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Harvard Phd Vs. About.com over Gaming
MaryAlan writes "I don't know if anyone has noticed this, but About.com's Aaron Stanton is in the middle of a back and forth firefight with Dr. Thompson, a Harvard researcher who recently testified before the U.S. Congress about violent video games. She published a study that listed Pac-Man as being 62% violent. Stanton attacked in an article criticizing her research. Then, Joystiq.com contacted Dr. Thompson and got an interview and a response, published her rebuttal, in which she defends the Pac-Man rating and the study.
So today, Stanton attempted to tear the study apart, detailing why it's flawed even though Thompson claims otherwise. On one hand we have an established Harvard Phd, who has testified before the U.S. congress, against a game journalist with a bachelors degree in Psychology. Hmmm..."
A study that was published in 2000 that I respect actually focused on the percentage of times violence that is used to solve problems in games that recieved the Everyone rating; this was important because they were trying to determine the suitability for children under 11 years of age (IIRC). The study concluded that several popular games (The Legend of Zelda:OoT being one of them) were too violent for an everyone rating and actually should have recieved Teen Ratings; even though I disagree with the findings I could at least understand and respect their methodology. This study seems to be more about finding a way to post big numbers next to (seemingly) innocent games.
The only study I can say I have ever agreed with that linked videogames to violence, which also linked television to violence, the study was from Japan and it was determined that it had nothing to do with the content but was related to the quantity of exposure; children who played videogames or watched television in excessive of 4 hours a day were (something like) five times as likely to resort to violence in a social setting.
So we're taking a subjective idea (violence) and trying to quantify it using objective data (a percentage). Pac-man eats little bits of white dots, (could be food, could be babies), and defends himself from ghosts (probably don't exist). What I remember learning from Pac-man was that in order to survive you needed to eat. Then there were these ghosts trying to kill me (could be white people). Then by either fate or determination you can turn the fight back on the "ghosts" and take them out, because they are trying to exterminate you. So the true lesson I should be learning, according to PhDs, is that when "ghosts" come after you, you roll over and let them gut you, because survival is violence.
Pac-man doesn't teach crap. Its a game to waste twenty minutes of your life. It means nothing else. I'm not slaughtering people in the name of Pac-man. I'm not even thinking about it. Though I do want to run people down in the future in the name of F-zero. Also destroy large stacks of blocks in the name of Tetris.
Selex
It doesn't matter who says it, its what you say.
Having a PhD doesn't make you smart. It means that you're probably hardworking and not-dumb. But she doesn't have a Havard PhD. She is, however, a tenured professor at Havard (I am assuming that Havard uses the same nomenclature that most other schools use, in which "associate" refers to those tenured professors that have not yet achieved "full" status). I'm not sure if you read her response, but she seems like most top-tier professors I have talked to, which is to say, cogent even when I disagree with them -- the opposite of moronic.
From her response on Joystiq:
and also
Now I don't know about you, but I completely agree with her. Her main bitch seems to be that the ESRB gives out ratings without playing the games. She wants there to be an adequate tool for deciding what her children are allowed to consume, not to keep you from playing violent games (or even keep you from letting your children play M-rated games). Her goal is for ESRB ratings to be
and this is not something I can really find fault with.
As for the study itself, I don't really think it contains useful information (yes, I've read it). The violence she calculates is undifferentiated, which means that cartoon violence against space invaders or centipedes is the same as any other kind of violence. At that point I could have told her -- without even playing the video games -- that there's tons of violence in E-rated games. With some notable exceptions, my video game experience is almost completely dominated by acts of senseless cartoon violence. I fail to see how it was in any way worse than your average episode of "Tom and Jerry". I haven't read the subsequent papers, though; perhaps this is fixed in those, since she explicitly mentions in the Joystiq interview that the type of violence is important (more important that the quantity of violence, in fact). Lastly, I hate papers that just compile statistics (also, she included too many sigfigs in her percentages), so this is a paper I wouldn't put much credence in on general principles.
In short, I don't think she says anything moronic; I just think she doesn't say anything useful either (for similar, but much more explicit reasons [at least in my opinion] than Stanton).
"Of course, just because someone is educated, doesn't mean they're necessarily smart... or don't have an agenda... I don't really see how Pac Man could EVER be considered in the same violence league as Grand Theft Auto, etc. "
Umm, thats not the argument she is making. In fact, its not even close. She is arguing that video ratings need to be rethought, for instance that games should be actually played before they are designated 'violence free'. Writing off violence just because it is cartoon violence doesn't really cut it, since young children can be affected by cartoons as well as real life. That doesn't mean Pac Man is in the same league as GTA, or that it should be banned for all children under 10, just that the ESRB needs to provide more information about the games it rates so that parents can have a better idea of the content in their kid's games.
See, this is why we should never rely on about.com stories for our news...
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.