I found an article that perfectly serves as the antithesis to my blog.
I came upon this article when searching for "benefits of video games" and I figure this one must have been miscategorized. The authors blast video games with all the usual blame and stereotypes and even threw in some new ones. I'm going to myth bust it. Its my third favorite kind of busting after rhyme busting and ghost busting.
MYTH:
"True to video game effectiveness as a teaching tool, kids take the amount of violence in video games (and other media) as representative of the amount of violence in the real world, leading to the belief that the world is a dark and hostile place. This can make children both more afraid of the world and less empathetic toward the suffering of others."
BUSTED!:
-I don't really think there is that big of a descrepancy between the two. There is a lot of violence in the world today with both wars abroad and crimes close to home. The world isn't exactly rainbows and puppies. I also don't believe this would make children afraid of the world at all. Most games you are a one man army taking on legions of baddies and there is no cower and run button (except for Feral Druids I guess). And less empathetic? Almost every game I've played has a protagonist whose main motivation is trying to end the suffering of others. Final Fantasy 7, Oddworld, Bioshock, Black and White, and of course FIFA soccer all focus heavily on being compassionate towards others. Even really violent games like Grand Theft Auto 4 have a protagonist that battles with taking lives and feels great remorse for his sins. I don't think video games make children less empathetic to suffering any more so than the evening news. "Man shot dead, next story". Now THATS compassion.
MYTH:
"Reviews have shown that the statistical relationship between violent video games and aggression is about as strong as the link between smoking cigarettes and lung cancer."
BUSTED!:
-I'm a statistician and one thing that is pounded into our brains during schooling is that correlation does not imply causation. First of all, even if there is a correlation between violent video games and aggression, that doesn't mean video games are the cause of aggression. In fact I think the opposite is more likely, that aggressive people play violent video games. I'm pretty sure aggression predates gaming. Wasn't there a couple of wars before PONG? One of my favorite misused correlation examples is the correlation between ice cream sales and drownings (they correlate because they both go up in summer months). Next time I'm at Dairy Queen I will ask the closest parent why they are trying to send their child to Davy Jones' Locker. ARRR!
MYTH:
"Excessive video game use can be related to obesity (by way of less exercise)"
SORT OF BUSTED!:
-It is true I suppose. But what are the odds that after a child is denied Xbox that he is going to start running laps around the track? How much more likely is it that he'll just soak in TV instead?
Here is a handy conversion chart:
Calories burned during gaming = calories burned watching TV = calories burned doing homework = calories burned reading stupid blogs about video games (except this one, reading my blog makes you a huge hit with the ladies or fellas)
MYTH:
"Excessive video game use can be related.....social isolation"
BUSTED!:
-There was a time I would have agreed with this. But technology has advanced so much with multiplayer and the online communtiy that this isn't even remotely true anymore. Many a time an old SNES system has been a college dorm ice breaker. Friendships can be forged between strangers through online games and MMORPG's. And of course, my favorite past time, LAN parties. I miss the days when we would link up the xboxes and have 16 man frag fests. Games are becoming more and more dependent on teamwork and if you can't play nicely with others, you'll be stuck by yourself writing blogs. That's true social isolation.
MYTH:
""Excessive video game use can be related.....difficulty with reading or other skills that require time to master."
UBER MEGA BUSTED!:
-This was the comment that sent me into full on nerd rage. That statement isn't remotely true. It is a flat out lie. I have a story to prove it. I had a friend in high school. He was a really hard worker. In fact during summers he would build trails with me from 7 in the morning to 4 at night and then go to a second job and wash dishes until 11. However, he wasn't particularly smart. It turned out that he had troubles learning because he had dyslexia. My friends and I got bit by the MMORPG bug and all started subscribing to EverQuest. In EQ, you would have to communicate with other players exclusively through typing and reading text chat. Because the game forced you to read in order to play effectively, EverQuest actually helped my friend overcome dyslexia. I think thats pretty incredible. The most ironic thing is that he said that he felt if he didn't learn how to read, he would feel left out when we played the game ("social isolation" if you will).
The other example I offer is from my own experience. One of the first games I ever played was a game called Number Animals on DOS. It was basically just math problems poised by giraffes and when you got the answer right, "Pop goes the weasel" would blast through the computer speakers in glorious 8-bit sound. The game didn't just teach me math though. I had to learn rudimentary DOS commands to GET to the game. Before the age of 5 I already knew cd, dir, paths, file extensions, and all that good stuff. Fast forward 20 years and I have my Bachelor's Degree in Mathematics in a career where I write computer code daily. I'd say there is a correlation, but:
1. It would hurt an earlier point that I made
2. I fear I will drown in a tub of choclate ice cream.
