Violence in video games and Stereotypes.

As per my last post, I decided to do some research for any scientific studies done on violent video games and its effects on children.

Seems like, there were more than enough articles written on this.

From what I have gathered and read so far, there seems to be no actual, accurate, scientific evidence of violence in video games affecting children in such negative ways that this would make them violent beings. The ones I have read all end up with the words, "may have links" or "could lead to." Of course, like with anything, violent video games (and just normal video games, in fact) have both its pros and cons. The few we see on the news, or by politicians, etc, which claim that there are definite causal links to aggressive behaviour, particularly about the brain scans and how the different parts lit up during the playing of these games, well watch the link below, and a pair of doctors make a good argument against this.

There also seems to be quite an outrage on the issue of censorship of video games, especially in Australia. Interestingly, one of the consistent statistics I saw in all these articles, was that the majority of 'gamers' are aged 21+. Seems logical to then, introduce an R18+ rating? At least give us a choice. But again, there is a ton of discussion and articles on this, simply google "censorship video games australia" and see for yourself.

Back to the discussion of violence. I found that Penn and Teller actually did an episode of their show, "Bulls#@!" on, you guessed it, violent video games.

Although, I do find them quite obnoxious at times, some of the things in this episode did seem very interesting; especially the point they make at the end about football. Due to the nature of the show, and also this particular episode's content, I have not embedded it, but rather will link it.

WARNING: Contains graphic scenes from violent video games, and frequent high coarse language! Not for the squeamish nor the aurally sensitive. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Youtube part 1

Youtube part 2

As stated in this episode, I would say the general public of 'non-gamers' still view a gamer as an anti-social, introvert. But looking back at my own life going through school, I didn't really feel like an outsider. In primary years, games were a cool thing. We played sports at lunch time, but if we went over to play at each other's house, we'd play the ol' NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), Sega Master System, or for the few who were lucky enough, a PC. In high school, again it was similar during the junior years. Most of my group of friends were into playing games, and this is where I started to take a bigger interest, buying gaming magazines as well as basketball magazines. We would goto internet cafes to play against or as coop in games such as Starcraft, Diablo, Rainbow Six and Counterstrike.

It wasn't really until the final couple of years of high school and particularly university where it hit me that 'admitting to being a gamer' turned you into an outcast. It was almost as if it was taboo. I still enjoyed the other aspects of "RL" (real life), went out to socialise and meet new people, but I noticed nobody ever talked about games. It was cars, fashion, tv shows, music and movies. After a while, I just couldn't be bothered to do the same thing night in and night out. I rather stay at home or meet some gaming friends and spend the night playing video games. I would be socialising either face to face or virtually with these friends, but of course, this is not considered the same as, for instance, meeting someone in a popular drinking venue.

I remember the first few years I started playing World of Warcraft with a few close friends, and my then girlfriend, now wife. One of these friends was really, really into it. He would analyse all the different stat bonuses gained and lost from different sets of items, how one class could counter another, how to fight a certain boss next time to kill it, etc. He used to come to our place often after a WoW session to just relax and chill, and we'd end up talking about WoW forever. However, when we met him outside, in a social setting with other non-WoW players, it was quite different. Sometimes I would use WoW to strike a conversation with him, and after about 10minutes, he would say "Let's stop talking about games." and stop it. I found that quite confounding. This guy, who once said to me "WoW is more than a game to me," even he was aware of the social implications of revealing himself as a gamer. 

Even until recently, I tried to hide the fact that I am a gamer. At the different places I worked at, I've had co-workers who were gamers, and even to them I tried not to talk to them about it too much, and interestingly, they didn't really want to either. We would maybe talk about a game we're playing, something interesting that happened in it, is it good or bad, and then move on. (Possibly before other co-workers come and judge us?) It wasn't actually until I heard Deborah Evans say at the macICT session we had for SciTech, "raise your hand if you are a gamer. Be proud!" (I actually didn't raise my hand, but told her later on.) Another person to note is Sean "Day9" Plott, who does daily video casts on starcraft 2. He begins nearly every show with "Welcome to the Day9 daily where we try to be better gamers." He is unashamed and very proud of being a gamer and having so much passion over games, that it is hard to not have that kind of enthusiasm rub off on you. Also, he would be a great spokesperson on gaming and education; just watch any of his 'Newbie Tuesday' dailies and you can see the cognitive and metacognitive strategies that he puts into place and tries to make us, the viewers, from doing the same when reflecting upon our matches.

Links to both the macICT website and Day9 daily videos are on the right hand side of this blog.

I think that about sums it up for this entry. Not really education-related, but more of a self-reflective post. Maybe I should've split this into two posts, but hey, I'm a noob at blogs, and that's what tags are for right? :)