The blame game

Despite the lack of any solution to experimental problems in the conclusion, I found this week's article "Violent Video Games" by Jeffrey Goldstein enlightening in regards to its critique of the various studies that have been conducted. For example, the fact that legitimate video game play cannot be recreated in a laboratory setting because researchers fail to recognise that play is voluntary. Because participants know that it is an experiment, they will not go into it with a truly playful frame of mind and may even think a certain kind of behaviour is expected of them, and thus change the way they act. Additionally, I was quite shocked to note that in many of the studies play was limited to between 5-15 minutes, which hardly seems enough time for the player to experience situated immersion. The measurements of violence were also so varied as to be incomparable (ranging from noise blasts to word association).

One of my favourite quotes in the article was from Barker concerning Third Person Effects: "So horrible things will make us horrible, not horrified...the idea is so odd..."

This quote encapsulates the nonsensical nature of the hypodermic model, which assumes that any form of violent media will automatically override our own established morals and thoughts, which I would hope would steer us away from recreating the violence in actual life.

I also found it interesting that while all the concern is directed towards children and teenagers, the vast majority of gamers are in their thirties. Until The Matrix Defence was discussed in class, I never would have thought it conceivable that a thirty-something or older person would be able to successfully argue that video games made them do it. The logic of this mass panic being that younger people are the ones at risk because their cognitive functions are still maturing and that they are more prone to being influenced. I discussed media image and violence in my first blog where I said, "Whereas one may say that people are a reflection of the media they consume, it may also be said that the media they choose to utilise in their lives is reflective of whom they are already." By this I meant that, for example, if they played extremely dark or destructive games and then killed someone, it could be that that was already the type of person they were anyway. And I am so glad that Kevin brought up this point in the lecture- that if they were psychopaths in the first place playing a video game probably isn't going to sway them further off the track.

On a final note, I think censorship is rather futile. Perhaps one could go so far as saying that it's just for show. When we were in college, so many of my friends would simply get a parent or older person to buy them a restricted game. Even complete stangers would do it for them without blinking. I guess they have bigger worries, like poverty and AIDS.