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Majority of Compulsive Gamers Not Addicted to Games: Game De-Addiction Expert

Pulkit Chandna — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 16:06:13 -0600

The exact nature of the impact that video games have on humans is a contentious issue among researchers and any possibility of a consensus seems inconceivable. It is almost like an incessant war between the myriad of video game researchers across the globe with contradictory video game studies being continuously exchanged by them instead of lead.

The founder of the Smith & Jones Centre in Amsterdam - Europe’s very first and sole video game de-addiction clinic - Keith Bakker has downplayed video game addiction, which he believes is immensely exaggerated. Only 10% of all compulsive gamers, according to Bakker, are actually addicted to video games, while the rest are riveted to video games as a direct result of social problems confronting them.

His postulate is remarkable in the sense that it views social isolation to be a cause of compulsive gaming in most cases rather than an effect, as is commonly perceived.

“If I continue to call gaming an addiction it takes away the element of choice these people have,” says Bakker. “It's a complete shift in my thinking and also a shift in the thinking of my clinic and the way it treats these people. In most cases of compulsive gaming, it is not addiction and in that case, the solution lies elsewhere."

Mr. Bakker’s views must have come as a huge disappointment to Hollywood stars, who have been planning to use video game addiction as a pretext for future rehab visits after having expended all other plausible excuses.

Image Credit: Dofus

Fresh Studies Establish Value of Games, Link Violent Games and Violence

Pulkit Chandna — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 12:18:40 -0500

Cognitive and Perceptual Skill Enhancement: A couple of psychologists at the Fordham University, namely Fran C. Blumberg and Sabrina S. Ismailer, studied problem-solving patterns among school children. The study involved 122 kids from 5th, 6th and 7th grades, who were made to play games they hadn’t confronted before. They came to the conclusion that younger kids don’t only take playing videogames as a leisurely activity like older kids and adults but also set short-term goals for problem-solving. And thus benefit greatly from video games.

Hyper-Dexterous Surgeons and Violent Gamers: It is a well known fact that gaming is used as a training exercise by top surgeons to increase precision. That enhanced precision coupled with improved dexterity has a positive impact on surgical error levels, according to a study. The research paper presented by an Iowa University psychologist duo, Douglas Gentile and William Stone, also studied high school and college kids apart from laparoscopic surgeons.

The kids that play violent games tend to be inured to the violence and prone to violent behavior, according to the research. On the other hand, the ones that play more benign games are less prone to violent.

Scientific Reasoning and Gamers: A study by two University of Wisconsin researchers, Constance Steinkuehler and Sean Duncan, took stock of scientific reasoning capabilities of World of Warcraft gamers using their discussion on WOW forums. They found that 86% of gamers shared their knowledge with each other and a 58% indeed used orderly and analytical methods in their discussions about the game. Hence proved, games also foster scientific reasoning.

Image Credit Seoul.Go.kr

Game Theory: Grand Theft Childhood?

Thomas MacDonald — Mon, 23 Jun 2008 19:32:04 -0500

Have you heard the one about the 3,500 research studies that show a positive relationship between media violence and violent behavior? It’s an old cudgel often used to bludgeon the gaming industry in the debate about violent games.

It also turns out to be a complete fabrication. Those 3,500 studies simply don’t exist. In extensive research for their own study, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson (founders of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital and professors at Harvard Medical School) searched the available literature and found only about 300 studies on this topic. In their new book, Grand Theft Childhood, Kutner and Olson conclude that most of the previous studies were either inconclusive or flawed, with none providing the smoking gun linking media violence and real-world violence in an incontrovertible cause-effect relationship.

They decided to go looking for the link themselves and created what is arguably the most far-reaching and thorough study yet. The results may not be what either side of the debate wants to hear, but after reading their results, it’s hard to deny that Kutner and Olson’s report is scrupulously fair—and that it’s a bombshell.

They begin by making the crucial distinction between youth violence, which they define as an attack on a person or thing with the intent to injure or break it, and the less easily defined aggression, which includes antisocial behavior, bullying, and delinquency. Their research reveals two key facts that are relevant to the debate.

First, there is no link between young people who play violent games and actual violence. In fact, as gamer culture has grown, incidents of violent crime have dropped significantly. They also debunk the myth that school shootings such as the ones that took place at Columbine (blamed on Doom) and Virginia Tech (Counter-Strike) were caused by games. Instead, they learned that Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho didn’t play games in college, which tallied with one of their more interesting discoveries: Kids who don’t play games are the social outcasts and misfits. Games help kids fit in and form relationships.
Their study did, however, find a connection between aggression and violent games, and we’ll explore that in more detail next month.

Thomas L. McDonald has been covering games for 17 years. He is an editor at large for Games magazine.

Violent Video Games for Kids

Erin Simon — Thu, 09 Aug 2007 23:50:25 -0500

A 2005 California law requiring labeling of violent video games and banning their sale to minors was declared unconstitutional by a California District Court this week. Assembly Bill No. 1179[pdf] (which endearingly defines video games as “electronic amusement device[s]”) was challenged by the Entertainment Software Association and the Video Software Dealers Association shortly after being signed into law by Governator Schwarzenegger (who endearingly starred in many violent films before inveighing against violent games). The plaintiffs got a preliminary injunction before the law went into effect; the latest decision makes that injunction permanent.

The decision quotes highlights from the bill, including its definitions of “heinous,” “depraved,” and “torture.” “Needless mutilation of the victim's body” is a particularly pertinent factor in the assessment of the game's violence, raising the question: when is mutilation of a victim's body necessary?

Minors do not have full First Amendment rights, and states may encroach on the First Amendment if they have a “compelling interest.” But content-based regulations are particularly repugnant to the constitution, and California's video game law couldn't overcome that defect by being narrowly tailored to the state interest of protecting minors from becoming violent by being exposed to violent games. That's in part because the state couldn't show that violent video games were any more dangerous to minors than violent movies, tv, or the internet. (It's worth noting that the movie-rating system is a voluntary industry measure, not government-imposed.)

A victory for games as communicative speech deserving of First Amendment protection, this case also raises a few interesting questions. States can and do limit minors' access to sexually explicit material (indeed, the law was passed shortly after the revelation of sexual content in Grand Theft Auto) – so why the higher standard to limit their exposure to violence? Should the courts be interrogating the science behind a legislature's choices?

Thumbnail photo courtesy of Fuzzy Gerdes.