Video games have come under fire lately as a possible contributing factor in a variety of undesirable behaviors, particularly for boys. Whether it’s examining possible links between real world violence and video games or questioning the connections between gaming and issues of apathy and motivation, many are quick to point a finger at the flashing screens in living rooms all around the world.
It’s easy to make this connection based on correlation. If a kid is struggling, there are good odds you’ll find that he also plays video games — not necessarily because the video games are the cause of his troubles, but because video games are so pervasive. According to stats in this TED presentation, 90% of school-age kids play video games. In the month following the release of the first-person shooter game, Call of Duty Black Ops, the manufacturer estimated that the game had been played worldwide for a total of 600 million hours. That’s equivalent to 68,000 years!
We have to be careful about turning correlation into causation. There have been several reports that shooters like Anders Breivik and Adam Lanza played violent video games. That certainly should be noted and explored, but judging from the stats above, there are likely many more people playing who don’t become violent than who do.
It’s easy to pile on. With plenty of games full of disturbingly graphic violence and rewards for violence and cruelty, it’s hard not to take a common-sense jump to causation by association. But video game supporters say the data just isn’t there to support the assumption that violent video games lead to actual violence and point out that the Supreme Court has come down on their side, questioning the validity of every study they had been given that tried to link the two.
Yet, what no one debates is that playing video games changes kids’ brains. Game supporters say that it’s for the better. They cite studies that point out benefits from video games, particularly first person shooter games, such as improved spatial reasoning, visual acuity, decision making, and attention.
While there may be some unsubstantiated judgements about video games out there, I have some issues with what supporters tout as the benefits of gaming. For example, supporters will tell you that gaming actually improves attention. But the study cited here supports this statement with a study that measures attention by how well a person can track multiple flashing dots as they move around a screen filled with dots of another color. Seems to be a biased format to me. Show me a study where video games are correlated to an improvement in attention to a conversation or details in a real-life environment and I’ll be more impressed.
Bottom line, I personally find the argument for benefits to be weak. I don’t know many people who worry that their kids don’t track dots on screens well enough or that they don’t recognize the subtle differences between gray tones (a benefit to gamers which supporters claim help them to be better drivers in the fog). But I know plenty of us worry about our kids and their tolerance of violence, their skill in connecting with and caring about people, and their own motivation and drive to get what they want out of life.
On those topics the research seems a bit murkier. Some research claims that playing violent video games has no detrimental impact on empathy or sensitization to violence. But research like this one rely on self-reported responses, which lends itself to respondents giving what they believe are socially acceptable responses. Another test examined players’ brains as they viewed emotionally charged photos, and found biological responses that make the opposite argument — those who had spent more time in first-person shooter games showed less of a response in their frontal lobes.
Perhaps the strongest argument that video games may contribute to desensitization would be it’s use in the US military. According to retired military psychologist, David Grossman, during the first two World Wars, soldiers were reticent to fire their arms. Killing another person was against human nature, an honorable quality but not exactly productive in terms of military exploits. So the military changed from bulls-eyes to human-shaped targets. It wasn’t just about marksmanship, it was the willingness to shoot another person — desensitization. As technology improved, the military’s process evolved as well. Today they use first-person shooter video games, not just for tactical training, but also to condition soldiers to override the natural inhibition to shoot another person.
What does it all mean?
The merry-go-round of research can be absolutely dizzying. Perhaps the best approach is the quote Einstein had hanging in his Princeton office:
“Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.”
We can measure response times and visual acuity and brain changes and argue about testing formats and validity. But we can’t count what kids are missing when they spend excessive amounts of time gaming in a virtual world. We can read about study subject after study subject, or we can watch our own kids and note how they respond to the stimulus in their real lives.
I don’t want to give the misconception that my family doesn’t allow video games in our home. We do. But I often feel conflicted. We’re constantly discussing content and time with our kids and trying to find the right balance. My husband and I realize that we live in a wired world — for the better and the worse. We know our kids are native speakers in this land and we are the second language learners. But we are hoping to teach our kids as much as we can about being wise and informed consumers and responsible in their use of technology. It’s an important task, but not an easy one.
What’s a Parent to Do?
Perhaps the best analogy I heard came from video game researcher, and proponent, Daphne Bavelier. She compared the benefits of video games to the benefits of the antioxidant resveratrol in wine. I assume she was alluding to the fact that something many view as frivolous or even detrimental can actually have positive effects as well. As we look for guidance on video games and kids, I would take the wine analogy a step further.
Content Matters
Just as wine contains the beneficial ingredient resveretrol, it also contains alcohol, something one must be mindful about consuming. One can’t consume wine for the resveretrol without the effects of the alcohol. Similarly, video games don’t just produce the beneficial outcomes proponents suggest, but they also flood the brain with dopamine. Dopamine is the chemical that surges into the brain when we feel rewarded. It’s the reason people want to keep playing, and the reason game developers say we should be using this powerful motivation to create games with positive outcomes (learning games, etc.).
It’s also what makes players feel like they actually have accomplished something today, though they’re still in yesterday’s pajamas, covered in Doritos crumbs, going on hour 18 of the latest release. The dopamine itself is not a problem, it’s a naturally-occurring brain chemical. But it is the chemical that leads to a pattern of addiction. This potential misregulation of dopamine may be to blame for the apathy and lack of motivation that many complain typifies the excessive gamer. I also have to wonder if the dopamine high is what makes those with mental illness (particularly schizophrenic tendencies as the condition may be tied to dopamine regulation) seem to have more deleterious effects from excessive playing.
Avoid the Binge
Even researchers who claim video games have positive side effects agree that binge playing isn’t good for anyone. In general, experts recommend limiting total daily screen time to two hours a day for children over two. Limits are created not only to limit the stimulus coming in, but also to leave room for the other positive daily components like outdoor play.
How to limit? One mom claims Limiting Video Games is Delusional, and she makes some good points. Others set strict limits and hold fast. Another mom mentioned in a discussion on my Facebook page that she simply sat down and had a frank discussion with her son about her concerns and asked him to come up with suggestions for regulating his time. As FDR once said, “There are many ways of going forward, but only one way of standing still.”
Abstain
Just as some families prefer to keep alcohol out of their homes and the hands of their kids, some may choose to keep video games out all together. That can be a perfectly brilliant choice.
No Underage Drinking
Just as we don’t give children wine, even with all the promised benefits of resveretrol, we have to be judicious about the exposure of young children to video games and screen time in general. Video games marketed to babies and toddlers, touting educational benefits are ignoring critical information about brain development. Likewise, we must be prudent gatekeepers monitoring the appropriateness of video games (and all media) in our homes.
All this research has given me a lot to talk about with my boys. How about you? What’s your policy on video games in your home? How has it evolved?
Start Reading the Building Strong Boys Series Here
Resources
Video Games Boost Brain Power, Multitasking Skills {npr}
How Video Games Change the Brain {Scientific American}
Violent Video Games May Alter Brain Function {US News}
The Video Game Industry Needs to Defend Itself — Here’s How {The Atlantic}
Is Technology Wiring Teens to Have Better Brains? {PBS Newshour}
My two school aged boys get 30 min. of computer time a day, but it is the first thing to get taken away if there is any fighting / insults / swearing during the day. So depending on the week, they sometimes get 30 min a day, or some weeks they get none at all! My oldest son (8) also has a DS. I’m trying to let him monitor how much he plays, but if he becomes obsessive about playing it, won’t turn it off when I ask him to, or plays during times when he is supposed to be doing other things, then the DS takes a time out. So far this is a pretty good compromise. We are pretty careful about the content of the games, which causes a lot of arguments, as my 8 yr old’s classmates are already playing all the first person shooter games, and he’s not allowed.
This is a tricky subject and I appreciate your open-minded stance. My husband is a video game developer, so I knew we would have to confront this issue early. Our three-year-old son already knows how to access the games on both of our phones, and he knows how to actually play most of them. He also plays a handful of games on our collection of consuls. We do limit his play time, but there are no hard and fast rules. He plays games for kids because the adult games are just too hard for him at this point . . . we’ll see what happens as he gets older. My husband was never limited by his parents – not only was he allowed to play whatever he wanted, he was also allowed to watch rated R movies from a very young age. This I think will be the more difficult subject to address as our son gets older.
I don’t think video games in of itself are part of the increase in violence, but movies and T.V are very much part of the equation as well
Video game and tv are definitely a cause of violence and desensitization. Definitely. The simplest study is Bandura’s Bobo Doll experiment. Show people someone punching and clown and more of them will punch a clown themselves. It’s like giving permission to do it. Not everyone likes to be violent, but those that do will feel better about doing it, and it won’t seem as abhorrent to any of them. I have personal experience in this. I worked at a slaughterhouse for a summer, watching 800 animals killed per day. Other people wince at the slightest bit of blood, but I don’t find death or injury disturbing almost at all (though I still value life, perhaps more than others because I’ve seen it end almost a thousand times a day).
Second. Video games ought to be practically eliminated from young children’s lives if you want them to learn to read or pursue other things that are valuable. Games are a time investment, pure entertainment for the most part. Slightly less passive than TV, but not much in terms of creating valuable skills.
Finally: Penelope Trunk is totally wrong about the effects of creating artificial scarcity. The scarce resource is time, not video games. If it isn’t spent on video games then it can be spent on other things. She knows this in her heart, she’s a crazy successful entrepreneur, which she wouldn’t be if she was addicted to video games.
Great topic – thanks for bringing this up!
About screen time in general: if we eliminate it completely we don’t have the opportunity to teach kids how to develop healthy habits. Just like we strive to teach kids to eat healthy meals and not just sweets we can teach them how to enjoy the occasional movie or video game but not let it take over their lives.
When my cousin was about 8 or 9, my Aunt set up a really helpful “screen time” system. My cousin was allowed a certain amount of TV and video game time per week total. He was in charge of scheduling that time. While I was visiting, he told me that he wouldn’t watch any TV that day because he really wanted to see the basketball game the next day and he was almost out of screen time for the week. I thought it was really clever because it put him in charge. He was happy because he had some flexibility with how he used his time but he still had clear limits. I thought it was a really good system for a child his age (and up) and seemed to work for the whole family.
You done a great job of presenting different points of view in the debate and it’s great to have lots of resources to follow up. The biggest concern for my family with video games has not been violence, but the obsessive nature of game playing. My oldest son (who is 7) has a lot of trouble regulating his playing – for example, if you let him play when friends are over, he can keep playing even when his friends have lost interest. I think that this is a particularly hard issue for my son, but must affect all children to some extent.
Hi, Amanda. Thanks for the shout out in your post.
One way to think about this is that there are books that are bad for your kids and food that is bad for your kids, so you pick and choose what your kids have access to. You can do the same with video games. Of course there are video games that you would agree are educational for your kids. So expose your kids to those.
Debating if video games are good or bad is like debating if books are good or bad. There are a gazillion. They are both good and bad.
Penelope
Agreed, Penelope. When it comes to content, I equate most media as I would food. Some food is great for you, some isn’t exactly healthy but won’t hurt you as long as you don’t make it a steady diet, and some (say poisonous mushrooms or old lunch meat) that can really make you sick. I think there’s great benefit in teaching kids to make that distinction as consumers of media.