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The truth about violent video games

I am very worried. In December we bought my sons a Nintendo Wii and, with it, the Super Mario Kart video game. I am now concerned that when they grow up my sons are going to become Italian plumbers. They will then fall into a ravine because they are driving their motorbikes too fast to hop safely between giant mushrooms.

This concern may appear ridiculous. Obviously my children should be able to tell the difference between Super Mario Kart and the real world. Why then does it not appear ridiculous to believe that violent video games make children more violent? Just asking.

The Good Childhood Inquiry, published this week, became merely the latest to finger the games. Here's a quote: "The US Surgeon General has studied the factors which account for whether a child's behaviour is aggressive. In order of importance these are, first, gang membership, and second, playing violent video games."

Sounds pretty authoritative, doesn't it? And the US Surgeon General's Report is not the only hefty authority that can be quoted. The American Psychological Association has expressed the firm opinion that video games make children aggressive.

But in addition to sounding authoritative, doesn’t that account of the Surgeon General's view also sound incredible? Or is it just me. Violent video games are more important as a factor in aggressive behaviour than alcohol abuse? I don't think so.

It doesn't take too much research to conclude that while public bodies are desperate to be certain about media violence, and keen to pronounce on the topic, the studies simply don't justify their confident pronouncements. Last year a report into the impact of video games, funded by the Department of Justice, was published under the title Grand Theft Childhood. Near the beginning of their report the authors quote with approval the result of many years of work reviewing the literature: "The real puzzle is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this field could draw any conclusions about the pattern, let alone argue with such confidence and even passion that it demonstrates the harm of violence on television, in film and in video games."

When the latest version of the video game Grand Theft Auto was released, I amused myself by plotting the sales of the video game since it was first produced against the number of instances of actual Grand Theft Auto in the United States. As I suspected, the more copies of the game that were sold, the fewer auto thefts there were.

I wasn't proposing that there was a correlation, and it was only a bit of fun. But I do wonder. Surely if video games cause violence there would be a clear relationship between games sales and increasing violent crime. So why isn't there?

Play up, play up and play the game

Ooooh. Another one!

Following my post yesterday about Political Machine, a computer game for would-be presidential candidates, there's more news of a board game for their Luddite equivalents.

According to the Washington Wire, the much-loved classic Stratego has changed its focus from military to political campaigns for 2008.

In the newest edition, players maneuver around political “issues” like taxes and education to reach the White House, said Maggie Matthews, spokeswoman for USAOPOLY Inc., the game’s distributor. And the board’s landscape has been transformed from a battlefield to the Mall in Washington.

Let the games begin.

Alice Fishburn

A Political Machine for political animals

Think you know where Hillary went wrong? Well, here's your chance to see if you can do better.

Cue Political Machine. This new computer game just might be the perfect birthday gift for the wonk in your family. It's certainly a great addition to our political memorabilia collection.

Here's the blurb:

A player has two major political resources, capital and money. What they do with these two resources depends on the strategy employed.  Each candidate has a number of traits that provide them with strengths and weaknesses such as charisma, stamina, integrity, intelligence, and position on the issues.

As the player travels the country, they can raise money, build campaign head quarters, do policy research, make speeches, take out advertisements, or hire political consultants with various abilities.

It's Grand Theft Auto for presidential nerds. Can't you just see Karl Rove and Mark Penn battling it out as their cyber-candidates smile and cry on command?

Alice Fishburn

How to get up in the morning

And on a more light-hearted note.

Guaranteed to drive you mad in the morning but at least it kickstarts your brain while doing it.

Ladies and gentlemen, the one and only Puzzle Alarm Clock.

Alice Fishburn

Grand Theft Auto vs. Grand Theft Auto

To celebrate the launch of Grand Theft Auto, here's a graph cooked up by Comment Central to help all those people who think gamers can't understand the differences between video games and real life.

Here's what happened to real Grand Theft Auto as sales of the game version have soared.

Do video games cause violence?

Do video games cause increased aggression among children?

Reading the evidence can keep a boy going for a long time. And it has. Other people may find video games addictive. Me? Well reading the academic studies is proving a hard habit to break.

The American Psychological Association appears to be convinced that the answer to the question at the beginning of this post is yes.

This prime mover in reaching this conclusion has been Professor Craig Anderson of Iowa State University. And Anderson pops up every time there is a big political debate on the topic and every time there is a court case.

He believes that the evidence is clear and strong.

Anderson put his case firmly in evidence before Congress, arguing that the impact of violent video games on violent behaviour was similar to the impact of smoking on the incidence of lung cancer. In  particular he cites experimental evidence that after ten minutes playing a violent game subjects were more likely to behave in an aggressive manner.

Reading his evidence, however, it is hard to escape the feeling that he is overstating his case. In particular it is not clear whether his correlations are really causal. And it is not clear how long the impact of the game might last.

The science journalist Benjamin Radford is sceptical:

The approximately 200 studies on media violence are remarkable primarily for their inconsistency and weak conclusions. Some studies show a correlation between television and violence; others don't.

The assertion that video games make people violent got a boost in May of 2000, when the American Psychological Association issued a press release saying that violent video games can increase aggression. That conclusion was taken from a study by two researchers, Craig Anderson of Iowa State University and Karen Dill of Lenoir-Rhyne College in North Carolina. The pair claimed that they had found a link between violent video games and aggression.

Yet an examination of what the researchers actually found shows how tentative their conclusions are. The study seems to show some association between the playing of violent video games and concurrent aggressive behavior and delinquency. Yet, as any social sciences or psychology student knows, correlation does not imply causation.

He also points out that real world evidence of the impact of games is slight.

Radford's scepticism was shared by the Illinois District Court when it carefully reviewed the evidence while ruling on the constitutionality of a new state game law.

Having established that some of Anderson's research produced contradictory results and that other parts produced impressive statistics only be including the throwing of snowballs in a list of aggressive behaviours, the Court ruled that:

Neither Dr Anderson’s testimony nor his research establish a solid causal link between violent video game exposure and aggressive thinking and behavior.

Researchers in this field have not eliminated the most obvious alternative explanation: aggressive individuals may themselves be attracted to violent video games.

Even if one were to accept the proposition that playing violent video games increases
aggressive thoughts or behavior, there is no evidence that this effect is at all significant.

Dr Anderson provided no evidence supporting the view that playing violent video games has a lasting effect on aggressive thoughts and behavior – in other words, an effect that lingers more than a short time after the player stops playing the game.

Based on general psychological theories and long-term studies of television and movie violence, Dr. Anderson hypothesizes that frequently and intensely playing violent video games will have a lasting effect on young players. He does not, however, cite any data or studies to back up his hypothesis

Doesn't this ruling fly in the face of common sense? Isn't it obvious that these highly distasteful games must be damaging?

Not really.

For there is a rather obvious common sense point to be made in favour of the games. That is that players realise what they really are - games.

A major part of personality research stresses how we behave differently in different circumstances. Let me give you an example. Only a small proportion of children who are picky eaters at home or at school are picky eaters in both places. We compartmentalise.

Perhaps this insulates children somewhat from the impact of the games they are playing.

Tanya Byron's new task force is seeking better information for parents and other users of video games. This seems reasonable. One cannot be enthusiastic about the idea that young children are participating in horrible games.

But we should keep cool. The evidence justifying a more draconian stance is pretty thin.

The new Su Doku

The Times has a fabulous new game. You can find out my attitude towards it here.

Can you beat a fighter pilot?

Some fun for the afternoon. Rumour has it that fighter pilots can play this for at least two minutes.

Alice Fishburn

Could George Bush win the Nobel Prize?

These days there is a betting market for almost everything.

Want to place a bet on who will win the Nobel Prize in Economics? Believe that Tony Blair or George Bush is set to win the Nobel Peace Prize?

Then you can find out the state of the market here. And start bidding here.

The markets are pretty simple once explained. Many of you who bet regularly will know how it works. But here's a quick explanation for those who don't.

If, say, Rush Limbaugh were to win the Nobel Peace Prize, each contract you bought now would be worth 100.00. The price of buying Limbaugh is listed in the Ask column as 1.0. So if he won and you hung on to your contracts you would multiply your initial stake by 99.

Now you don't have to hang on to the contracts. You may think, as you go along, that there is a Limbaugh bubble and that the price is as high as it is ever going to get and that, in the end, he'll be pipped to the post by some do-gooder.

In which case, you sell at the bid price listed next to his name. Unfortunately, at the moment this is zero, but it might rise, you never know.

It seems that bettors think that the Inuit campaigner Sheila Watt-Clouthier and Al Gore are by far the most likely to win the Peace Prize.

My view? I don't have experience in Nobel Prize giving, but I do look at football gambling and the Gore price looks very high to me. In multi-candidate races a 50 percent chance is very unusual.

I won't be buying Blair and Bush contracts, though at a price equivalent to Limbaugh's he looks a bargain.

Playing with democracy

Think you can run the country? I did.

I forked out just over £15 to play this game – Democracy – described as a "complex political strategy game", where you get the chance to fashion the country in your own political image. (Me? I had low taxes, high public spending, and a gigantic public debt – I'm an irresponsible populist as it turns out).

I lost my entire Bank Holiday to playing it. If you’re power hungry too, maybe you should just download the free demo.

Murad Ahmed