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Computer Games Make Players Less Violent

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the obviously-never-been-ganked-in-the-arathi-highlands dept.

Stony Stevenson writes "A new study of computer gamers has found that a session in front of World of Warcraft can make players less stressed and more calm. The study questioned 292 male and female online gamers aged between 12 and 83 about anger and stress. They then played the game for two hours and were retested. "There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger, but this very much depended on personality type," said team leader Jane Barnett from Middlesex University."

7 of 192 comments (clear)

  1. Cigarettes can too... by garcia · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Not that I 100% disagree with this, just remember that anyone is likely to be calmed by the effects of an outside influence on their brain. It's when they are away from that "fix" for a prolonged time that they may become agitated.

  2. Junk Science by ObsessiveMathsFreak · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Every day now, and I really mean every single day, I read another news story about some psychological/biometric/neurological/... study from which some spurious result is obtained. These "studies" are often done on first year university student volunteers, under dubious conditions with little controls. The results are apparently "statistically significant", a quality which, nowadays, is not itself very statistically significant. Very often, a precisely conflicting "study" will be seen a few weeks later.

    I'm concerned that these junk studies are doing real harm to science as a whole. It's becoming increasingly difficult to see quality studies amid all the noise, and even when you do, you may be too jaded to investigate further. This effect is I suspect, magnified enormously in the public at large, which may explain the modern public cynicism and even dismissal of scientists as a whole.

    It's easy to blame the media, and in fact I do. But part of the blame lies with the scientific community. There are a lot of people running around calling themselves scientists, and their investigations experiments, when neither are anything of the kind. Scientists, and others, need to tackle theses people. Politeness be damned.

    To conclude, I link once again to the Cargo Cult Science speech.

    --
    May the Maths Be with you!
  3. Interesting study by word+munger · · Score: 4, Interesting
    It's an interesting study. I emailed Barnett for a copy of her poster and it's the real deal (though it hasn't yet been peer-reviewed). There has actually been similar work (which Barnett cites in her poster) previously. RPGs are definitely different from shooters or games like Carmageddon where the whole point is to take out innocent people.

    The take home point is that all "violent" games are not equal. Some games fire us up and some cool us down.

    --
    ScienceSeeker.org
  4. Re:This just in... by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This just in...leisure reduces stress! While this is true, there have been many criticisms of World of Warcraft. Even on Slashdot, we have seen people writing purple prose about the game destroying their lives worse than a heroin addiction. This study may present evidence that stories like the above are inherent problems with that person's ability to prioritize what is most important to them in their lives. They're free to pick Warcraft as #1 but I question why they wrote that piece if they did.

    My friends have often commented that Warcraft is their second job and jokingly hate it for its 'grind.' Why do they play? Because it's still stress reduction, in my opinion.

    So while you may find it obvious, there are caveats that make this interesting to some readers. I found it interesting and wonder now if people will compare it to cigarettes even though there's no chemical exchange (people love terrible analogies). You know, my parents and grandparents that live in the middle of nowhere used to waste hours playing cards with each other. Why? Because it reduced stress, I'm sure. I don't think Warcraft is any different.
    --
    My work here is dung.
  5. Two things from the article by borkus · · Score: 4, Interesting

    The study questioned 292 male and female online gamers aged between 12 and 83 about anger and stress. They then played the game for two hours and were retested. ... "This will help us develop an emotion and gaming questionnaire to distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life."
    I'm pretty skeptical of whether a questionnaire can accurately measure stress and relaxation better than physical measures (heart rate, blood pressure, etc). It'd also be good to know if playing in the game was actually relaxing. In the end, it seems like the study was more about developing a measurement tool than the actual results.

    The conference also heard that people who play computer games obsessively display similar characteristics to those suffering from Asperger syndrome. ... This is typically characterised by neuroticism, and lack of extraversion and agreeableness.
    Which makes me wonder what the first study tested in the game. Did they have players simply go out and grind daily quests (which are a simple, repetitive tasks done individually) or was it something truly multi-player such as running an instance or engaging in PvP? I'd assume that stress and relaxation responses are different when playing solo versus playing cooperatively versus playing competitively. A few instance groups that I've been in come to mind when I think about the second study.
  6. Re:This just in... by arivanov · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Actually no.

    In a game you can vent build up stress. This is especially valid for games played in a group.

    I used to run a small company with two people - a husband and a wife. They were shouting at each other constantly, quarreling, slammed doors and so on. Stress to the roof. I sold my share to them and left.

    A year later I came to see them. Nice, quiet, tranquil. I could not understand what was going on until I found out that they play Doom, deathmatch, no monsters every day for at least half an hour... Ahh... The joy of creeping on your best beloved with a double barrel shotgun and blowing his head off... Aaaa.... Wonderful...

    By the way, cooperative play does not do it. We tried later on to play Tie-Fighter vs X-Wing and it did not work out.

    --
    Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
    http://www.sigsegv.cx/
  7. Re:Finally. by boris111 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Yes I grew up on the cusp of Americans becoming pussified. In the 7th grade 15 yrs ago.. we had a brilliant gym teacher that made up a game called Q-Soccer (his last name was Quedenfeld). The game was a cross between football (American), soccer, rugby, and basketball. This was when gym class was still fun. The game involved little bit of contact, though not as much as football game with pads. Well incidentally some kid was running and twisted and broke his ankle. No contact was involved. His parents turned around and sued the school to have the game banned. Gym class was no longer fun after that.