While there is an abundance of violence in the real world,
there is also considerable focus on the virtual violence of video games.
Interestingly, some people (such as the head of the NRA) blame real violence on
the virtual violence of video games. The idea that art can corrupt people is
nothing new and dates back at least to Plato's discussion of the corrupting
influence of art. While he was mainly worried about the corrupting influence of
tragedy and comedy, he also raised concerns about violence and sex. These days
we generally do not worry about the nefarious influence of tragedy and comedy,
but there is considerable concern about violence.
While I am a gamer, I do have concerns about the possible
influence of video games on actual behavior. For example, one of my published
essays is on the distinction between virtual vice and virtual virtue and in
this essay I raise concerns about the potential dangers of video games that are
focused on vice. While I do have concerns about the impact of video games,
there has been little in the way of significant evidence supporting the claim
that video games have a meaningful role in causing real-world violence.
However, such studies are fairly popular and generally get attention from the
media.
The most recent study purports to show that
teenage boys might become desensitized to violence because of extensive playing
of video games. While some folks will take this study as showing a connection
between video games and violence, it is well worth considering the details of
the study in the context of causal reasoning involving populations.
When conducting a cause to effect experiment, one rather
important factor is the size of experimental group (those exposed to the cause)
and the control group (those not exposed to the cause). The smaller the number
of subjects, the more likely that the difference between the groups is due to
factors other than the (alleged) causal factor. There is also the concern with
generalizing the results from the experiment to the whole population.
The experiment in question consisted of 30 boys (ages 13-15)
in total. As a sample for determining a causal connection, the sample is too
small for real confidence to be placed in the results. There is also the fact
that the sample is far too small to support a generalization from the 30 boys to
the general population of teenage boys. In fact, the experiment hardly seems
worth conducting with such a small sample and is certainly not worth reporting
on-except as an illustration of how research should not be conducted.
The researchers had the boys play a violent video game and a
non-violent video game in the evening and compared the results. According to
the researchers, those who played the violent video game had faster heart rates
and lower sleep quality. They also reported "increased feelings of
sadness." After playing the violent game, the boys had greater
stress and anxiety.
According to one researcher, "The violent game seems to
have elicited more stress at bedtime in both groups, and it also seems as if
the violent game in general caused some kind of exhaustion. However, the
exhaustion didn't seem to be of the kind that normally promotes good sleep, but
rather as a stressful factor that can impair sleep quality."
Being a veteran of violent video games, these results are
consistent with my own experiences. I have found that if I play a combat game,
be it a first person shooter, an MMO or a real time strategy game, too close to
bedtime, I have trouble sleeping. Crudely put, I find that I am
"keyed" up and if I am unable to "calm down" before trying
to sleep, my sleep is generally not very restful. I really noticed this when I
was raiding in WOW. A raid is a high stress situation (game stress, anyway)
that requires hyper-vigilance and it takes time to "come down" from
that. I have experienced the same thing with actual fighting (martial arts
training, not random violence). I've even experienced something
comparable when I've been awoken by a big spider crawling on my face-I did not
sleep quite so well after that. Graduate school, as might be imagined, put me
into this state of poor sleep for about five years.
In general, then, it makes sense that violent video games
would have this effect-which is why it is not a good idea to game up until bed
time if you want to get a good night's sleep. Of course, it is a generally a
good idea to relax about an hour before bedtime-don't check email, don't get on
Facebook, don't do work and so on.
While not playing games before bedtime is a good idea, the
question remains as to how these findings connect to violence and video games.
According to the researchers, the differences between the two groups
"suggest that frequent exposure to violent video games may have a
desensitizing effect."
Laying aside the problem that the sample is far too small to
provide significant results that can be reliably extended to the general
population of teenage boys, there is also the problem that there seems to be a
rather large chasm between the observed behavior (anxiety and lower sleep
quality) and being desensitized to violence. The researchers do note that the
cause and effect relationship was not established and they did consider the
possibility of reversed causation (that the video games are not causing these
traits, but that boys with those traits are drawn to violent video games).
As such, the main impact of the study seems to be that it got media
attention for the researchers. This would suggest another avenue of research:
the corrupting influence of media attention on researching video games and
violence.
