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Speaker 1: Brought to you by the reinvented two thousand twelve camera.

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Speaker 1: It's ready. Are you get in touch with technology? With

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Speaker 1: tech stuff from how stuff works dot com. Hi there, everyone,

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Speaker 1: Welcome to the podcast. My name is Chris Polatt. I'm

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Speaker 1: an editor here at How Stuff Works, and as usual,

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Speaker 1: I have the always tough senior writer Jonathan Strickland. Hey,

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Speaker 1: I was trying to adopt a tough video game voice

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Speaker 1: like this big you know, super muscular world. Yeah, actually

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Speaker 1: we miss you Fontane. Anyway, we wanted to talk today

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Speaker 1: about violence and video games, violence in video games, and

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Speaker 1: violence outside of video games that may have been caused

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Speaker 1: by the violence that you find in video games. Now

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Speaker 1: I want to shoot you. Well, my work here is done.

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Speaker 1: So there's been a lot of talk of pretty much

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Speaker 1: since video games really started turning pretty violent in the

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Speaker 1: early nineties. I guess about whether or not the violence

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Speaker 1: you find in these games has any correlation or causation

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Speaker 1: for violence in in everyday life. And um, we wanted

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Speaker 1: to kind of address this and talk about it because

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Speaker 1: it's it's a it's you know, it's definitely one of

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Speaker 1: those hot button topics. And uh, I don't think it's

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Speaker 1: been resolved one way or the other. Um, despite numerous studies. Yes,

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Speaker 1: I would say so. Actually I was doing research on

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Speaker 1: the on the podcast, and uh went to the library

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Speaker 1: online and there were literally, you know, at least a

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Speaker 1: hundred articles you know about both sides, you know, um,

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Speaker 1: scholarly journals even so, I mean they're people, people's opinions

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Speaker 1: are are mixed, even among the experts. It's um something

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Speaker 1: that yeah, it becomes a question of who do you

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Speaker 1: want to believe rather than you know, who has the

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Speaker 1: right answer, because as the jury, I guess is still out.

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Speaker 1: But before we get too far into this, we should

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Speaker 1: talk a little bit about, you know, kind of the

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Speaker 1: reasoning behind this. Um. You know, video games when they

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Speaker 1: first came out there, the biggest concern was they would

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Speaker 1: wrought your brain because you'd be sitting there for hours

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Speaker 1: playing them, uh instead of doing things like reading or

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Speaker 1: going outside, at least according to my parents outside. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: apparently there is something that exists with you know, outside

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Speaker 1: of the realm of your living room where you was. Um.

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Speaker 1: So yeah, that was the big concern for a while.

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Speaker 1: But then once video games started reaching a certain level

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Speaker 1: of sophistication, and I mean that in a sense of

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Speaker 1: graphics and sound and and and user interface not necessarily

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Speaker 1: in content. Once it reached that sophistication, people began to think, hey,

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Speaker 1: this stuff might actually have an effect beyond just being

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Speaker 1: a time waster. So we're talking about games like Mortal Kombat.

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Speaker 1: That was one of the big ones that got a

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Speaker 1: lot of people upset because they had way over the violence. Uh.

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Speaker 1: I wouldn't call it realistic because I've never seen a

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Speaker 1: ninja shoot ice out of his hands for real. Um,

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Speaker 1: you haven't. You haven't lived until you had. I gotta

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Speaker 1: say I haven't lived then. Um, But yeah, Mortal Kombat

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Speaker 1: got a lot of people upset, and uh are a

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Speaker 1: lot of parents anyway, we're concerned about it because it

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Speaker 1: was over the top violence. And of course these are

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Speaker 1: kids who are engaging in these games off and especially

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Speaker 1: back in the arcade days, back when you could still

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Speaker 1: go to an arcade and play against all these other kids.

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Speaker 1: And you just watch a group playing around one of

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Speaker 1: these games, and yeah, it seems like they get kind

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Speaker 1: of not necessarily physically aggressive toward one another, but they

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Speaker 1: definitely adopt a much more you know, aggressive kind of personality.

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Speaker 1: And and there's a lot of smack talking and a

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Speaker 1: lot of that kind of piling around. And then the

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Speaker 1: game's continued to get more sophisticated and you got into

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Speaker 1: things like the first person shooters, which really started to

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Speaker 1: concern some people, especially when you had it tie into

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Speaker 1: other real, actual, real life horrible events like the Columbine shooting. UM.

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Speaker 1: There was a connection between the people who who the

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Speaker 1: students who committed that act and and the first person

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Speaker 1: shooters that they enjoyed playing. UM. And then people began

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Speaker 1: to think, well, hey, could there possibly be something that is,

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Speaker 1: you know, something about these games that's inspiring these kids

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Speaker 1: to do these kind of things. And that's really where

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Speaker 1: this this avalanche began. Yeah. M. According to David Walsh,

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Speaker 1: who has a child psychologist and I still want of

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Speaker 1: yours UM, he said that the National Institutes of Health

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Speaker 1: had done some some research into it, and uh. He

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Speaker 1: co authored a study that connected the the playing of

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Speaker 1: violent video games to physical aggression UM. But he cited

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Speaker 1: that that information from the National Institutes of Health, and

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Speaker 1: it basically said the teenage brain is not fully developed,

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Speaker 1: so uh, you know, it's kids aren't ready for handling

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Speaker 1: violence like this that can actually form an impression on

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Speaker 1: them and you know, make a a normally docile kid

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Speaker 1: into a killing machine. And um, you know, there there

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Speaker 1: have been some incidents like in June seven, two thousand three,

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Speaker 1: Um Devon Moore in a town called Fayette, Alabama, killed

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Speaker 1: two police officers in a dispatcher. Um he had been

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Speaker 1: picked up for allegedly trying to steal a car, and uh,

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Speaker 1: you know, at the police station, he jumped up. According

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Speaker 1: according the information I read on CBS News, he uh

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Speaker 1: jumped up and grabbed the gun and shot the police

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Speaker 1: officer who had him in the head. Then when another

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Speaker 1: police officer come came to find what was going on, Uh,

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Speaker 1: he shot More shot him too and in the head.

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Speaker 1: And then a police dispatcher was at the end of

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Speaker 1: the hall and More shot him in the head and

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Speaker 1: grab the keys to a police cruiser and took off.

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Speaker 1: Now they caught him. He was tried and convicted and

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Speaker 1: sentenced to the death penalty. Um. But um, a very

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Speaker 1: famous attorney named Jack Thompson picked up this case and

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Speaker 1: uh he wanted to sue the publishers of the game,

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Speaker 1: which was Grand Theft Auto UM because apparently he uh

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Speaker 1: evidence suggested that More played a lot of grand theft

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Speaker 1: auto and which a lot of people. Basically, when the

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Speaker 1: deal is you steal cars and you shoot people, you

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Speaker 1: you commit mons and tons of crimes, yeah, among other things,

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Speaker 1: and can run people over and yeah. So uh so

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Speaker 1: Jack Thompson said, you know this was obviously because the

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Speaker 1: violent video game. Uh. And he sued Take two Interactive,

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Speaker 1: the publishers, and rock Star Studios, the studio that creates

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Speaker 1: the game. Um. And uh, you know, trying to bring

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Speaker 1: him down for the for the obvious effects. You know

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Speaker 1: that he claimed the game had on on Devin Moore. Sure, so, hey,

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Speaker 1: what's what's the up to these days? Uh, Jack Thompson,

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Speaker 1: he's cooling his heels. Um. Apparently. Well, for one thing,

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Speaker 1: he was a Florida lawyer and he tried to to

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Speaker 1: get a waiver to basically a one time permit to

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Speaker 1: try this case in Alabama. Um. However, the he has

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Speaker 1: since been disbarred in Florida permanently because, according to the

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Speaker 1: report on the Florida bar dot org website, UM, he

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Speaker 1: engaged in a number of unprofessional behaviors in in this case,

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Speaker 1: he couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Well, he's

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Speaker 1: uh I'll let him suit you for saying. Um. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: he he is known to the video game industry. If

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Speaker 1: you search for his name on sites that are known

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Speaker 1: for gaming or technology, UM, you'll find his name popping

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Speaker 1: up a lot of places. And he does not It's

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Speaker 1: clear he does not like violent video games, right. And

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Speaker 1: he still holds that position even though he's no longer

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Speaker 1: able to practice law. Yeah, and there, but there are,

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Speaker 1: like we said, there are definitely uh, medical professional psychologists

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Speaker 1: who are who also believe in this um, in this

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Speaker 1: causality or at least correlation between violence and the violence

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Speaker 1: you find in video games. Craig A. Anderson did a

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Speaker 1: study and yes, Mr Anderson, actually Dr Anderson does study

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Speaker 1: and and uh I believe it was two thousand one. Um.

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Speaker 1: He looked at a lot of other studies. So he

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Speaker 1: did what is called in the science biz as a

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Speaker 1: meta analysis, where you take the results of various studies

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Speaker 1: and you combine those results to kind of get an

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Speaker 1: overall big picture of whether or not a whether or

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Speaker 1: not a certain theory holds any water. Um. Here's the

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Speaker 1: thing about a meta analysis, It's it's tricky to do correctly.

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Speaker 1: The problem with the meta analysis is that you take

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Speaker 1: all these different studies and you some of them may

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Speaker 1: not be very good studies. They may not have they

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Speaker 1: may have a bad methodology. Um, there may be a

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Speaker 1: very small sample size, so the the data is not

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Speaker 1: really reliable. UM. But you just lump it in with

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Speaker 1: everything else, so you get the good along with the bad.

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Speaker 1: And there's no real way of necessarily telling how much

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Speaker 1: of one you have versus the other. And uh So

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Speaker 1: he's received some criticism for his approach, uh to just

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Speaker 1: to take all these different different studies and combine them

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Speaker 1: and and try and draw conclusions from that. Now his conclusions,

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Speaker 1: he believes that there is a link between the violence

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Speaker 1: and video games and and real life violence. Um. He

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Speaker 1: cited several studies that suggested that after playing violent video games,

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Speaker 1: children showed more signs of aggression, um even if they

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Speaker 1: had only played twenty minutes of a violent video game,

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Speaker 1: whereas kids who played video games that didn't have violence

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Speaker 1: in them, like say just a simple like a race

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Speaker 1: card game or something Tetris tetris, anything like that did

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Speaker 1: not show this kind of level of aggression. UM. So

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Speaker 1: things like that he cited, and and he uh He's

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Speaker 1: written several Times about how he doesn't believe that the

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Speaker 1: many that most of the studies were done very well.

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Speaker 1: They he doesn't think that they were poorly designed or

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Speaker 1: poorly executed. Um. So he's defended his position. But other

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Speaker 1: people like Benjamin Radford, who's one of the managing editors

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Speaker 1: of The Skeptical Enquirer, which is a journal about critical

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Speaker 1: thinking and skepticism. Really yeah, you wouldn't imagine it from

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Speaker 1: that title. Huh see it? Yeah, sure you. Well, it's

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Speaker 1: actually an excellent journal, but it's he He writes that

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Speaker 1: the meta analysis alone is kind of questionable, and that

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Speaker 1: the link between violence and video games is not at

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Speaker 1: all apparent. It may exist, but it's not hasn't been proven. Um.

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Speaker 1: And that also correlation and causation are two different things,

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Speaker 1: which is a very important point. So here's here's the question,

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Speaker 1: video games make kids violent? Or do violent kids like

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Speaker 1: violent video games? I am not an adequate judge to

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Speaker 1: answer that question. Yeah, I would from from a common

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Speaker 1: sense kind of perspective, which of course means that it's

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Speaker 1: not at all scientific scientific, Yeah exactly. This is this

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Speaker 1: is just based on my own sort of gut instinct,

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Speaker 1: and I have nothing to back this up other than

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Speaker 1: just my own personal experiences, and uh so it really

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Speaker 1: doesn't hold any way. It's just my own personal opinion.

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Speaker 1: I think that violent kids do tend to enjoy violent

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Speaker 1: video games. It's it's a way of acting out kind

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Speaker 1: of a power fantasy, right. You're able to exert power

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Speaker 1: over other individuals. Now granted these individuals may be completely virtual,

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Speaker 1: they're just characters on the screen, but you're able to to,

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Speaker 1: uh to, like I said, exert power over them. And

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Speaker 1: so you're drawn to that because I mean, that's the

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Speaker 1: kind of personality you have. Then you know you're gonna

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Speaker 1: want to play those sort of games. And you may

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Speaker 1: also be violent in real life as well. But that's

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Speaker 1: not because the video game. It's because of your the way,

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Speaker 1: the way you are. UM, I don't necessarily think that

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Speaker 1: a violent video game makes a person violent. And I

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Speaker 1: this is anecdotal, so again not scientific. UM I play

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Speaker 1: a lot of video games. You play some violent video

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Speaker 1: I play some seriously violent video games. I have the

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Speaker 1: Grand Theft Auto series. I've played the heck out of them.

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Speaker 1: I play first person shooters. I UM, I enjoy playing

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Speaker 1: these violent video games, and I am not a violent person.

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Speaker 1: It has been literally days since I punched someone. Um. No, seriously,

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Speaker 1: I'm I haven't been a fight since I was thirteen

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Speaker 1: years old, al decades, twenty years to it. And there

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Speaker 1: you go. We know, Christopher Ferguson and wrote a report

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Speaker 1: in Psychiatric Quarterly. UM, and he said that he actually

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Speaker 1: did a study on on peer of view journals and

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Speaker 1: just to see the other literature that was out there. Um,

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Speaker 1: he found you know, once he was he had stripped

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Speaker 1: the bias away. According to what he said, you know,

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Speaker 1: stripped the bias way. He didn't find any support for

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Speaker 1: the idea that video games cause violence. And he actually

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Speaker 1: believes that there are some positive benefits. Um. You know,

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Speaker 1: visio spatial cognition. Um. Basically you know, getting your bearings

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Speaker 1: in the virtual world. UM. So you know there may

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Speaker 1: be there may be some benefits to it, I suppose.

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Speaker 1: But you know this, this really isn't a new concept,

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Speaker 1: you know, talking about the violence and video games that

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Speaker 1: are corrupting influences. I'm sure you may have heard of

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Speaker 1: Dr Frederick Wortham or maybe the title Seduction of the Innocence. Yes,

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Speaker 1: this was a book written many decades ago, almost a

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Speaker 1: hundred years ago now I'm getting there anyway, I guess

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Speaker 1: seven years ago, and um, it was about how violent

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Speaker 1: comic books were causing kids to commit crimes. And then

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Speaker 1: there's the whole heavy metal music causes kids to commit suicide.

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Speaker 1: You want to go even further back, talk about Victorian England,

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Speaker 1: where there were some people who believed that the that

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Speaker 1: a performance of the incredible case of Dr Jackal and

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Speaker 1: Mr Hyde somehow managed to inspire Jack the Ripper. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: So I mean this is something that goes way back,

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Speaker 1: talking about fan to see somehow impacting reality. Yeah. And

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Speaker 1: and the reason why video games I think gets more

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Speaker 1: attention than say I mean, obviously you've got parent counsels

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Speaker 1: that are concerned about violence in all forms of media,

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Speaker 1: not just video games. But the reason why video games

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Speaker 1: I think get a lot of attention is because you

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Speaker 1: take an active role. You're not just passively watching or

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Speaker 1: reading your you are your actions are being translated into

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Speaker 1: this video game world. So I think it's that extra

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Speaker 1: step that concerns some people. And I think to part

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Speaker 1: of it is that some of the populace is just

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Speaker 1: not into video games. They've never played them. Um, it's

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Speaker 1: new for a lot of people. Um, you know, for example,

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Speaker 1: ballroom dancing, uh, you know to to Uh. I won't

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Speaker 1: admit to watching Dancing with the Stars, but I, you know,

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Speaker 1: possibly may have been an earshot of a TV when

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Speaker 1: they said that. I think it was. The waltz was

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Speaker 1: considered risk. Ay at one time. Now we've all been alive.

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Speaker 1: Everyone you know on the planet now was alive. Sense

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Speaker 1: the walls was a normal thing. So to think about

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Speaker 1: it in that context, you think, what are you kidding? Well, yeah,

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Speaker 1: we have violent video games. Now that's so much more corrupting.

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Speaker 1: But you know, in a hundred years it may not

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Speaker 1: be such a big deal. They'll find something else to

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Speaker 1: be outraged about. You can hear the same thing about

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Speaker 1: certain composers when some of their like Beethoven's, several Beethoven's

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Speaker 1: pieces got the same sort of attention. UM. Getting back

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Speaker 1: to to the video games, I wanted to mention one

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Speaker 1: other study UM, which was conducted by Patrick Kirkgard UH

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Speaker 1: and it was published in the International Journal of Liability

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Speaker 1: and Scientific Inquiry. Kirkgard also decided that from his from

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Speaker 1: his research, he decided that many of the claims that

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Speaker 1: violence comes like people kids were becoming violent because of

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Speaker 1: the violence of video games. Uh, he thought that those

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Speaker 1: conclusions were faulty. He didn't necessarily he didn't go so

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Speaker 1: far as to say that they were completely wrong. He

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Speaker 1: just said that you couldn't support that from the teas

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Speaker 1: that were conducted. Um. So again, it's one of those

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Speaker 1: the question is still up in the air. UM. I

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Speaker 1: bring that one up because it was fairly recent. I

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Speaker 1: had first heard about it. I think it was this

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Speaker 1: past spring. So again, studies are still ongoing. I'm not

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Speaker 1: sure that we're going to get to the bottom of

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Speaker 1: this anytime soon. For one thing, I think there are

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Speaker 1: way too many variables and too many factors to take

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Speaker 1: into consideration. It's hard to boil it down to hey,

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Speaker 1: you know, a little billy just played Mortal Kombat and

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Speaker 1: then he's gonna go and punch his sister and and

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Speaker 1: I mean, it's there are too many things to take

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Speaker 1: into consideration to just blame it on one factor. And

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Speaker 1: I don't think that video games are completely innocent, to

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Speaker 1: be honest. Somebody who is going to commit a violent

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Speaker 1: act like that may find inspiration, yeah, but they can

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Speaker 1: find inspiration from anything. Though. Well, you know, it doesn't

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Speaker 1: help when you hear things say. According to CBS News, UM,

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Speaker 1: when the police brought in Devin Moore, he said the

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Speaker 1: quote was life is like a video game. Everybody's got

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Speaker 1: to die sometime. So but that just adds fuel to

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Speaker 1: the fire when people say that this is a result

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Speaker 1: and then you see, you know, an act like I

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Speaker 1: remember a report of a school shooting, um some time

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Speaker 1: ago now where the kid shot out the mirrors in

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Speaker 1: the bathroom, in the school bathroom. And at this point

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Speaker 1: it's apocryphal because I had difficulty finding it in the

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Speaker 1: short amount of time I allotted to find that particular article. Um,

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Speaker 1: but that actually is directly from what Duke nucam I believe,

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Speaker 1: where their actual power ups behind the mirrors there may

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Speaker 1: have been so this and this argument to me doesn't

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Speaker 1: hold any water because you're talking about disturbed individuals who

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Speaker 1: will take anything, latch onto anything, and that could fuel

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Speaker 1: their their power fantasies. I mean, we see the same

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Speaker 1: thing with the arguments against role playing games, where parents

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Speaker 1: were saying, hey, this role playing game is corrupting children.

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Speaker 1: It's gonna convince them to become Satanists. They're gonna kill

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Speaker 1: each other. And you're talking about saying that kids should

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Speaker 1: not indulge in any kind of fantasy play at all

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Speaker 1: because there's the danger that they're going to believe the

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Speaker 1: fantasy is reality. I think that's just ridiculous. I think

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Speaker 1: really that you have certain individuals who are predisposed to

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Speaker 1: that kind of psychosis. But you can't sit there and

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Speaker 1: say that the fantasy was the cause of it. It's

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Speaker 1: the cause. The cause is internal, it's not external. No.

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Speaker 1: I actually I actually agree with you. What I meant was, um,

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Speaker 1: for somebody who is already predisposed to that kind of

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Speaker 1: an action, they can latch onto something they see in

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Speaker 1: a comic book or in a movie, but then they

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Speaker 1: are on the street. A solution to that would then

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Speaker 1: be eliminate all interesting stuff everywhere for fear that it

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Speaker 1: could cause someone to go off the deep end, right,

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Speaker 1: And I'm not advocating doing that, just saying that I

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Speaker 1: was totally gonna punch you. Oh no, I've fallen into

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Speaker 1: your Trapolette. I see what you did there. So no,

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Speaker 1: I'm just saying it that, you know, it's just impossible

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Speaker 1: to blame that one thing, but and you know, an

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Speaker 1: event like that, it can definitely that's what that Yeah,

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Speaker 1: that's what link that people are looking for. UM. So

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Speaker 1: you know, that's all I'm saying. Okay, that's all I'm saying.

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Speaker 1: All Right, I'm calm now, all right, sure you are. Wow.

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Speaker 1: Well this was a good conversation. We got we got

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Speaker 1: heated in that argument a little bit. I'm just good

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Speaker 1: because it's cold in here and it's a little chilly anyway.

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Speaker 1: So I guess we can probably wrap this up. Did

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Speaker 1: you have any any other interesting studies or anything you

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Speaker 1: want to bring up? No, no additional studies that the

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Speaker 1: difference with you. You know, Yeah, the the question is

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Speaker 1: still up in the air. I think it'll probably will

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Speaker 1: be for quite some time. They'll they'll definitely be more studies. Um.

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Speaker 1: Another thing to keep in mind I should have pointed

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Speaker 1: this out earlier is if you're reading a study, find

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Speaker 1: out who commissioned it, but because there may be bias. Uh.

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Speaker 1: If it's a completely independent study, then you can you

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Speaker 1: can feel a little more comfortable that there is no bias.

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Speaker 1: But if it's something where a parent teacher association has

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Speaker 1: funded a specific study that brings into question the findings,

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know, even if the scientists were trying

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Speaker 1: to go straightforward and not not will make the results

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Speaker 1: lean one way or the other. When you're receiving money

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Speaker 1: from a specific interested party. I think it's a little

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Speaker 1: complicated to keep that in mind. But if you want

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Speaker 1: to learn more about this, we have a great article

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Speaker 1: on the side. Actually, it's called do Violent Video Games

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Speaker 1: Lead to Real Violence? And that was written by Julia

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Speaker 1: Layton and that was updated as as late as the spring,

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Speaker 1: so it's it's up to date too, so I would

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Speaker 1: recommend checking that out if you want to learn more. Also,

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Speaker 1: I would play this podcast backwards for our secret message. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: I hope. I hope you guys find it. If you do,

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Speaker 1: write in and tell us what it was, and then

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Speaker 1: we'll probably send somebody out and they won't run you over.

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Speaker 1: I don't know where I'm going with that. I'm done,

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Speaker 1: guys in the white coat is shown anyway, make sure

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Speaker 1: you visit how stuff works dot com so read this

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Speaker 1: article in others and we will talk to you again

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Speaker 1: soon for more on this and thousands of other topics.

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Speaker 1: Because at how stuff works dot com. Let us know

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Speaker 1: what you think. Send an email to podcast at how

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Speaker 1: stuff works dot com. Brought to you by the reinvented

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Speaker 1: two thousand twelve camera. It's ready, Are you