Debunking Gaming Myths

8. Video game play is desensitizing.

I just read an article about this today entitled Violent video games desensitize players to real-world violence!

"Playing violent video games changes brain function and desensitizes chronic players to violence, a new study shows....Along with other recent research, the findings suggest that chronic exposure to violent video games has lasting harmful effects on brain function and behavior." From http://www.umich.edu/news/index.html?Releases/2005/Dec05/r120505 . That seems to be completely opposite of what the Reality Bytes article is saying.

I'm really curious as to what those "harmful effects on brain function and behavior" are.

Too bad this article is poorly written. By poorly written I mean it totally lost my interest and was boring to read. I was hoping to fwd this around to certain people but I know for a fact if I do they will read the first couple paragraphs and *yawn*.

I think the topic of this article is very important but the writer needs some help *getting* it to his target audience with mor interesting writing. The people who actual believe these myths need to be convinced these are myths in a way that draws them into reading further, not wanting to go to sleep.

This article and the accompanying program are over a year old.

http://www.joystiq.com/entry/2511731285227152/

When will this be shown on TV?

Any relation to Leeroy Jenkins?

Wow, welcome to 2004 guys. Not to pick on people but this has been all over the net in the last couple days. I finally go to look at it and I'm like, "I know I've read this before." Take a short trip to archive.org and sure enough... http://web.archive.org/web/*/http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html

The real issue is not violence in video games. Not at all. Will Wright hits exactly what the issue is: The Sims designer Will Wright argues that games are perhaps the only medium that allows us to experience guilt over the actions of fictional characters.

People have a problem with the fact that games rarely give a feeling of guilt over immoral/evil decisions. That’s why these people will hate GTA but love Saving Private Ryan: both are very violent but the message is completely different. If GTA had more consequences to the actions that people make in it, then it wouldn’t be a big deal.

As for evidence, one of the most basic characteristics of humans is that they are story tellers and that they learn from stories. I’ve never stuck a fork in a socket because I learned not to from another’s story. Video games are a form of story telling, some more so then others, and as such they do have an influence on what we learn. The extent that they influence is dependant on what other influences we have. Think what a child would drive like if his only experience with driving was that which was in GTA? I’ve known a number of people, including myself, who have to remind themselves to drive normal in the real world after lengthy sessions of GTA. The key is that we all catch ourselves quickly because we know not to drive like that. And that’s really the issue: we need to be reminded/told that bad actions are indeed bad and that good actions are good. This doesn’t have to “wreck” the gameplay: in GTA all they had to do was to have your character get fried in the electric chair and get lethal injection after you went on a killing spree. A quick cutscene would have reinforced the value that running people over has terrible consequences. This necessitate a strict defining of "good" and "bad": the extremes are pretty well agreed on, and the grey area can be left to interpretation.

Am I the only one thinking "What the hell kind of name is Talmadge, and why does it so aptly suite a sociologist?"

That's the first thing I thought it. While I'm not amazed that someone else came up with the same joke, I do think it's great that it's the first post. :)

I honestly don't know if even the most well reasoned arguments from the most respected sources will have any impact whatsoever on the type of frantic reactionaries and political gain seekers that have issues with gaming to begin with

Not to mention that they haven't really had any impact on the industry to date, dispite occasional rumblings

I'd be more inclined to say it's better to just wait another 30-50 years and let them all die, then we can take over and yell at children for wasting their lives playing those too real VR games (VR ww2 games ftw)

Did this air on PBS already, how did I miss this?

I could have sworn I read "Scientologist".