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Here at Negative Gamer we’re, well negative. We’re pessimistic, gloomy, grumpy, cynical, unenthusiastic and cantankerous, and it appears to be good measure! An Australian study has found that being grumpy is in fact good for you, enabling you to be better at making decisions and being more attentive.
Professor Joe Forgas at the University of South Wales took a group of volunteers and asked them to think about previous occasions that would make them happy or sad and then asked them to “judge the truth of urban myths and provided eyewitness accounts of events”. The researcher found that people in bad moods made better judgements and were better at communicating ideas than the happier enthusiastic gits, who were in turn more creative and co-operative.
A new piece of research has been published detailing findings that show a correlation between playing video games and a lesser ability to focus.
The study conducted at Iowa State University took 51 men aged between 18 and 33, recorded their gaming habits and then observed their brain as basic tests were conducted. The results showed that “high” gamers (with an average of 43 hours a week spent gaming) had noticeably different brain patterns than “low” gamers (with an average of just under two hours of gaming per week).
Whilst I don’t pretend to understand the majority of the scientific results in the paper, they do back up the following statement taken from the Discussion section of the article.
Together, these data may indicate that the video game experience is associated with a decrease in the efficiency of proactive cognitive control that supports one’s ability to maintain goal-directed action when the environment is not intrinsically engaging.
Can you predict review scores? Graham McAllister thinks so and I agree to a certain extent. Eurogamer reports that Graham Mr McAllister has been conducting research on predicting game review scores. I do agree that review scores can be predicted relatively accurately, however I don’t go down the scientific route with McAllister.
The research apparently involves “behavioural or sequential analysis” fancy terms for, if you fall asleep, you’re not enjoying the game, or if your controller gets hurled through the screen, you’re angry, etc. John Gottman who is responsible for this particular piece of the research might disagree with my blasé analysis. Reverse engineering of old reviews, particularly those of Edge magazine, is another method used in this research. They look at the correspondence between words and phrases used in a review and the score given to the game and chart them. This is a piece of the research I will admit to wanting to read. Read more →
A report was released recently by the University of Adelaide, South Australia which looked at the gambling attitudes and habits of over 2,500 12-17 years olds. The report, which is a fairly interesting read in itself, talks about the perceptions that young gamblers have about their odds of winning within certain gambling games. Card games, scratch cards and lottery’s are listed and briefly, so are videogames. The researcher, Professor Paul Delfabbro, was recently in an interview with ABC Australia’s ‘The World Today’ programme talking about his research. The lead story?
“Study links video games with gambling” Read more →
Much of the scientific research in to the effects of video games on players’ behaviour concludes that violent games promote aggression. “Nonsense,” say the gamers. “I play Halo every day, and I’ve never killed anyone. These scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.”
I doubt gamers would say the same of this latest piece of research, published in the journal Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin and written by several leading scientists in the field (including Doug Gentile who we interviewed last month), which shows that playing “prosocial” games can encourage people to be more helpful and considerate to others.
The paper presents the findings of three separate studies conducted using different scientific methods and in different countries. This, says the authors, is the best way to establish the true effect of video games on behaviour. Read more →
We all know that sometimes the lure of “just one more level” proves too much. It’s only when the sun begins to rise that you realise perhaps you’ve been playing a little too long. When Half Life 2 was released, I literally played the game from dusk til dawn. Is the occasional late night something to worry about though?
Research presented today at SLEEP 2009, the 23rd Annual Meeting of the Associated Professional Sleep Societies, suggests that it might be. Amanda Woolems of the University of Arkansas found that “excessive” gamers sleep less than casual gamers. There was also a link between hours played and sleepiness and gamers who reported that gaming interfered with their sleep slept 1.6 hours a night less than others. Those claiming to be addicted to gaming also slept one hour less on weekdays. Read more →
[Dr. Douglas Gentile is a developmental psychologist, and is an assistant professor of Psychology at Iowa State University and the Director of Research for the National Institute on Media and the Family. His experience includes over 20 years conducting research with children and adults. He has published research on violent video games, on prosocial video games, on how video games may improve laparoscopic surgical skills, and most recently on video game "addiction." You can visit his site at www.drdouglas.org ]
Recently Doug Gentile published his most recent study, stating that 8.5% of American youth showed signs of addiction. It was picked up by a lot of major gaming sites, bringing along with it controversy among commenters.
You can read about the study here.
Dismissal of studies and research is common among gamers; fear of anything bad surrounding their hobby creates a defensive barrier denouncing all claims. This interview’s purpose is to better inform gamers about research, the “addiction” debate, and how researchers are not the evil antagonists that everyone makes them out to be. Read more →
It’s time for a Negative Gamer first: a book review! Grand Theft Childhood
Written by husband and wife team Drs. Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl K. Olson, Grand Theft Childhood is the culmination of a $1.5 million study, funded by the US Department of Justice, into the the effects of video games on young teenagers. Although the pair were already involved in child development and media effects research, it was watching their son Michael grow up playing increasingly violent games that lead to their work. Read more →
I gathered up all the data I could carry from the major gaming sites over a 48 hour period. Why? So I can find out for my own personal amusement what the average breakdown in content is for the news I read every day.
I am well aware that I’m not a learned statistician and I’m also well aware than 48 hours really isn’t a long enough time period to fairly judge any site on. It is however enough to satisfy my curiosity. Please don’t take any of this as hard solid fact. Read more →
Happy Sunday indeed. As usual I gave myself too much to talk about. I might start using something other than YouTube so I can talk for longer… but then again, people might like the fact I have a 10 minute limit. Regardless, here are a few things I chatted about this week:
Told you there was a lot.
This is also the same piece of research that apparently implies that videogames have no positive effect.
According to the widely sourced article in the Deseret News:
Alex Jensen had the perfect gig for a college senior. One of his favorite professors at Brigham Young University was going to let him research one of his favorite pastimes: video games.
What could possibly go wrong? Whatever he found likely would turn into a scholarly journal article that would boost his chances of getting into the right graduate school and becoming a professor himself one day.
Everything was great until the 24-year-old from West Jordan started to compile the results. They were bad, so bad Jensen still hasn’t told his friends what he found. He only told his wife this week, because his findings were scheduled to be published today in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence and reporters were starting to call.
Turns out that after reviewing responses from 813 college students around the nation, Jensen learned that the more the students play video games, the worse their relationships are with friends and parents.
Can this really be true? BYU professor Laura Walker, the article’s lead author said that: “Everything we found associated with video games came out negative.”
Curious to know more, I found a copy of the report and read it.
It’s nice when somebody smarter than you says what you’ve been trying to say in a more intelligible manner than you could ever achieve.
In his paper titled The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic? Christopher J. Ferguson argues that claims linking video games and violence are “faulty and fail to acknowledge the significant methodological and constructional divides between existing video game research and acts of serious aggression and violence.”
Ars Technica have an excellent digest of the report that I highly recommend to anybody interested in the topic.
One of the clearest points Ferguson makes with the report is the one made with the following, very basic chart:
During the conclusion of the report, Ferguson points out the basic fact, almost always overlooked by the scaremongering and shock based mainstream media, that there simply is no reliable evidence supporting a link between violence in behaviour and violence in video games.
As presented here, the wealth of evidence, from social science research on video games, to governmental reports and legal cases, to real world data on crime, fails to establish a link between violent video games and violent crimes, including school shootings. The link has not merely been unproven; I argue that the wealth of available data simply weighs against any causal relationship.
Hopefully this report will join the rest of the research in the field and act as solid ground for all of us who are forced to defend video games in this most controversial and utterly unnecessary argument.
In a new study sure to be widely misreported around the web, a research from Stockholm University have looked into the effect of kids playing violent videogames.
The paper, published in Acta Paediatrica (and available here), used 19 boys aged between 12 and 15 and told them to play one violent, and one non-violent game for 2 hours before bed. Measurements of their heartbeat and movement were measured whilst they played, and during the following night of sleep.
To investigate how playing a violent/nonviolent television game during the evening affects sympathetic and parasympathetic reactions during and after playing as well as sleep quality during the night after playing.
To keep things fair, the two games had to both be as similar as possible, apart from the violence.
- Violent game involves – and rewards – direct physical violence against another person, and nonviolent game involves no violence.
- No differences between games concerning frustrating elements, other stressors, attraction and difficulty.
- The main character should be shown on the screen and controlled by a remote control by the player (‘third-person game’).
- Both games must be conducted in the same manner.
The non-violent game chosen was Ignition Entertainment’s Animaniacs. But what is the violent equivalent? Rockstar’s Manhunt of course!
Reading the report, I assumed it would simply show that when a 12 to 15 year old is playing the 18+ rated murder simulator, they would be much more on edge and so would have disrupted sleep. But it turns out, one of the biggest differences was simply the difficulty between the two games, with 10 of the boys reporting the violent game was more challenging. Something you would expect as the target audience is much older.
The results also indicated negligible or no correlation between stress, measured using heart rate variability (HRV) and;
However, the actual heart-rate of the player was significantly higher when playing the violent game. With both games the boy took longer to go to bed, and in the case of the violent game, it was harder to fall asleep. Something echoed in the morning when it is noted that it was much easier to wake up after playing the nonviolent game.
What about when the boys were actually asleep? Again, there were a few noticeable differences, primarily with the very low frequency (VLF) cycle your heart goes through during the night. Interestingly, one explanation is actually that the player is being appalled by the violence.
There was also a higher activity of the VLF component during violent (compared to nonviolent) gaming [...] One tentative hypothesis is that the high VLF activity during violent playing may be a reflection of parasympathetic activity evoked by disgust rather than by an urge to fight, which would rather have resulted in signs of arousal like increased heart rate.
Regarding the actual quality of the sleep, the report points out it’s very hard to judge based on the findings, but do say that it suggests that neither game disturbed sleep.
The lack of sleep disturbance after violent gaming is also evident from the similar ratings of sleep quality and state on awakening for the two conditions.
The conclusion of the report calls for more research into the subject, and points out that their chosen (and rarely used) method of observing the HRV is a very useful approach. They also reaffirm that there was no measurable difference in quality of sleep for either game.
Violent gaming between 8 and 10 pm induces different autonomic responses compared to nonviolent gaming – both during playing as well as during the following night – suggesting different emotional responses and possibly different needs of recovery. Subjectively perceived sleep quality was not influenced after a single gaming experience.
So there you have it, violent games clearly have a different impact on the gamer, but not on the quality of their sleep. Saying that, if you want to make getting out of bed easier on a Monday morning, don’t play Manhunt.
Via: GP
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