It never ceases to amaze me just how far some "researchers" will go to "prove" that videogames are harmful. From blowing airhorns to electric shock tests, some truly wacky and rather unscientific tests have been conducted to show the effects of gaming, but this one -- a study that claims to show how games make players "comfortably numb" -- is stunning in its convolution.
Let's just look at the press release on the matter:
320 college students played either a violent or a nonviolent video game for approximately 20 minutes. A few minutes later, they overheard a staged fight that ended with the "victim" sustaining a sprained ankle and groaning in pain.
People who had played a violent game took significantly longer to help the victim than those who played a nonviolent game---73 seconds compared to 16 seconds. People who had played a violent game were also less likely to notice and report the fight. And if they did report it, they judged it to be less serious than did those who had played a nonviolent game.
In the second study, the participants were 162 adult moviegoers. The researchers staged a minor emergency outside the theater... The researchers timed how long it took moviegoers to [help]... Participants who had just watched a violent movie took over 26 percent longer to help than either people going into the theater or people who had just watched a nonviolent movie.
Yes, according to Michigan Professor Brad Bushman, this exercise in randomness "clearly shows" that "violent media exposure can reduce helping behavior." Bushman then namechecks Pink Floyd, suggesting that violent gamers are "comfortably numb" to the suffering of others.
I mean ... seriously? Are we seriously just plucking random staged occurrences out of a hat to "prove" things now? You can make someone play a violent game, pretend to hurt your ankle, then measure how long they take to help and that's proof? I wish I was comfortably numb to bullsh*t, then maybe I wouldn't care so much.
Jim Sterling serves as reviews editor for Destructoid.com, head of the Podtoid podcast, and produces a number of news stories, original features, one-of-a-kind videos. With his passionate argumentative style, controversial opinions, harsh delivery, and dedication to brutal honesty Sterling is a name that you can't help but recognize.
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Contest:
12:20 PM on 02.20.2009
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Them: "Ow! my ankle!!!"
You: "Hang on: boss fight..."
my theory: who gives a shit.
You know how after watching an action flick with lots of gun play you leave the theater feeling like you could jump into a fist fight if one was around? You are still coming down from that high. I guess what I'm saying is you can't just completely write off each and every one of these studies. Even the thrust of the argument may be be flawed, there could be some kernels of truth that we may ignore because we don't want to believe our favorite media could possibly be bad.
Maybe the "slower" to react just didn't accept the performance as believable.
Did I just perform a study and prove that violent games will make you feel more sympathy towards your fellow human? Based on all of these so-called "studies", I'm sure I could publish my findings like they did.
walk it off, pussy.
However, there is NO long-term proof here. Playing an intense video game may result in short-term changes in behavior. Is this really surprising? Does this really say anything meaningful?
But in all seriousness, theres so much thats wrong about that study.
Also, well said killias.
It's a freaking sprained ankle, I would poke them and run around in circles trying to get them to chase me, cry babies.
Maybe those proves that those who play violent games don't think you should be a fucking baby about a sprained ankle, but it doesn't prove much else.
I doubt the times would be that different if say, someone suffered a heart attack or a *serious* injury.
Most people don't go out of their way to help someone for fear of getting attacked themselves or worse, sued by the person they tried to help.
did any of the research subjects lean out and yell "pills here!"?
For one thing, "helping a person in need" is a very vague concept when you think about it. Are we talking about some random person, or like, your little brother or sister? Because I'm pretty sure I'd react MUCH faster to one scenario over the other, despite what I was doing at the time.
In other words, even if this study had conclusively proved it's hypothesis, which it HASN'T, the idea that I might be numb to the pain of COMPLETE AND TOTAL STANGERS for a certain period of time doesn't faze me.
I forget specifically what it is called, but there is something about how larger the group of people the less likely someone will lift a finger. It's this mentality where people go, "Oh look at all these other folks! They don't need my help."
That could have had some impact on this particular study.
ya, kinda what i was trying to say but in drunken english.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bystander_effect
It could very well be true that playing violent video games or watching violent movies makes you temporarily more aggressive, in line with what megaStryke said. This isn't such a horrible concept, and based on my own experiences I'd agree with the idea. However, this is not evidence of any long-term effects, in accord with what killias2 said.
A better study would have been one where individuals are randomly assigned to 4 groups. Two groups are treated as they were in this study. The two additional groups witness a fight at a later time. If say, x hours/days later, the individuals who played violent video games react in the same way as those who did not play violent video games, then it supports the argument that video game-induced apathy and aggression is temporary.
Because they seem to only come in two flavors:
a. The study seems capricious and arbitrary, and even if the methodology is sound, the conclusion doesn't appear to be of any consequence.
b. The study doesn't seem arbitrary and both the methodology and conclusion make sense, but only because the result confirms EXACTLY what you would have guessed before spending any money to fund the study.
Nope, you didn't just perform a study! What you have presented is anecdotal evidence. If you learn about the scientific method, ::pushes up glasses::, you'd know what is and what isn't a study.
@megaStryke, that action movie reference is pretty good (and I think we can all relate to it). I think this is a good study. I think a great follow up would be to see the long term effects of the participants. I think you'd see the effect of the violent video game playing disappear after a little while and you could get sympathy to return to normal (sympathy could be operationalized in a number of different ways).
@GamingGoddess, "I wonder: has there ever been a good social science study? Not just involving video games, but in general? "
Short answer: no, of course not.
Anyway, to all you nerds, you can't just write off science because you don't agree with the results off the bat. That makes you no better than the anti-game crusaders. Maybe read the study and find some things that don't add up (e.g., this doesn't prove long term effects). I thought this was interesting.
@gaminggoddess
The Milgram Experiment was pretty crazy and I don't believe it fall under either of those categories.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment
I'm pretty sure the "method" that was summarized on this blog is nowhere near the complete methodology and had no statistics present to back up the conclusion. You can't form a judgment based on the quick summary found here.
Short answer: no, of course not. "
I gotta come out and defend my science. Social science is tough work because of endogeneity, multicollinearity, and measurement problems (especially outside of experimental research designs). However, there's still a lot of good work being done by lots of people dedicated to getting around these difficulties.
So, I mean, it sounds like Jim was questioning the study's validity (whether it tests what it sets out to test). It sounds like the study is reliable (you'd be able to reproduce it).
Anyway, one of the hardest things to do in these studies is to properly operationalize variables. Y'know, how do you measure it is what you want to measure? Like, someone mentioned Milgram, that guy was trying to measure obedience. How do you go about measuring obedience? Can you give someone a test and say, "On a scale from 1 to 10, how obedient are you?" That's self-reported data (and doesn't represent the complete picture).
This study uses observational data (i.e., how long it takes you to respond to a violent outburst) as its main measure. This is actually a pretty good way of operationalizing sympathy. The fact they found a significant difference in a randomized group of test subjects shows that something was going on with the experimental group.
Anyways, regarding the bystander effect, yeeep, it could've been a problem for the results of this study. However, it wouldn't have been published by a peer reviewed journal (science!) if they allowed some people to have bystanders nearby and others to not have 'em. What makes this science is that the only independent variable they manipulate is the violent game playing.
Anyway, science is hard and understanding it is hard, too. GLaDOS would be ashamed of you all.
There's also some good comments here that are big on cognitive dissonance!
I was being sarcastic back there. It's hard to pick that up on the internet, but man, I was just kind of surprised to see how daft some people on the internet (of all places!) can be. Well, I take that back. I wasn't surprised.
Haha, sorry then. Take my comment as a response to what prompted your sarcasm then, :P.
Because I have no trouble believing that there are SOME useful social science studies, but from the sum total of what I have read about them averaged over my entire life, I would guess 10% were decent-- if I was being charitable.
Whether your a scientist or even scientifically-oriented at all, when you encounter pointless studies constantly (and no, by no means only from Jim's posts), it's not unreasonable to start questioning the relative merits of social science.
I think it's partially a selection problem. Also, I'd point out that stupid research is hardly monopolized by the social sciences. The natural sciences and humanities write their own share of idiotic articles.
Finally, it really depends on -which- social science you are talking about. They all have their stupid aspects, but certain kinds are more likely to get popularized despite their stupidity (hello Psychology).
I'm a shallow, shallow human being.
IiiiiiiiiiIIIIiii have become comfortably numb...
And precious taxpayer money is being wasted on these stupid researches.