March 2, 2008 -
Gamers and parents of gamers will likely find Dr. Cheryl Olson's new book reassuring.The Massachusetts General Hospital researcher contradicts much of the standard research on video game violence, offering a real-world approach based on studies of real children. With Grand Theft Childhood (co-authored with Dr. Laurence Kutner) set to release in April, Olson spoke with GameCouch's Terry Bosky:
From the start, our research was designed with parents in mind... we wanted to help parents and policymakers understand what’s normal, when to worry about violent video games, and when video games might benefit some kids.
Olson believes that some of the best-known studies have serious flaws:
The most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It’s debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons...
Also, the most-published researchers have built their careers around media violence... [that is] just a small part of what we do, so we could look at the issue with fresh eyes and no agenda.
Olson found that games helped 12-14's sort out their feelings:
This included playing games to “help get my anger out,” to forget problems, to relax, and to feel less lonely... When we began our research, we didn’t fully grasp how politicized and emotional this topic was.
What about the upcoming Grand Theft Auto IV ?
One of the most surprising things in our research was how many kids aged 12 to 14 are playing Grand Theft Auto games; the series was #1 among boys, and #2 among girls. So, parents can assume that their teens will play GTA IV sometime, someplace...
We found is that most children who play GTA don’t see the characters as role models, and don’t see the game as like real life. In fact, the “unreality” is one thing they like about the series. They can test boundaries and try things that, as one boy put it, “hopefully, will never happen to you.
Don't miss the full interview at GameCouch.
Comments
Remember that everyone!
I might as well post the abstracts of her latest journal articles and the ones mentioned in GameCouch in my blog, but don't expect any of my summaries and comments.
Scout: Woo-hoo-hoo!
@Sidewinder: Or if she's a member of the ACLU, oy (On issues such as these, you do NOT want to fuck around with them).
The people against games are so far divorced from their childhoods that they easily forget that they probably did the same thing.
We all as kids and even kids today are still playing predent games such as Cowboys and indians/Cops and Robbers and even "power rangers" or some form of martal art fighting. By everyone's claims...these harmless predent games that kids played for genderations are not considered violent. Where something like GTA is just a digital verson of cops and robbers. Granted kids probably shouldn't be playing GTA but it's just an example of how harmless things are and the way the anti-game bandwagon spins things all the time...a simple game as predent beat up or cowboys and indians is training our kids to be violent when they grow up.
Needed the Heroes reference in there.
the best news so far. :)
I might have to check me out this book.
Is this actual scientific process, with actual studies of actual children playing actual games they actually chose?
...Yes, that was intentionally repetitive. But I thought scienctific process and reality had both been discarded for the sake of agenda and bias. This use of what looks and sounds suspiciously like it might be "science" has short-circuited some linguistic part of my brain.
Don't begrudge us our elation at what even MIGHT be reality intruding upon politically and bad-parentally connected lies. Nobody's throwing "full support" behind anything, we're just very enthusiastic gamers startled into optimism by what sounds like clear-headed analysis in an area important to us.
We already KNOW we're right, we're just rolling our eyes until somebody who actually cares to see reality as it IS demonstrates proof to those who don't know we're right.
Its not the fanatics we need to convince, the moderates & the uncomitted are the real target because its them that either say "Yeah, he's right" or laugh their guts up at overblown histrionics whenever Faux news or jacky boy trot out their traditional 'society has gone to the dogs and [New Thing] is to blame' litany.
As Blackice says, this woman does deserve a medal
Don't forget 'over-educated.'
I just hope that those 5-stars are going to be because her book was well-informed, and not because she rubbed us the right way.
(Got to say I'm gobsmacked and flattered by your comments--thanks a bunch.)
Also, good book or not, Dr. Olson gets some major gold stars in my book for coming to GP and entering the discussion.
Kudos
I'll read the exceperts when I can... the computer I'm on asks me for paswords to enter the site.
Thanks for the sensible words.
Did it get "slash-dotted" or something?
@Dr. Olsen: Thanks for taking the time to produce (hopefully) unbiased and sensible research about this topic (I'll reserve judgement until I read the book, which I just pre-ordered on Amazon...).
I think a lot of adults underestimate a child's ability to separate fact from fiction. I remember a professor who wrote a book (or article, not sure since I can't even remember the name) who talked about how children develop at a very early age something he called "the magic circle of play". Inside the 'circle', you can pretend to do things that are not ok to do when you aren't playing, for instance, 'shoot' your friends while playing 'cowboys and indians'.
It's always amazed and offended me that, even though kids have been playing violent games since there have been kids, now that the games are on a TV screen instead of running around in the back yard, somehow they suddenly become more of a threat to society.
I mean... does anyone ever look at two kittens wrestling together and think, "Gosh, they're going to be killers when they become adult cats". No.
But if the kittens were playing a kitten-wrestling game on a playstation... OMG! Killer Cats Training On Feline Murder Simulators! News at 11!
Thanks Dr. Olson!
I've read the excerpts and I'm impressed. Sadly, much of this is already common sense to the people whose voices aren't loud enough to be heard by politicians and parental groups. Hopefully, though, this book can be our voice.
And on that note, I believe that it's time to fire a good majority of politicians and government heads, and replace them with people who live in the year 2008. Most of these people are still living in 1960, and a handful are wishing that they were residing in the year 708.
I'm tired of the negative press without anyone realizing that kids have been playing shoot-em-up ever since there were guns. When I was little, my parents were very anti-violence. Everything was blocked, and I STILL ran around with other boys with sticks pretending to shoot each other.
How is that any different then a video game?
The only difference is a lower chance of getting hit by a car and the stadard argument of:
"I shot you!"
"Nuh-uh, you missed!"
has been replaced with:
"u r a h4xx0r!"
"lern2play"