Thursday, 11 October 2007
(Computer Games) Kyra Smith sees a can of worms and opens it.
~
Games violence study is launched! (yet again)
Guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people.
By the same token, violent computer games don't make people violent. Some people just are violent and they're out and about throwing bricks though windows, nicking cars and beating up pensioners. They're not sitting quietly at home playing Bioshock. I don't believe for a moment that firing a not-real gun at not-real people and watching them explode into fountains of not-real gore is even remotely connected to the impulse that makes someone grab a real gun and fire it at real people (who presumably explode in fountains of real gore, I wouldn't know, I've shot innumerable not-real people but, surprisingly, not a single real one).
Yes, violence is a terrible terrible thing. Computer games, on the other hand, are fun. And to draw a connective line between computer game violence and real world violence is about as convincing as the Elizabethan claim that having a man pretend to be a woman on stage would soon enough actually turn him into first into a sodomite and then into a woman. Throughout recorded history, there has been a parade scapegoats for social ills, from Jesus (now available for Playstation and PC) to television. In Elizabethan and Restoration times it was the theatre, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was the novel, in the twentieth century it was the television and now it's the turn of the computer game. In fact, if you look at it chronologically the longer something has been around the more likely it is to have acquired a patina of cultural respectability.
Going to the theatre is generally considered a rather high-brow entertainment. Reading a novel is slightly less so, because of all the Harry Potters in the world, but still an acceptable demonstration of one's intellectual worth. As for watching television, vegging out to Eastenders may not win you prestigious friends but it's usually perceived to be a harmless indulgence but some films are now uncontroversially regarded as capital A art. I am, however, just young enough to recall a time when watching too much television (regardless of whether it was Coronation Street or Schindler's List) was supposed to give you square eyes and damage your capacity for sustained thought. In fact, since I enjoy going to the theatre, reading novels, watching movies and television, and playing computer games, if all the bad press such pastimes have accumulated over the centuries is to be believed, I am, or rapidly will become, a gender-fluid infertile square-eyed prostitute with limited mental capacity and pronounced violent tendencies.
Computer games contain violence. But engaging with (and, dare I admit it, oh dare I admit it, enjoying) violence in a safe-space of fantasy and imagination does not a violent person make. In fact, it's not people in fantasy land, no matter how vivid and well-realised that fantasy land may be, you have to worry about: it's the people not in it, who are causing all the trouble. I can't imagine many (any?) gangsters play Grand Theft Auto. Nor, as Dan points out, are we likely to find copies of Doom or Wolfenstein in the bedrooms of members of Al Qaeda. That Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are reported to have been fans of both games strikes me as illustrative of precisely nothing. Adolescent boys found to like computer games, shocker. I'm sorry for the cheap Columbine reference but the fact of the matter is that if you were to do a survey of the hobbies of any male between fifteen and thirty five I imagine a fondness for computer games would recur with unhelpful regularity. Statistics dug up from the bowels of the internet (so are, therefore, probably entirely spurious) suggest something like 80% of males between the ages 12 and 17 play, or have played, video games, and two thirds of males 18-34 play them. And, as any scientist worth their white coat is likely to point out, causation is not the same as correlation. Although it's conceivable that there is a correlation between violent games and violent teenagers, that merely says that some violent people happen to enjoy violence. It doesn't mean that one leads to the other. Similarly, playing computer games doesn't make you under-socialised; they just give under-socialised people something to do of an evening.
The more I read on this subject, the more I become convinced that it isn't the supposed psychological consequences of computer game violence that's the issue here. It's the fact that a certain section of society just doesn't like computer games, the same (or similar) people who ganged up get fox-hunting banned probably. The question is not whether computer games are having a bad effect on our kids but whether it's okay to enjoy graphic simulated violence. To which, I answer: why the hell not? I absolutely support the right of the posh and rich to chase small animals across the countryside (the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable..) and, equally, I absolutely support the right of those who want to spend their evenings blowing virtual shit up. Computer games are the new kids on the block of public entertainment; yes they're perhaps the most technologically advanced and in terms of sheer interactivity they surpass everything that has gone before. But we all have our fantasies and pleasures and explore them in whatever safe spaces we can find " why does this seem to carry with it an invitation for moral judgement? Ultimately is there any difference between spending a few weeks being Snake Solid or escaping the routine of your boring dayjob to go wet n' wild in Ibiza? And the argument that people who play computer games will gradually lose touch with reality to the extent that they're looking around for grannies to gun down in their day-to-day lives is so utterly facile it's barely worth addressing: they said precisely the same thing about the novel when that first got big.
Computer game violence is not evidence that our society is becoming darker or that we are growing de-sensitised to the horror of real world violence; it just means that instead of attending public executions, cockfights, pillories, gladiatorial matches and all the other fucked up things people have done for entertainment throughout the centuries, we're channelling aggression and exploring taboos within a carefully controlled and ultimately harmless environment. Clicking a mouse and pulling a trigger are worlds apart.
And, as if it wasn't self-evident, computer games aren't making our kids more violent. Some of them were little shits anyway.
"Poets in theatres wound the conscience ... they arrange comforts of melody, to tickle the ear; costly apparel, to flatter the sight; effeminate gesture, to ravish the sense; and wanton speech, to whet desire to inordinate lust." - Stephen Gosson (The Schoole of Abuse, 1579)Oh for fuck's sake, did my tax money pay for this? Well I want it back, right now. I understand there are people in need of medical treatment, postmen and policemen who deserve to be better paid, roads that require re-paving and schools that are desperately short of vital resources: why in God's name are we dignifying this sort of hysterical Daily Mailist bullshit with scientific attention? I can't even begin to express just how tired I am of this tedious and oft-repeated theme. I see the Video Game industry has embraced this study, perhaps as a desperate bid to get some peace from the media, but I still resent it being performed it at all.
Guns don't kill people; people with guns kill people.
By the same token, violent computer games don't make people violent. Some people just are violent and they're out and about throwing bricks though windows, nicking cars and beating up pensioners. They're not sitting quietly at home playing Bioshock. I don't believe for a moment that firing a not-real gun at not-real people and watching them explode into fountains of not-real gore is even remotely connected to the impulse that makes someone grab a real gun and fire it at real people (who presumably explode in fountains of real gore, I wouldn't know, I've shot innumerable not-real people but, surprisingly, not a single real one).
Yes, violence is a terrible terrible thing. Computer games, on the other hand, are fun. And to draw a connective line between computer game violence and real world violence is about as convincing as the Elizabethan claim that having a man pretend to be a woman on stage would soon enough actually turn him into first into a sodomite and then into a woman. Throughout recorded history, there has been a parade scapegoats for social ills, from Jesus (now available for Playstation and PC) to television. In Elizabethan and Restoration times it was the theatre, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries it was the novel, in the twentieth century it was the television and now it's the turn of the computer game. In fact, if you look at it chronologically the longer something has been around the more likely it is to have acquired a patina of cultural respectability.
Going to the theatre is generally considered a rather high-brow entertainment. Reading a novel is slightly less so, because of all the Harry Potters in the world, but still an acceptable demonstration of one's intellectual worth. As for watching television, vegging out to Eastenders may not win you prestigious friends but it's usually perceived to be a harmless indulgence but some films are now uncontroversially regarded as capital A art. I am, however, just young enough to recall a time when watching too much television (regardless of whether it was Coronation Street or Schindler's List) was supposed to give you square eyes and damage your capacity for sustained thought. In fact, since I enjoy going to the theatre, reading novels, watching movies and television, and playing computer games, if all the bad press such pastimes have accumulated over the centuries is to be believed, I am, or rapidly will become, a gender-fluid infertile square-eyed prostitute with limited mental capacity and pronounced violent tendencies.
Computer games contain violence. But engaging with (and, dare I admit it, oh dare I admit it, enjoying) violence in a safe-space of fantasy and imagination does not a violent person make. In fact, it's not people in fantasy land, no matter how vivid and well-realised that fantasy land may be, you have to worry about: it's the people not in it, who are causing all the trouble. I can't imagine many (any?) gangsters play Grand Theft Auto. Nor, as Dan points out, are we likely to find copies of Doom or Wolfenstein in the bedrooms of members of Al Qaeda. That Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold are reported to have been fans of both games strikes me as illustrative of precisely nothing. Adolescent boys found to like computer games, shocker. I'm sorry for the cheap Columbine reference but the fact of the matter is that if you were to do a survey of the hobbies of any male between fifteen and thirty five I imagine a fondness for computer games would recur with unhelpful regularity. Statistics dug up from the bowels of the internet (so are, therefore, probably entirely spurious) suggest something like 80% of males between the ages 12 and 17 play, or have played, video games, and two thirds of males 18-34 play them. And, as any scientist worth their white coat is likely to point out, causation is not the same as correlation. Although it's conceivable that there is a correlation between violent games and violent teenagers, that merely says that some violent people happen to enjoy violence. It doesn't mean that one leads to the other. Similarly, playing computer games doesn't make you under-socialised; they just give under-socialised people something to do of an evening.
The more I read on this subject, the more I become convinced that it isn't the supposed psychological consequences of computer game violence that's the issue here. It's the fact that a certain section of society just doesn't like computer games, the same (or similar) people who ganged up get fox-hunting banned probably. The question is not whether computer games are having a bad effect on our kids but whether it's okay to enjoy graphic simulated violence. To which, I answer: why the hell not? I absolutely support the right of the posh and rich to chase small animals across the countryside (the unspeakable in pursuit of the uneatable..) and, equally, I absolutely support the right of those who want to spend their evenings blowing virtual shit up. Computer games are the new kids on the block of public entertainment; yes they're perhaps the most technologically advanced and in terms of sheer interactivity they surpass everything that has gone before. But we all have our fantasies and pleasures and explore them in whatever safe spaces we can find " why does this seem to carry with it an invitation for moral judgement? Ultimately is there any difference between spending a few weeks being Snake Solid or escaping the routine of your boring dayjob to go wet n' wild in Ibiza? And the argument that people who play computer games will gradually lose touch with reality to the extent that they're looking around for grannies to gun down in their day-to-day lives is so utterly facile it's barely worth addressing: they said precisely the same thing about the novel when that first got big.
Computer game violence is not evidence that our society is becoming darker or that we are growing de-sensitised to the horror of real world violence; it just means that instead of attending public executions, cockfights, pillories, gladiatorial matches and all the other fucked up things people have done for entertainment throughout the centuries, we're channelling aggression and exploring taboos within a carefully controlled and ultimately harmless environment. Clicking a mouse and pulling a trigger are worlds apart.
And, as if it wasn't self-evident, computer games aren't making our kids more violent. Some of them were little shits anyway.
~
However, having said that, I also enjoy varied interests. Right next to my copy of Manhunt is Klonoa: Door to Phantomile, which is an adorable game about a little cat who runs around a pretty world trying to save the world from bad dreams. Similarly, next to my DVD of Hostel, is a copy of Wind in the Willows. I think if I met someone who only *ever* played violent videogames, then I'd be slightly worried, especially if their books and film collections continued the theme.
There's big difference between enjoying fake violence, and obsessing about it (or worse, enjoying or obsessing about real violence), which I think is what eventually pushes people over the edge into doing stupid things. So, while I have sympathy for the "gamers gon' kill us all" crowd, I'd also ask them to consider that a some people are of such a personality that their descent into such actions is going to be very hard to prevent. I suppose the only argument the crowd would have over that point is, if they're going to hurt people anyway, why give them material to fuel their fantasies and either catalyse the event, or make it easier for them to indulge it?
I'm always at peace after playing a good, well-designed, violent game, catharsis draining me of all my cares and worries. Now, if it's a badly designed game which is a frustrating nightmare to play, that provokes a whole different kind of violence...
But sensible points all; yes if somebody was *only* interested in extreme violence I'd be damn scared, to say nothing of slightly bored. But I think the point is not that they're glutting themselves on an orgy of simulated violence prior to going Columbine, it's the fact they're blatantly on some kind of dodgy psycho edge anyway. Like if you went into somebody's house and everything was bright pink and you discovered they only owned movies about cute cartoon animals I reckon you'd pretty damn scared too. Obsessive attention paid to *anything* (up to and including the Earl of Rochester) is creepy and unhealthy. Violence doesn't come into it.
Similarly, people who lash out in violent displays of temper are going to do that regardless of whether they just played Manhunt. I think that people who are generally "into" violence may seek out more violence in fantasy form but I don't think it necessarily follows that the latter fuels the former. Also most people who are out there committing acts of violence neither need nor want to play games or watch movies about it.
I think people as a general rule like to seek out *reasons* for things; that's natural, it makes the vagaries of life understandable and less threatening. But to say a violent personality is the consequence of having played Bioshock one too many times at an impressionable age strikes me as so grossly simplistic as to be barely worth the time investigating. As I say in the article: correlation is not causation.
Also I'm kind of curious as to what this study is going to involve. Are they going to strap the kids to a chair with their eyelids pinned open and force them to watch Saw III while listening to Beethoven?
Kid A is the control. You leave him alone in the waiting room reading magazines.
Kid B you take out into an abandoned urban wasteland with brutal gang members prowling around. You give him an earpiece, through which Brian Cox will encourage him to go and kill as many of those gang members as he can, and give advice on where to find lethal weapons like plastic bags.
Kid C will be asked to play Manhunt.
If Kid C manages to kill more people in the game than Kid B did in real life, then clearly videogames make you disproportionately violent.
If Kid B manages to kill more people than Kid C, then videogames are harmless.
If Kid A kills more people than either of them, something is wrong with the magazines.
"just because a very few people may not be able to handle some varieties of entertainment, why should we deprive everyone else of the right to free expression?"
I agree. Unfortunately some people have to decide if the threat of those few people who can't handle it is big enough to warrant censorship - I'm not saying that the study is a good idea or use of money, but the poor bugger who's had this land on their desk probably couldn't think of a better way to approach the problem.
You feel cathartic after a videogame, and I feel buzzed, and little Jimmy Chainsaw down the road goes out and strangles a puppy. Everyone reacts differently to experiences. But when the reaction incur a potential threat to people it needs investigation. The study is hoping to find out if there is a threat, or if, like you say, videogames actually help violent people to indulge their urges in safer ways.
Kid A sits alone listening to Radiohead and reading the magazine.
Kid B gets sent out to the killing fields.
Kid C plays Manhunt for a set period of time and THEN gets sent out to the killing fields.
If Kid C causes more deaths than Kid B, then video games are clearly making him violent.
"Obsessive attention paid to *anything* (up to and including the Earl of Rochester) is creepy and unhealthy. Violence doesn't come into it."
I'd argue that it does dependent on how the obsession manifests itself. An obsession with an author results in the collecting of books and information etc. about/by them, or possibly even copying their manner of speech or dress. Obsessing about weapons results in collecting weapons, and books etc. about them, and possibly learning how to use them. Or just using them. The problem is, at least in my opinion you can't disassociate "obsession" with what the obsession is about, cause the subject of your obsession will have a direct effect on the world around you as you indulge in it. The people directing this study are concerned that videogames are a media collected by violence-lovers, and hence they want to find out if a)that is the case, and b)what that means is likely to happen to people nearby to those people.
"I think that people who are generally "into" violence may seek out more violence in fantasy form but I don't think it necessarily follows that the latter fuels the former."
Not necessarily, but surely a part of the aim of the study is to find out if such is in fact the case. If it is, then maybe we (meaning society) do have something to worry about.
"But to say a violent personality is the consequence of having played Bioshock one too many times at an impressionable age strikes me as so grossly simplistic as to be barely worth the time investigating."
I agree, it is overly simplistic. However so are some people - there have been enough (either justified or not) claims of videogame involvement in violence. Those people who've been affected by that want to know if that's the case or not once and for all. I don't object to them gleaning closure or peace of mind if that's what the study will give them, but I think that it wont produce anything worthwhile beyond that because, like you say, what makes a person violent is a hugely complex psychological issue that even most psychologists can't understand entirely.
Furthermore, I think, despite the tactful twostep, that this study is going to provide anything of any use to the debate. Firstly, how do you *measure* something like that? I've read previous studies that have basically concluded that video-gaming kids are more likely to be verbally aggressive to teachers but could that, be, perhaps because they've grown up a bit? Could it be, as Dan says, the fact that kids who play violent computer games from the sort of background that is permissive enough to let them and are, therefore, going to be leary of authority and a little bit difficult anyway? Whereas kids who don't are being brought up by nice middle class people who want young Crispin to be a lawyer like Daddy.
The results of the study are either going to be inconclusive OR they're going to come up with a tiny fragment of almost entirely circumstantial evidence that the media and certain types of people are going to go into a frothing frenzy over.
They might as well just give me the fucking money. I'd give it Aylesbury Grammar School who need it.
Erm. Proper empirical data? In a psychological study, of a medium- to long-term effect? You must be joking! Unless they dramatically change the methodology they've used in all the previous incarnations of such studies I've read about, there's no actual science going on. Of course, it's a popular thing to harp on about in the media, which means politicians will approve grant money to throw at it...
That said, according to the article Tanya Byron is heading the study, and she doesn't actually have much in the way of academic credentials - she's done a lot of clinical work (which is very different from research) and she's done TV. So I don't hold out especially high hopes for it; I'm willing to bet the message that comes out is "Stop being lazy parents - buy my book to find out how!"
Also, check out the actual press release from the government about this: the study seems to be about internet porns first, computer games second. (Arguably, the internet is actually a bigger concern; you can control access to computer games relatively easily simply by making sure outlets are adhering to the age guidelines on the games, but you can't put a doorman on the front page of a website to check people's ID.) The BBC News website is presumably emphasising the computer game angle because they consider it more newsworthy, or because they want to protect the tender feelings of the internet or something.
Actually, I don't like killing humans very much in games. Especially if there is not much of a reason, like in Saints Row (gaining respect or whatever the hell that game was about). It kind of disturbs me, but I don't mind other people. If there is a war, or they are attacking me first, I'd probably do it. Well. Not really, I'd get my brother to do it. I watch him play Battlefield but I only really enjoy the game if it is online. Is it really that bad that killing people controlled by real people is far more satisfying?
The amount of times I have to use "correlation does not imply causation" in argument is crazy. It annoys me that people think it is valid.
Hmmm...it's an interesting point about why enacting violence on computer people controlled by someone you know (i.e. your brother) is more satisfying than killing computer people controlled by the computer... I think perhaps it is less to do with the violence and death than the element in competition. I mean, wiping out your brother's or your friend's troops is the equivalent to, I don't know, winning a game of tennis or whatever?
I'm not sure how I feel about killing people in computer games. I usually play roleplaying games so the killing is less evident than in first person shooters or wargames. But sometimes I'm in a bad mood and I mow down pedestrians in the fastest car I can nick in Grand Theft Auto, usually to classical music but I'm a psycho like that ;)
Is there a reason you're doing this? Ferretbrain won't crash on punctuation anymore, I promise!
http://xkcd.com/327/
And my name is Magdalen/Maggie/Mags.