither does the majority of kids that eat donuts, or kids who get their hair cut, or kids with blue eyes. Pointless statistic. 0 for 3.
- Strongest link attributed to mental stability....definitely 1 for 4.
So we're one out of four. The rest of the study is equally weakly argued. Look, I AGREE with the authors, but I have to say that this 'study' is utterly unconvincing.
-Styopa
I'm a gamer, and I've played almost every violent video game in history. Ranging from Mortal Kombat (ah, the memories) to the Doom series (where the hell did that come from?!), and I've never had the urge to kill someone simply because I could.
H.J. FBI statistics show that youth crime is at an all time low.
Counterclaim. Statistics can show anything. Can this be accounted for by A: judging minors as adults and therefore getting some serious crime out of the statistics B: things like abortion being legalized C: things like stealing CD/records dropping because piracy makes it physical stealing no longer worth it.
The university of illinois conducted a study. You can do a google search for it, it's on their website somewhere. The study referred only to violent crime. It also parsed out what was considered violent crime into different subjects, including bullying as opposed to gun crime, knife crime, and making violent threats. It was found that while bullying has increased since 1999, all other types of violent crime have decreased to such a degree that the overall rate of violent crime is actually less than it was in 1999.
Scientific evidence links violent game play with youth aggression.
H.J. claims that these studies are limited and done wrong.
Counterclaim. Do them youreselve then "properly" and publish the results.
The problem with this, of course, is that any study is invalidated if conducted by a biased party. H.J. has already proven himself a biased party. Therefore a non-biased third party would need to conduct the study, with specifications done by parties on either side of the issue, so that it can be explored properly.
Children are the primary market for video games.
H.J. claims that the game market is growing up as the first generation is growing up (I an old far myself who played on the Commodore 16 and still does today so it could be true)
Counterclaim. So game makers will not object to every game with violence in it getting an 18+ rating.
Of course they will, for the same reason that movie makers object to a movie getting an NC-17 rating. Most adults will not go to see such a movie, thus costing the movie the majority of it's revenue. For reasons I'm not entirely clear on, a movie that is rated R (meaning you must be 18 to see it?) is more permissible than a movie rated NC-17 (meaning you must be 17 to see it?). By the same token a game rated M (meaning you must be 17 to purchase it) is more permissible than a game rated AO (meaning you must be 18 to purchase it).
Stores/Theatres will refuse to carry a game/movie rated AO/NC-17, meaning that the target audience, people between the ages of 18-25, will not be able to find it and purchase it, even if they want it. And many will not purchase it even if they see it, because they will assume that the game/movie has material that might be offensive to them, even if it only contains a similar level of violence as in games/movies they already consume, because it is rated AO/NC-17. Also, there is a social stigma related to playing/viewing these games/movies, and even as an adult, peer pressure is a terrible thing, and greatly influnces what we consume.
Almost no girls play computer games.
H.J. Claims that 40% of girls play games.
Counterclaim that is still less then half of the boy percentage and H.J. himself points out that girls play different games, webbased online games. Not violent shooters.
40% is a significant number, even when dealing with, let's assume we limit this to the US, 200 million people. It's less than half the male demographic, but the male demographic accounts for 90% of all males, which is a huge number.
The fact that they play different types of games has no meaning, the point was saying that girls do play games. Certainly girls play different games. Girls also wear different clothes. That doesn't invalidate the point.
Video game play is socially isolating.
just some guy
GTA doesn't force you to break any laws outside of mission goals.
And aside from that, how was the play, Mrs. Lincoln?
(Does the mission to kill 12 Haitians in 5 minutes ring a bell?)