New Study Which Made 90 Adults Play 'GTA' or 'The Sims 3' For At least 30 Mins Every Day For 2 Months Finds 'No Significant Changes' in Their Behavior (arstechnica.com)

A new, longer-term study of video game play from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Germany's University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf recently published in Molecular Psychiatry found that adults showed "no significant changes" on a wide variety of behavioral measures after two straight months of daily violent game play. From a report: To correct for the "priming" effects inherent in these other studies, researchers had 90 adult participants play either Grand Theft Auto V or The Sims 3 for at least 30 minutes every day over eight weeks (a control group played no games during the testing period). The adults chosen, who ranged from 18 to 45 years old, reported little to no video game play in the previous six months and were screened for pre-existing psychological problems before the tests. The participants were subjected to a wide battery of 52 established questionnaires intended to measure "aggression, sexist attitudes, empathy, and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), mental health (depressivity, anxiety) as well as executive control functions." The tests were administered immediately before and immediately after the two-month gameplay period and also two months afterward, in order to measure potential continuing effects. Over 208 separate comparisons (52 tests; violent vs. non-violent and control groups; pre- vs. post- and two-months-later tests), only three subjects showed a statistically significant effect of the violent gameplay at a 95 percent confidence level.

Comments

Flawed study?

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm not saying violent games lead to violent behavior, but their study seems kind of flawed in that the idea behind the claim is that violent games during childhood development desensitizes the child to violence, leading to them being more inclined to resort to using it down the road. That's nowhere near the same thing as claiming fully developed adults playing violent video games will start becoming violent themselves.

Re:Flawed study?

[fluffernutter]

I came here to post just this. They completely missed the whole 'developmental phase' aspect. It's hard to tell exactly what they were trying to prove with this actually. Perhaps how much money they could raise for a totally useless study.

Re:Wrong testing methodology

[gurps_npc]

That is quite honestly ridiculous. Most video games are not based on real world physics in part because real world physics is boring. Who wants to play a game where you have to carry all the bullets you fire? Nobody wants to reload that often.

Re:Wrong testing methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not only that, it's testing a claim no one is making.

The question that we need to ask ourselves is if violent video game playing by young children and young adults affects their development. And there's a lot of signs that it does: that it desensitizes them to violence, that it makes them more willing to hurt and kill.

And, as you point out, there's also the open question of how violent video games affect people with mental illnesses.

This study is meaningless. It answers a question no one asked. With the explosion of school shootings, we should be asking ourselves "what's changed?" and one of the obvious answers is the increasing violence and realism of video games.

Proxy for Culture of Violence

[mentil]

Pointing the finger at violent video games/media is really shorthand for a broader concern: a culture which excuses or promotes violence. This culture is so pervasive in the USA (even outside of media) that a little extra exposure likely makes no significant difference, particularly since most violent games have little or nothing to say on the value of violence in society.

I suspect a larger effect would be found if subjects were made to either listen to NRA Radio for 30 minutes every day for two months, or to listen to a comparable anti-violence media source (sorry can't think of a good one right now) the same amount. I'm not putting the blame solely on the NRA, it's just a good example of a steady drip of new info that can be consumed for 30 minutes each day; a gangsta rap Spotify playlist might have the same effect.

Max Planck is normally pretty serious science...

[argStyopa]

...but it's hard to take this one seriously.

Sample size of 90.
Adults.
Playing 30min/day for 2 months?

Jesus, you could probably smoke CIGARETTES for 30min a day for 2 months and not see an impact.

Or was this 'study' intended to disprove the videogame/behavior link?

This is a useless study

[jd]

Let's say that there's a genetic contribution to the issue of game violence affecting people. Let's say 1 in 100 are affected. A study of 90 people has an excellent chance of only looking at those who wouldn't be affected.

Let's say it takes 8 hours gaming a day - fairly typical for serious gamers. Half an hour will show nothing.

No, you start by finding those who purport to be affected, then look to see what makes them abnormal, neurologically and genetically. You then create a hypothesis that some permutation of these factors is relevant.

You then conduct a study to determine rarity, then a third study of sufficient size to guarantee a statistically significant number of interesting people are present.

In this study, you measure traits, then assign each person a UUID. It has to be double blind. They don't know what you're measuring, the observer doesn't know who had what traits.

Your hypothesis is that those who are vulnerable will show neurological changes as predicted. You do not rely on self-reporting other than to get the initial candidates, nor do you ever rely on psychology.

This is how you tell who is affected, how and why.

It's expensive, but you do this once and not once every few weeks. This strategy of producing the illusion of work actually costs more in the long run and answers nothing.