satchmo
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Nov 24th 2004
Occupation: pediatrician
Location: Los Angeles, U.S.
Is it just a game?
Virtual violence has parents
and politicians worried about real-world aggression. The science behind
those fears hasn't made it to the next level.
By Melissa Healy
Times Staff Writer
September 12, 2005
If the makers of the nation's most popular video and computer games
were to square off with politicians in a virtual world, the exchange of
fire would be furious, the escape maneuvers audacious and the screen,
in the end, a jumble of photorealistic carnage.
Violent games breed violent behavior, charges a growing group of
lawmakers, who have called for tighter government controls in the
marketing and sale of violent games. But the software entertainment
industry, its annual $28 billion in sales paced by a nation's thirst
for action games, is shooting back. There is no proven link between
game violence and violent behavior, say industry leaders, only a link
between politicians and pandering to the public's fears.
Add an arsenal of fantasy weapons and immersive sound effects and
graphics, and it's the kind of exchange that could leave players
pumping their fists and ready to reload. But the real-life battle is
leaving many parents and researchers bewildered, divided and ready to
unload.
Los Angeles father and screenwriter Gregg Temkin calls it his
"constant conflict" ? this wavering between fear and complacency about
violence in video games. Temkin's 14-year-old son, Josh, plays a slew
of nonviolent games, but he also likes to get together with friends and
play the fantasy-violence game "Halo 2" and the graphically violent
"Grand Theft Auto."
Temkin says he has read plenty about these games' purported
effects ? both good and bad ? and finds that the experts are as
confused as he is. He believes that playing them "desensitizes you" to
real violence. "But I don't know if I've got a leg to stand on or not.
And I'm not sure that if it does happen, that's a bad thing," he adds.
Josh and his friends have heard some of the furor over video game
violence. He says it makes playing "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" more
fun to know that adults are wringing their hands over it.
First-person shooter games don't make him angrier, Josh says, and
he never "feels like" the shooter, just like a kid controlling an image
on a screen. But he suspects that some kids he's played with are not
quite so detached.
Research published in recent months hasn't helped clarify the
risks, or benefits, of these games. In mid-August, members of the
American Psychological Assn. adopted a resolution calling for less
violence in video and computer games sold to children. Reviewing 20
years of studies on the subject, psychologist Kevin M. Kieffer told
fellow mental health professionals during the meeting that playing
violent video games does, on balance, make children more aggressive and
less prone to helping behaviors.
"There really isn't any room for doubt that aggressive game
playing leads to aggressive behaviors," says Iowa State University
psychologist Craig A. Anderson, one of the pioneers of research in the
area and a guiding force behind the association's resolution. "The
naysayers don't have a leg to stand on."
But the association's action came just weeks after University of
Illinois researcher Dmitri Williams, in a study of 213 players of a
violent online game called "Asheron's Call 2," concluded that a month
of steady, intensive play did not increase participants'
aggressiveness. His study did not focus on children, but included some
players as young as 14.
Williams suggests that members of the American Psychological Assn. have gotten ahead of their research.
"I don't think the data to date warrant the strength of their
claims," he says. "I don't think they're going to be proven wrong
long-term, but I don't think they've proven their case yet." Williams
adds that his research findings have made him "persona non grata in
some quarters, champion of truth in others."
His study, published in the June issue of Communications
Monographs, has provided defensive firepower to the entertainment
software industry at a time when it has come under siege. The Federal
Trade Commission this fall is to launch an investigation into the
ratings system for video games ? particularly the rating that made the
sex- and violence-laden "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" available to
most teens.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who called for the FTC
study, is set in the coming weeks to propose legislation to tighten
enforcement of video game ratings. And a group of Democratic and
Republican senators has proposed that the National Institutes of Health
oversee a comprehensive, $90-million study on the effect of violent
media, including video games, on children's development
In recent years, Democratic politicians such as Clinton, Sen.
Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich have
joined longtime Republican critics like Sen. Sam Brownback of Kansas
and Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania in taking the software industry to
task. The broadsides against video game violence have escalated in
recent months, after a watchdog group found an Internet "patch" that
can add explicit sex scenes to "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas." In
March, Clinton told a forum in Washington, D.C., that the game
"encourages violent imagination and activities and it scares parents."
The digital defensive
The video game makers aren't taking such claims lying down. The
Entertainment Software Assn. has dismissed the American Psychological
Assn.'s resolution as the preordained conclusion of a group whose
collective mind has long been made up. And it has rebuked Clinton and
other politicians for playing politics with science.
"I think she's got genuine concerns, and I respect that," says
Douglas Lowenstein, president of the industry group. "I think at the
same time, among many Democrats, they believe this is a good way to
identify with values voters. I don't personally think that's a good
read [of the electorate], and I think there are better ways to do that."
Lowenstein cited efforts in three states ? Washington, Indiana and
Illinois ? in which politicians and activists have adopted measures
aimed at restricting children's access to violent video games, all on
the argument that they inspire violent behavior. In Washington and in
Indiana, those measures have been struck down as unconstitutional.
A new Illinois law, to go into effect in January, would prohibit
the sale, distribution, rental or availability of video games rated
"Mature" to children younger than 18. The law, which the gaming
industry is challenging in courts, would levy misdemeanor charges
against retail or rental establishments that allow minors access to
games rated M.
Lowenstein and others point to a range of studies that have found
no significant relationship between playing violent video games and
increased aggressiveness.
In 2001, the U.S. surgeon general concluded there was
"insufficient evidence to suggest that video games cause long-term
aggressive behavior." And in April 2004, the Journal of the American
Medical Assn., summarizing research in the field, found consensus
"lacking" on whether violent video game play fuels violent behavior in
kids.
"If video games do increase violent tendencies outside the
laboratory, the explosion of gaming over the past decade would suggest
a parallel trend in youth violence," wrote author Brian Vastag.
"Instead, youth violence has been decreasing."
At the same time, a maturing generation of gamers (and parents)
has become more vocal in defense of the action video games with which
they have grown up.
Steven Johnson, author of "Everything Bad Is Good for You: How
Today's Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter," has argued that
today's action video games can help players learn to prioritize,
improve their hand-eye coordination and teach them how to organize
virtual resources and teams to pursue a shared goal. Studies conducted
on military recruits and surgeons have supported some of those claims.
Small changes
Many of those who have studied video games' effects longest say
that people who deny any link between game violence and real-life
violence are setting the bar of proof a bit too high.
The "naysayers," as Anderson calls them, fail to look at video
games not as a single cause but as a contributor to violent behavior,
say many mental health researchers. They point out that children and
adults who play violent video games have varying risks for ? or
predispositions toward ? aggressive actions. Although some people might
play violent video games with little risk of acting out, some research
suggests that for those with a genetic or temperamental inclination
toward aggressiveness, violent game playing may tip a person toward
violent behavior.
Finally, critics of violent video games caution that if large
populations (or a whole generation of children) continue to rack up
heavy lifetime exposure to video game violence, even a small change in
their attitudes might add up to a significant societal shift ? a less
friendly schoolyard today, or a more ruthless national culture later on.
Dr. Jeanne Funk, a psychologist at University of Toledo in Ohio,
has measured exposure to violent video game play in young children for
most of the last decade. Her research has found that, in groups of
children between first and fifth grade, those with the highest past
exposure to violent video game play are significantly more likely to
condone aggressive acts and less likely to express empathy.
"It's not just that someone is going to go out and shoot up a
school," Funk says. "It could be a person that's less likely to donate
to victims of Hurricane Katrina, or less likely to comfort a friend
who's upset."
At Indiana University School of Medicine, psychologist William
Kronenberger has teamed with radiologists to look at the brain activity
of children playing violent video g
"The greatest thing you'll ever learn is just to love and be loved in return." -- Toulouse-Lautre, Moulin Rouge
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