Digging Our Own Graves?

You are what you, er, play?

With twelve people dead and double that number injured this week during one of the most horrific and heart-breaking events in recent local history, there can be no doubt that tragedy has exacted a terribly high price from Cumbria. While police frantically search for a motive to this hopelessly futile outrage, however, I can’t help but watch my thoughts turn closer to home instead. I mean, after seeing this appalling story gorge itself to ever-more bloated heights over the past seven days it's hard not to feel a little uncomfortable at how many modern titles task the player with committing similar crimes for little other reason than ‘having fun.’ Understandably this gives a dusty, dog-eared worry extremely pressing voice once again, so I’ve decided to come over all professional and ask if video-games can actually do us some harm in the long run. Do the sceptics have a point? I certainly hope not.

There’s enough evidence out there abounding the internet to credibly suggest so, of course, and with many of the most persuasive studies coming from the sincere patrons of the American Psychological Association - the ‘largest scientific and professional organisation representing psychology in the US’, if you were interested - claiming that repeated video-game exposure can noticeably increase violent behaviour across all ages while tangibly lowering academic grades in younger generations, they also have a rather cogent argument to their name. Craig A. Anderson and Karen E. Dill PhD, 2000, Jessica Nicoll B.A and Kevin M. Kieffer, 2005, Douglas Gentile, 2003... the sheer level of startling research into this touchy subject could quite literally go on and into realms of the ridiculous if we were to pursue it thus far, and as they are by no means alone it’s hardly surprising that today’s society is so wildly biased against the topic. To make matters worse, honourable egg-heads such as the afore-mentioned boffin Dr. Craig A. Anderson whole-heartedly and publicly support these grim results, infamously stating, “the 14-year-old boy arguing that he has played violent video games for years and has not ever killed anybody is absolutely correct in rejecting the extreme “necessary and sufficient” position, as is the 45-year-old two-pack-a-day cigarette smoker who notes that he still does not have lung cancer. But both are wrong in inferring that their exposure to the respective risk factors have not causally increased the likelihood that they and people around them will one day suffer the consequences of that risky behaviour.”

It's easy to dismiss much of this for various reasons, naturally, but the subject is an inarguable itch that will refuse to give up. It's easy to see the supposed result of video-game violence outside of the laboratory after all, especially since some of the best examples include the much quoted and well-publicised case of a teenage murder in Leicester (supposedly inspired by gory thriller Manhunt), a US shooting where a seventeen year-old blew away his parents after they confiscated his beloved copy of Halo 3, or the tale of the Thai youngster who stabbed a taxi driver to death during 2008 so that he could afford Grand Theft Auto 4. It really is enough to turn your stomach. This only becomes more evident when it is increasingly clear - even to gamers - that video-game violence isn’t the only issue assailing us upon the interactive and electronic home-front either; sexism, racism and xenophobia are all thought to be equally relevant when considering the nature of a title’s effects on our behaviour and how we act as a result. To begin with, many harbour a deep-seated concern about the consistently injurious and disparaging portrayal of foreign nations such as Russia, China and Africa in various current era titles - Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 or Battlefield: Bad Company 2 being obvious targets - while others have voiced alarm over the dangerous stereotypes that these representations may be encouraging over time (“significantly these games, and particularly their questionable claims of authenticity,” state the authors of The Power of Play: The Portrayal and Performance of Race in Video Games, “establish compelling learning environments that help facilitate how young gamers develop their knowledge of and familiarity with popular views of race and urban culture”). Meanwhile, yet more critics - being both gamers and non alike - have attacked the chauvinistic and sexist undertone still relatively prevalent within modern-day products, arguing that while games such as Tomb Raider, Half-Life, Beyond Good and Evil, Mass Effect and Fable 2 put capable, admirable and enviable women under the spotlight (injecting a whole note of common sense into proceedings), the industry as a whole is waterlogged with characters like Wet’s heroine, Dead or Alives' titillating roster or the majority of the cast of God of War 3.
You have to admit, they have a point.

Then what about the simple matter of 'addiction?' Horror stories involving 24-hour gaming, out-of-control, temper-ridden children and the trials of gamers like Lee Seung Seop (who died after playing Starcraft for 50 hours straight) make it hardly surprising that parents are so worried. Even now - with the Wii and DS successfully cultivating the before-untapped casual market and bringing gaming a new respectability - these are all massive, inescapable factors in why so many have avoided the popular gaming trend all-together, and have always been veritable weapons caches in the armoury of detractors demanding stricter regulations on the industry in general.

Nevertheless, the question that discerning readers should be asking is whether all this ‘evidence’ is quite as fool-proof as it would first appear.

You see, for all the touted arguments and hypotheses stated previously, there are easily as many - if not more - correspondingly admirable pieces claiming the complete opposite elsewhere. A recent Australian study carried out by the Swinburne University of Technology in 2007, for example, discovered that only children previously subject to violent behaviour (e.g. due to genetic disposition or mental states) were negatively effected by video-games, while another from Daphne Bavelier and the University of Rochester in New York, 2003, suggested that the same games could actually increase visual and spatial skills after prolonged use. A third - taken from an issue of the Review of General Psychology in 2010 - also indicated that the negative implications of video-gaming would only influence certain personalities from a small percentage of society in the first place (“previous research has shown us that personality traits like psychoticism and aggressiveness intensify the negative effects of violent video games”), while other segments from the same article have shown how titles could help ease the treatment of young psychotherapy patients and would serve a myriad of social, emotional and intellectual needs to boot. These studies are in turn supported by the likes of independent psychologist Jonathan Freedman, who, after looking into the results of 200 assorted studies via meta-analysis, brought us back to earth with the conclusion that the “vast overwhelming majority” did not find any causal link between video-games and increased violence. In fact, look over less bandied statistics and you’ll actually discover that violent youth crime has fallen dramatically in the USA - arguably the gaming Mecca - by about as much as 21% over recent years, coinciding rather neatly with an undeniable boom in the industry (not to mention an increase in violent, graphic titles).

How can maligned and heavily publicised affairs such as the Halo and Manhunt murders be explained, in that case? Well, the truth of the matter is - and it’s a truth that our media conveniently forget to divulge - these charges are recurrently deemed not to have been caused by a particular game’s influence or, in turn, by obsession with that one title (the Leicester murder was a robbery rather than an imitation, and the American butchery had been planned for as much as nine months previously according to sources). Other cases have been moreover and repeatedly put down to an individual’s current psychological state rather than the influence of a product itself - as was previously suggested by both the Swinburne University of Technology and the Review of General Psychology - and a US Secret Service study even went so as far to suggest that, in the case of youth shootings, only 12% of those involved had any interest in the gaming medium at all, alternatively favouring violent literature or television instead. What about the instances of gaming addiction, though? Apparently that’s easily explained away too, as true compulsions - both in and out of the law - are apparently “few and far between” according to Mark Griffiths of Nottingham Trent University, with only a meagre percentage (just over ten) of his test groups showing any indication of obsession at all. What’s more, the US Surgeon General reinforced both stated theories as a result of a national study conducted in 1999, professing that “we clearly associate media violence to aggressive behaviour, but the impact was very small compared to other things. Some may not be happy with that, but that’s where the science is".

It’s just a shame that these facts are only slowly and painfully breaking into societies’ general consciousness, largely due to a repeated and sustained flippant misrepresentation in the media and the unwanted attentions of cheap politicians looking for an underhand vote. As a direct result, video-games have since been gifted a heavy coating of thorough paranoia that they simply don’t deserve, and although it would be largely foolish to deny the negative connotations that some titles can bring to the table, it’s becoming progressively obvious that there’s a lot more to this business than popularly suggested (the social and physical positives of the Wii and Xbox LIVE speak for themselves, for instance, and the likes of the ‘GAME for Good’ campaign - garnering thousands of pounds for the War Child charity - clearly demonstrate what a passionate, caring and vibrant community this industry possesses). To me, this blind narrow-mindedness is every bit as senseless and baffling as the recent attacks in Cumbria, and I simply hope that we won’t have to wait too long before both are cleaned up and can finally be laid to rest.