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

Wrong testing methodology

[humankind]

I'm not concerned with video games changing peoples' behavior, turning normal people into psychopaths.

What I would like to see studied, is the potential for video games to make psychopathic and sociopathic people more efficient in their anti-social abilities.

For example, I don't think playing ultra-realistic first person shooters will necessarily make anyone want to go out and shoot someone, but it seems to me, if you're a psychopath and you're into those games, they can train you to be a much more efficient psychopath when it comes time to assaulting a school or public place.

Re:Wrong testing methodology

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

You sound like a person who hasn't actually played a FPS game in at least two decades.

FPS games today thrive on realism, from the weapons used to the world maps modeled to exacting standards of accuracy. Movement is not as accurate (people don't run and jump everywhere) but there's more realism than you think.

Re:Wrong testing methodology

[rtb61]

I have never ever heard of gamers who play 30 minutes a day, I have heard of gamers who would play 30hours a day if they could. 30 minutes a day of gaming does not a gamer make. I would start at about 4 hours per day as a minimum, at least 3 days out of 5days. Than compare the differences in physiological state between playing GTAV mulitplayer and Sims 3 casual. I would defy researchers to not come up with huge differences in psychological state, between deep exposure to the two.

Want realistic tests, do eight hours a day for a month and then check the difference for during and after, psychological and physiological, this with a controlled diet.