Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve Camray.
Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you welcome to stuff you should know
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. This Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Speaker 1: You can probably hear his forehead and scraping against his
Speaker 1: mic cover. You do not feel like doing us today? Do? No,
Speaker 1: We're gonna do it anyway. I mean, yes, we do
Speaker 1: not know we do? You can't affirm with the negative,
Speaker 1: yes we don't. Well, there it is Chuck, the cleverest
Speaker 1: banter we will ever have. Um. Hey, how are you?
Speaker 1: How are you? I'm fine, man, I'm feeling aggressive. I
Speaker 1: want to punch something. You've been playing violent video games,
Speaker 1: and I've been reading about people playing violent video games.
Speaker 1: It's apparently the magic bullet. It's what really makes you
Speaker 1: aggressive reading about that kind of thing. Oh, reading about yeah,
Speaker 1: articles on that sure. Yeah, so we need to be
Speaker 1: watching out for um. Yeah, people who read like parenting
Speaker 1: sections on like HuffPo or MSNBC, or like some of
Speaker 1: the most violent criminals now because of those um, Chuck,
Speaker 1: are you familiar with a little country called Germany? Mm?
Speaker 1: Hmm yeah, old Uh is that that's Russian, isn't it?
Speaker 1: That's Germany. I don't know if you've noticed this' not chuck,
Speaker 1: but over the last few weeks, I've gotten increasingly dumber.
Speaker 1: Have you picked up on that? Who you have? I have? UM?
Speaker 1: I don't really know. My the frequency of mispronouncing words
Speaker 1: has just gone up dramatically, which is really saying something. Um.
Speaker 1: Uh getting language is wrong, as I just did. That's
Speaker 1: a big one. Uh fallen asleep in the middle of
Speaker 1: stuff like I'm about to right now. Okay, Uh, chuck,
Speaker 1: you've heard of Germany? Uh. In two thousand six, late
Speaker 1: two thousand six, there was some thing of a fairly
Speaker 1: radical proposal that came up from the representatives of Bavaria
Speaker 1: and Lower Saxony get those two together. Things happen normally,
Speaker 1: not in this case, but normally. The representatives proposed a
Speaker 1: bill that would offer fines of uh. Well, I don't
Speaker 1: know how much the fines were, but the penalty of
Speaker 1: jail time up to twelve months for um may I
Speaker 1: quote uh, cruel violence on humans or human looking characters
Speaker 1: inside games. So creating a game inside games, yes, said, yeah,
Speaker 1: that's funny. Creating a game where there is violence violence
Speaker 1: can happen, or playing a video game and inflicting violence
Speaker 1: virtual violence could get your twelve months in jail, according
Speaker 1: to these guys. So you can't play Call of Duty
Speaker 1: you would spend the rest of your life in jail.
Speaker 1: If these guys had had their rather radical resolution passed,
Speaker 1: it felt flat on its face. But the whole thing
Speaker 1: was in reaction to um the the prior month, the
Speaker 1: spree killing or almost I guess free maiming by Sebastian Boss,
Speaker 1: who was eighteen. He was the worst school shooter Germany
Speaker 1: ever had. Any He wounded thirty seven people, didn't kill anybody, Um,
Speaker 1: but he did kill himself. You you you remember he
Speaker 1: played counter Strike a lot. I find it interesting that
Speaker 1: he shot thirty seven people and didn't kill anyone. I'll
Speaker 1: bet he found that something other than interesting. Did he
Speaker 1: try to just wound? No, I know that's probably dumb question. No,
Speaker 1: he went on a rampage and he just missed. Okay,
Speaker 1: so anyway, this is god he well yeah, he um,
Speaker 1: but he played a lot of counter Strike. That was
Speaker 1: his big thing. And nowadays is you you have grown
Speaker 1: up and since the nine and you've been paying attention,
Speaker 1: so you know that anytime there's a spree shooting at
Speaker 1: a school by a teenager, one of the first things
Speaker 1: that comes out is what their violent video game of
Speaker 1: choice was. And legislation like this out of Germany. Is
Speaker 1: it is radical like putting someone in jail for acts
Speaker 1: of virtual violence? Um, but it's it's getting to be
Speaker 1: par for the course, you know, which leads us to
Speaker 1: a very big question, though, before you start throwing people
Speaker 1: in jail for playing video games, before creating video games,
Speaker 1: we have to prove whether or not video games is
Speaker 1: especially violent ones cause real life violence. And as I
Speaker 1: learned after reading this article, the jury is very much
Speaker 1: still out on that. Yeah, although both sides have very
Speaker 1: persuasive arguments, and I think you should explore buff Um,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna go ahead and say it's probably hard
Speaker 1: to prove anything when it comes to this. Why. Well,
Speaker 1: because of all the reasons we're going to mention, it's
Speaker 1: it's a very complicated issue. Yeah, Um, whether or not
Speaker 1: that was the thing that pushed someone over the edge,
Speaker 1: or whether or not it was an inspiration, whether or
Speaker 1: not it had nothing to do with it. It's uh,
Speaker 1: it's tough to prove something like that, right, And there's
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are like, yes, school shooters
Speaker 1: are horrifying, They're terrifying. The idea that your kid could
Speaker 1: go to school and get shot and killed by a
Speaker 1: classmate on a rampage, that's that that would terrify anybody.
Speaker 1: So yeah, of course you want to get to the
Speaker 1: root of it. But a lot of people are saying,
Speaker 1: don't stop at video games. Even the a p A,
Speaker 1: The American Psychological Association, UM, who are very much in
Speaker 1: favor of the idea that violent video games cause real
Speaker 1: life violence, say, don't just stop at video games, like
Speaker 1: that's one part of a larger hole, and we've not
Speaker 1: figured it out because video games. You can just lay
Speaker 1: that at the feet of one thing and go back
Speaker 1: to work. Let your let your kids go back to
Speaker 1: playing video games. Yeah, I gotta quote, I was gonna
Speaker 1: hang onto this might as well read it though. UM.
Speaker 1: There's a book written called Grand Theft Childhood, The Surprising
Speaker 1: Truth about Violent video Games and what Parents can do,
Speaker 1: And this is by Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olsen, and
Speaker 1: they are co directors of the Harvard Medical School Center
Speaker 1: for Mental Health and media. They wrote this book. Um,
Speaker 1: and they have a guy that they interviewed, a psychologist
Speaker 1: who specializes in media research called Guy Cumberbatch. Wow, it
Speaker 1: sounds like a Simpson's character. He's real though, Um And
Speaker 1: he says, uh, and I'm gonna quote. The real puzzle
Speaker 1: is that anyone looking at the research evidence in this
Speaker 1: field could draw any conclusions about the pattern, let alone
Speaker 1: argue with such confidence and even passion that demonstrates the
Speaker 1: harmon violence on television, in film, and in video games.
Speaker 1: While test of statistical significance are a vital tool of
Speaker 1: the social sciences, they seem to have been more often
Speaker 1: used in this field as instruments of torture on the
Speaker 1: data until it confesses something which could justify publication in
Speaker 1: a scientific journal. So basically, he's, in a very verbose way,
Speaker 1: kind of said, what you're saying is that it's easy
Speaker 1: to scapegoat something like a video game by looking at
Speaker 1: um anecdotal research. It is very easy. Um. And Also,
Speaker 1: I think part of the reason why school shooters not
Speaker 1: not just because they're so sensational they are, sure, also
Speaker 1: because most if not all of them did play violent
Speaker 1: video games, but also because the school shooting rampage so
Speaker 1: closely mirrors video game action even to the casual observer.
Speaker 1: Um that I think like it's something that's really been
Speaker 1: zeroed in on. Well, the army uses it for training,
Speaker 1: you know, and so it's bound to be Uh, it's
Speaker 1: bound to put you in that headspace which makes a
Speaker 1: lot of sense. Sure, which is that's an argument on
Speaker 1: the side of um people who say that, yes, video games,
Speaker 1: violent video games create real life violence. So let's let's
Speaker 1: explore that. Let's look at the the side that says yes, obviously,
Speaker 1: ding Bat, if you play violent video games, you're going
Speaker 1: to be violent. And this isn't new. By the way,
Speaker 1: we should point out that like before video games, it
Speaker 1: was laid at the feet of TV, well, comic books
Speaker 1: before that, even before that. And I wondered, though, if
Speaker 1: you go back far enough, the media is a fairly
Speaker 1: recent thing, at least as far as like entertainment media.
Speaker 1: So say the advent of radio, big radio in like
Speaker 1: the twenties. Say, what did anybody blame violence on before that? Uh?
Speaker 1: Probably the real reason, which is that some people are sociopaths. Well,
Speaker 1: I think you you make an excellent point, Chuck, What
Speaker 1: what you're saying, I think I tend to agree with
Speaker 1: is that's possible in in everybody, and then probably more
Speaker 1: possible in some of us than others. So is it
Speaker 1: just a convergence of large public schools where you have
Speaker 1: a lot of people who you don't like sitting like
Speaker 1: ducks in one place, and converging with access easy access
Speaker 1: to guns? Is that all the school shooter is. It's
Speaker 1: pretty complicated issue. Okay, so go ahead and sorry about that.
Speaker 1: That's all right? UM, I guess we can sign a
Speaker 1: couple of more cases that in the media at least
Speaker 1: have placed the blame on on video games UM. In
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, in Alabama, Devon Moore famously ah
Speaker 1: was arrested for car theft UM suspicion and he's eighteen.
Speaker 1: Brought him into the station to book him, and he
Speaker 1: kind of went nuts. He attacked the cop, stole his gun,
Speaker 1: shot him, shot another cop, went down the hall, shot
Speaker 1: at nine one one dispatch in the head, then grabbed
Speaker 1: the squad car keys and took off in squad car.
Speaker 1: That's crazy. And and what game did he play? He
Speaker 1: played Grand Theft Auto, which is pretty much how that
Speaker 1: game goes down, And reportedly after he was arrested. He
Speaker 1: even said, quote life as a video game, everybody's got
Speaker 1: to die sometime. And he was convicted and sentenced to death,
Speaker 1: and I could not find out if he's still on
Speaker 1: death row or if he was put to death. It's
Speaker 1: so frustrating when you can't find out something that should
Speaker 1: be so easy to find out. Did you try the
Speaker 1: Alabama's Department of Corrections website. No, I mean I was
Speaker 1: gonna call somebody, but it just ran out of time.
Speaker 1: So at any rate, he was convicted, an appealed, and
Speaker 1: I think that appeal was denied. But um, when this
Speaker 1: happens a lot of times, there are lawsuits filed. In
Speaker 1: the case of Columbine, one of the wife of a
Speaker 1: teacher there, um sued wh she sue. She sued Sony
Speaker 1: and Nintendo and Time Warner and Palm Pictures because, Uh,
Speaker 1: Clibold and Harris had also watched The Basketball Die. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you remember that party. But what's strange is that that
Speaker 1: movie came out and with the late nineties, but the
Speaker 1: Basketball Diaries were written by Jim Carroll and like the seventies,
Speaker 1: maybe in the sixties, and people were thinking about doing
Speaker 1: that back then obviously, well and also wonder and boy,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be all over the place here, but also
Speaker 1: wonder about what constitutes as far as the lawsuit goes,
Speaker 1: a negative correlation, Like what if someone made a movie
Speaker 1: about the Columbine massacre and some kid watched that and
Speaker 1: then later on did his own thing, like if something,
Speaker 1: you know, even if that movie decries it and shows
Speaker 1: the repercussions, which is one of the big points that
Speaker 1: a lot of parents make, because these video games don't
Speaker 1: show the repercussions of these actions. It's all just fantasy.
Speaker 1: So like, where do you draw the line there as
Speaker 1: far as the lawsuit goes? Well, that's also a really
Speaker 1: good question, like where do you draw the line as
Speaker 1: far as legislation goes, Because what we're talking about here
Speaker 1: basically is say, ultimately, the idea that if video games
Speaker 1: cause violence in just some people banning them all together.
Speaker 1: It's the same thing like we did with booze and prohibitions.
Speaker 1: There are some alcoholics who couldn't help themselves to the
Speaker 1: rest of us who weren't alcoholics could just give it up,
Speaker 1: and let's just do that, right, But are you gonna
Speaker 1: ban movies and TV and comic books and everywhere else
Speaker 1: that has any kind of violence portrayed. Art think, So
Speaker 1: I don't think that's ever going to be able to happen,
Speaker 1: And no, I don't. I think ultimately, if you follow
Speaker 1: that argument to its logical conclusion, now you come to
Speaker 1: where you and I are sitting, which is, no, there's
Speaker 1: some crazy people out there and some are kids. All right,
Speaker 1: So should we talk about a little bit of the
Speaker 1: studies in the science behind it. Yeah, So like on
Speaker 1: the in the camp where they where they think that yes,
Speaker 1: violent video games cause violence. There problem, Their most persuasive
Speaker 1: argument is that, yes, TV has been linked to aggressive
Speaker 1: behavior in kids. Right, TV violence has been through other studies.
Speaker 1: They've been doing this for years and years and years.
Speaker 1: Video games are relatively new, but um by extension, video
Speaker 1: games should be even more prone degenerating violence in the
Speaker 1: player because playing video games is more immersive than watching television.
Speaker 1: You're interacting, right. Also though they're based on the reward
Speaker 1: system of learning, right conditioning exactly, So if I if
Speaker 1: I shoot you and behind you is like this magic donut,
Speaker 1: and I get like, I get another life once I
Speaker 1: grab the magic donut, right, I'm gonna shoot you, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn the next time that I need to
Speaker 1: shoot you again to get that magic donut. Last time
Speaker 1: I got the reward. That's a pretty broad basic example,
Speaker 1: but the the whole point of video games is based on,
Speaker 1: like you said, classical conditioning. They should have a podcaster
Speaker 1: game where it's like us and Mark Marrin and Ira
Speaker 1: Glass and Jesse Thorne and we're all like out there
Speaker 1: trying to kill each other, all right. I think that
Speaker 1: would do us all a little good. Judge Judge John
Speaker 1: Hodgman like presides over the whole thing. I don't know though,
Speaker 1: Adam Carola going down, Yeah, who would you take on first?
Speaker 1: Probably um you? It would be like um Golden Eye
Speaker 1: and just get trapped in the corner and just keep
Speaker 1: shooting me and waiting for me to come back. And
Speaker 1: one of those things where we're supposed to be teammates
Speaker 1: and like, you know, you can kill your own guy
Speaker 1: sometimes and what call of duty? Right? Um? I think
Speaker 1: a lot of those games where you can partner up,
Speaker 1: you can still shoot your partners. You used to not
Speaker 1: be the case. Oh it would just like fire by
Speaker 1: you or something. Yeh. You just sit there and like
Speaker 1: kind of move a little bit, but like nothing happened
Speaker 1: to you, It didn't have any effect on your life.
Speaker 1: Oh good stuff. So those are two big ones there.
Speaker 1: Immersive and they use classical conditioning. What else? Why else
Speaker 1: would a video game cause violence more be more likely
Speaker 1: to cause violence than just play on TV. Well, they
Speaker 1: did one study where they actually hook kids up to
Speaker 1: uh it didn't actually say what they just said they
Speaker 1: scanned the brain. So I'm guessing an m R. I
Speaker 1: UM in two thousand six at Indiana University and they
Speaker 1: UM have them play two games, A Need for Speed
Speaker 1: Underground and Medal of Honor colon frontline One is non
Speaker 1: violent Need for Speed I guess, and Medal of Honor
Speaker 1: is violent. First person shooters were talking about if you
Speaker 1: don't know what that is, carl out from under a rock,
Speaker 1: But it's when you are. It's the point of view
Speaker 1: of the person walking around shooting people. Is you? Um
Speaker 1: And the brain scans say showed that the kids who
Speaker 1: played the violent game showed increased activity in the amygdala,
Speaker 1: which stimulates emotion, decreased activity in the prefrontal cortext or
Speaker 1: lobe regulates inhibition and self control. Right, you realize what
Speaker 1: you just described, right, zombie zombie. I think you're gonna
Speaker 1: say that. But my question is is, like, wouldn't it
Speaker 1: be more cause of concern if there was like zero
Speaker 1: emotion going on. If these kids are playing these violent
Speaker 1: games and make it like shut down, that would freak
Speaker 1: me out. It's a really good point because the whole
Speaker 1: idea behind video games is to trick the brain into
Speaker 1: thinking that it's actually experiencing the game play. Right. I
Speaker 1: get like I don't play much anymore, but when I
Speaker 1: play Call of Duty, I would way get into it
Speaker 1: and like my heart would increase, and like if someone
Speaker 1: snuck up behind me and it was like, you know,
Speaker 1: it puts you there. But that's to me, like the
Speaker 1: fun of those games. Well, yeah, it's the point of them. Right,
Speaker 1: So your fighter fight or flight response is aroused, Um,
Speaker 1: your heart rates up, like you said, you're perspiring, you're jumpie,
Speaker 1: you know, But how does that translate to video games?
Speaker 1: And I guess an even bigger question is how long
Speaker 1: does that state of arousal last? Like if it did
Speaker 1: trans violent, Really, the only person who's in trouble is
Speaker 1: you know, your big brother or your best friend who
Speaker 1: you're playing next to, who just killed you and you
Speaker 1: lean over and you punch them like, yeah, I've done
Speaker 1: that before. Well that happens. Actually, I saw a bunch
Speaker 1: of cases where and it wasn't just violent video games.
Speaker 1: It was like people playing John Madden. Uh would like
Speaker 1: one guy Wisconsin, I think hit his buddy with a
Speaker 1: lead pipe, and then you know this one guy in
Speaker 1: England attacked a kid who killed him and call of duty.
Speaker 1: But they're like, these people are crazy and competitive and
Speaker 1: they might do the same thing playing monopoly. So maybe
Speaker 1: it's not violent. It's competitive video games make you violent.
Speaker 1: Maybe that's what we should be looking at. Mak So, right,
Speaker 1: let's see what else, Chuck, Oh, I've got one for you.
Speaker 1: These studies are just so awesome. Um So, especially after
Speaker 1: call him, I get the impression that there was like
Speaker 1: just a rash of studies like this. And then now
Speaker 1: the end is to go back and do meta analysis
Speaker 1: of these studies. But um one study found that it
Speaker 1: took kids and scored them um with like basically inherent hostility, right,
Speaker 1: And what it found was that kids with the lowest
Speaker 1: hostility score they were just the nicest little kids. When
Speaker 1: they played violent video games, they were ten times more
Speaker 1: likely to get in a physical fight than the kids
Speaker 1: with the lowest hostility scores who didn't play violent video games.
Speaker 1: So it was like they were thirty eight percent third
Speaker 1: they were, they had a thirty eight percent likelihood he
Speaker 1: getting a fight compared to like four so almost ten
Speaker 1: times right, and then even crazier according to the study, Um,
Speaker 1: there the kids with the lowest hostility score who played
Speaker 1: violent video games were more likely to get in a
Speaker 1: fight than the kids with the highest hostility scores who
Speaker 1: didn't play violent video games at least, so it would
Speaker 1: make nice kids bad and bad kids who didn't played
Speaker 1: it would just they would maintain that level or whatever.
Speaker 1: The nice kids who played them were worse than the
Speaker 1: bad kids, worse than the worst bad kids. Interesting, Yeah, so,
Speaker 1: like studies like these are coming out and it's making
Speaker 1: it like more and more clear, Like yes, all right, um,
Speaker 1: video games do cause violence, but there's a lot of
Speaker 1: ground left to cover before that link can be made,
Speaker 1: if it's ever made, And there's a lot of people
Speaker 1: trying to put the reins on this, especially once we
Speaker 1: are saying, well, you're you're looking, you're barking up the
Speaker 1: wrong tree, Like maybe, so maybe you're even right. But
Speaker 1: this isn't it. This isn't the one thing that's the problem.
Speaker 1: So what are some of the criticisms of this science,
Speaker 1: I guess explaining or showing a link between the two. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: one is that it's a lot of anecdotal stories. Um
Speaker 1: this uh the same guy Cumberbatch says, um the strong
Speaker 1: link between video games violence and real world violence, and
Speaker 1: the conclusion that it leads to social social isolation, poor
Speaker 1: interpersonal skills are drawn from bad and or irrelevant research,
Speaker 1: muddle headed thinking, and unfounded simplistic news reports. So that,
Speaker 1: for instance, in the Malvo DC sniper case, Lee Malvo,
Speaker 1: remember that his attorney actually argued that he trained quote
Speaker 1: unquote himself to kill by playing Halo on Xbox. Uh.
Speaker 1: He was even quoted as saying he's trained and desensitized
Speaker 1: with video games to shoot human forms over and over.
Speaker 1: In actuality, Lee Malvo trained by shooting paper plates with
Speaker 1: human faces drawn on them with real guns. Bye, what's
Speaker 1: his face? Who's the guy? I can't remember his name?
Speaker 1: But yeah, yeah, And in Halo, you shoot this weird
Speaker 1: looking space gun at like giant bug. So this was
Speaker 1: even brought up in a court of law that like Halo,
Speaker 1: led him to be a DC sniper, So it's definitely
Speaker 1: a lot of sensationalism going on. Um. And another thing
Speaker 1: they point out is that, ah, video game popularity and
Speaker 1: youth violence has been going in the opposite direction statistically.
Speaker 1: Since um it reached a peak, violent juvenile crime reached
Speaker 1: a peak in has been in decline ever since. Between
Speaker 1: ninety four and two thousand one, arrest for murder, forcible rape, robbery,
Speaker 1: and aggravated assault fell fort and had the lowest juvenile
Speaker 1: arrest rate for violent crimes since the early eighties. So ah,
Speaker 1: you know, that seems to fly in the face of
Speaker 1: the research at least. And the reason also people keep
Speaker 1: picking on kids is not just because there's school shooters,
Speaker 1: but the one of one of the assumptions that people's
Speaker 1: trying to prove that yes, um, violent video games caused
Speaker 1: violence is that if you are a child, you still
Speaker 1: have a developing brain, so you're gonna be more susceptible
Speaker 1: of that kind of classical conditioning that a violent video
Speaker 1: game provides. The thing is is like, as of I
Speaker 1: think two thousand and eleven, a survey of kids played
Speaker 1: video games, the average is about nine hours a week
Speaker 1: and then a great many of those video games are violent.
Speaker 1: So the numbers like that, it makes you wonder why
Speaker 1: there aren't more school shooters. Why, to make this point
Speaker 1: in this book, not a lot more common. Yeah, why
Speaker 1: isn't the world like millions of people play these games.
Speaker 1: Why isn't it just violent, chaotic world out there? All this?
Speaker 1: I might say this so again though, we should, we
Speaker 1: should kind of bring it back a little bit, like
Speaker 1: it's the school shooters are just like the most sensational
Speaker 1: um thing to point to. They're also worried that like
Speaker 1: kids are like pump punching each other more or you know, um,
Speaker 1: knifeing each other more. And the idea behind that is
Speaker 1: there's this thing called script theory, where um we it's
Speaker 1: it's an extension of this thing called affect theory. Right,
Speaker 1: We're basically like something happens to us, we have uh,
Speaker 1: an emotional reaction to something, and it triggers a response,
Speaker 1: a prescribed response, and it's it's fairly specific to the
Speaker 1: human being, but it's also kind of predictable well over time.
Speaker 1: Because remember, the brain is very lazy and likes to
Speaker 1: chunk things and do things as efficiently as possible. The
Speaker 1: same thing happens, Um, whenever we we come across the
Speaker 1: same emotional stimulus, right where we build a script. Okay,
Speaker 1: so if somebody comes up to us and we have
Speaker 1: been trained to or we've produced a script through violent
Speaker 1: video games where if somebody's coming at us, we have
Speaker 1: to shoot it. The idea behind script, they very crudely
Speaker 1: put is that, um, we would use violence, it would
Speaker 1: trigger a violent reaction because we are script for dealing
Speaker 1: with this has been built and compiled through violence through
Speaker 1: violent video games. Interesting, it is interesting. Um, it's also
Speaker 1: totally unproven. It's the problem. So, like number one, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of there's a there's despite all the studies,
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of scientific data out there that
Speaker 1: shows yes, violent video games cause violence. Well, they'll study
Speaker 1: like thirty kids. That's a big problem. Another one is like,
Speaker 1: how do you quantify violence and video games? How do
Speaker 1: you say when you're giving people, when you're testing pharmaceuticals,
Speaker 1: you can get it down to the milligram or microgram
Speaker 1: or whatever. How do you do that with exposure to
Speaker 1: violence in a video game? Well, yeah, because there's all
Speaker 1: kinds of levels of violence from Mario whacking animals on
Speaker 1: the head with mallets. H And that's That's one of
Speaker 1: the things that this book points out is that they're
Speaker 1: kind of getting it wrong with the ratings. The E.
Speaker 1: S r B is who rates video games ranging from
Speaker 1: uh early childhood rating, which is the sweetest of all ratings,
Speaker 1: all the way to mature and adults only. UM And,
Speaker 1: like I said, one of the problems is that people
Speaker 1: complain that there are no repercussions in video games, but
Speaker 1: they say they got it backwards and that um. In
Speaker 1: the in the lighter rated games, like the dead bodies
Speaker 1: just disappear instead of showing like this is a dead body,
Speaker 1: or the blood is like super animated and not realistic. Um.
Speaker 1: And it's basically saying no, these lighter rated games aren't
Speaker 1: showing negative consequences. Games that do show that are more
Speaker 1: likely to be rated M or A, which is adults only,
Speaker 1: which is interesting I thought so and also um. Another
Speaker 1: point is that the average gamer these days apparently is
Speaker 1: thirty so and listen as Mom's space mo, yeah he's
Speaker 1: He's also probably not out there committing acts of violence either, right. Uh.
Speaker 1: You know, I will say when I played like a
Speaker 1: lot of UM, call of duty or what was the
Speaker 1: driving one again? Grand Theft Auto that like it was
Speaker 1: the same one I played Tetris. I had like Tetris
Speaker 1: dreams like it. It gets into your dreams and it
Speaker 1: like gets into your crawl. And when I'm driving around,
Speaker 1: you have those thoughts of like, you know, bump the
Speaker 1: sky off the road and make this move like it's
Speaker 1: in your head, but you don't do it. You know,
Speaker 1: like people have thoughts all the time, but that you know,
Speaker 1: Cleibold and Harris were suicidal, depressed sociopaths. You know, they
Speaker 1: weren't like just great kids who played college or whatever
Speaker 1: game they accused them of playing and just decided to
Speaker 1: shoot up their school. But that's not to say it
Speaker 1: doesn't have some impact, you know. That's why it's such
Speaker 1: a tough issue. Yeah, it's definitely not there's not one.
Speaker 1: I don't think there's one side that's ever gonna be proven, right,
Speaker 1: I think it's going to be like, yes, Okay, this
Speaker 1: does have this effect that does have this impact on
Speaker 1: some people more than others, because it just just from
Speaker 1: the small amount of games that I've played, Like I
Speaker 1: know what it's like, Yeah, you get around, you get
Speaker 1: like excited fight or flight, and then you you start
Speaker 1: thinking about ways to play it better when you're not
Speaker 1: playing it. So yeah, it definitely does not It doesn't
Speaker 1: have just an immediate effect. It definitely extends to the
Speaker 1: rest of your life. But there is that line, and
Speaker 1: that's what we need to explore, in my opinion, is
Speaker 1: where that line is and how does that differ from people,
Speaker 1: from some people to another, and how do you take
Speaker 1: people who have the line a lot closer than it
Speaker 1: should be an extended further out. You, my friend, have
Speaker 1: hit on it. I think that's basically the summary of
Speaker 1: this book is we're asking the wrong questions and looking
Speaker 1: for the wrong uh causes. Basically, um, I'm gonna quote again.
Speaker 1: Instead of looking for a simple direct relationship, um, in
Speaker 1: all children, we should be asking ourselves, how might we
Speaker 1: identify those children who are the greatest risk for being
Speaker 1: influenced by everything from movies to the freaking news that
Speaker 1: they watch on TV every night and then put him
Speaker 1: in jail prematurely? I just said, freaking man, can we
Speaker 1: do that? Now? I'm pretty hopped up? Uh So, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you hit on it. Like you, these games
Speaker 1: aren't going away. Violent movies aren't going away the History Channel,
Speaker 1: which shows more violence than anything on television in going away. Um,
Speaker 1: none of these things are going anywhere, So maybe it's
Speaker 1: up to the parents to get involved a little more. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but like you have to stop watching TV to do
Speaker 1: something like that. Ah, you got anything else right now?
Speaker 1: I don't think so. Well, it's a tough issue. I
Speaker 1: get it, you know it is. This is definitely not
Speaker 1: when we're just gonna explain everything. But I feel like
Speaker 1: we explained both. It's right, I think so that the
Speaker 1: people on the pro side saying hey, here's all the
Speaker 1: science of people on the conside saying hey, you gotta
Speaker 1: do a little better. Right, Yeah, we'll see where we
Speaker 1: are in we'll come back here. Okay. If you want
Speaker 1: to learn more about this, you can type violent video
Speaker 1: games in the search bart how stuff works dot com.
Speaker 1: It will bring up this really good article. And uh,
Speaker 1: I said search bar, which means it's time through the listener. Mate,
Speaker 1: Josh gonna call this gas chromatography mass spectrometer, explained, of course,
Speaker 1: remember I brought that up in the body other thing,
Speaker 1: and I didn't have time to look it up. Luckily
Speaker 1: we have smart listeners. Um, guys have just heard the
Speaker 1: Body Oder podcast. Nicely done as always. Um. In the show,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that you didn't have time to look up
Speaker 1: gas chromatography mass spectrometer. Is there not an abbreviation for that?
Speaker 1: We call it gc M s Um, this is exactly
Speaker 1: the type of situation I'd be glad to help. And
Speaker 1: he's basically offering his services in the future too. It's
Speaker 1: like wherever, Like, uh, I don't time, he said, just
Speaker 1: pick up the phone. I'll explain it to you. So
Speaker 1: who He's an associate professor of physics at Thomas Moore
Speaker 1: College in Kentucky. That's awesome, um, And he says in
Speaker 1: a single sentence, a gas chromatography mass but trometer is
Speaker 1: essentially a machine for identifying the composition of molecules and
Speaker 1: a sample, which you clearly presume. In a brief essence,
Speaker 1: he says this. It has two parts, the gas chromatograph,
Speaker 1: which essentially breaks a sample into its component molecules and
Speaker 1: admits them on a delay based on their chemical properties,
Speaker 1: and then the mass spectrometer, which essentially finds the mass
Speaker 1: of the molecule. The combination of these processes identifies some
Speaker 1: molecular makeup. The amount of each type of molecule of
Speaker 1: the sample. And he said this only and then he
Speaker 1: had a longer version to which I read, but I'm
Speaker 1: not free now, and he said. This took me about
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen minutes to type out. Guys, I hope
Speaker 1: it encourages you to ask if you need a short
Speaker 1: overview of some minor detail. My goal in this offer
Speaker 1: is to maximize a number of times kids are exposed
Speaker 1: to the idea that the world around me is understandable.
Speaker 1: And he would be happy to donate his time to
Speaker 1: help us out in the future. This guy would make
Speaker 1: a great mascot, It's right. That is Joe Christensen of
Speaker 1: Thomas Moore College. The fighting jeez, I don't know if
Speaker 1: they have it sounds like a smart school. I don't
Speaker 1: know if they have sports. Thomas More, He wasn't the
Speaker 1: wong with the social contract prest View Hills, Kentucky. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's not where the social contract came from, but it's
Speaker 1: upheld there every day. That's right, Thank you very much,
Speaker 1: Professor Christensen. Let's say sure, thanks, professor Um and I
Speaker 1: think we will take you up on your offer at
Speaker 1: some point. Um. Let's see, uh, if you ever want
Speaker 1: to explain something to us. We're always in the market
Speaker 1: for that kind of thing. Specifically, I would love it
Speaker 1: if somebody can explain to me what's so great about
Speaker 1: prog rock because I don't get it. Um. You can
Speaker 1: tweet to us at s y s K podcast, You
Speaker 1: can go on to Facebook with its stupid timeline at
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com slash stuff you Should Know, and you
Speaker 1: can email us at Stuff Podcast at Discovery dot com
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
Speaker 1: it how stuff works dot Com. Brought to you by
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