The most prominent feature of video games is the enormous amount of pleasure which children in the secondary school age range get from them.. This is matched by an enormous amount of displeasure expressed by many parents and teachers(Sanger et al, 1997). In seeking to use video games in the classroom I personally encountered little hostility (none from pupils) but what hostility there was, was intense. For example one male university lecturer discussing the project reported in this dissertation on a usenet newsgroup that "any teacher worth his or her salt would be ashamed of promoting (Tomb Raider) to children." I wish to deal with his comments on Tomb Raider more fully later. The implication was that teachers should not make use of video games in the classroom even when - as I had made clear - this was for research purposes and discussion and did not involve pupils playing games in school time. This is not an isolated view.

Sherry Turkle (Turkle, 1984) suggests that the furore over video games is partly fuelled by technophobia - a desire on the part of adults to comment on the increasing intrusion of the computer into their lives. This is an intrusion which they feel powerless to resist. However, they are in a position to protest against the opening of video arcades in the high street, they are in a position to try to control their children’s use of video games on the home computer.

In the United States, the Funk study of seventh and eighth graders found that 65% of males and 57% of females played 1 to 6 hours of video games at home per week, and 38% of males and 16% of females played 1 to 2 hours of games per week at arcades. This study also found that, among five categories of video games, games that involved fantasy violence and sports games (many with violent themes) were most preferred by the students surveyed.(Funk, 1993, 521) This begs the question of what we are to define as violent which I address below.

Parental concerns are expressed over a list of issues enumerated in the survey of research by Barrie Gunter (Gunter, 1998). These include concerns that games promote violence, waste time, may be addictive, reinforce male stereotypes and may even cause physical damage to children. Several researchers (Summarised by Cesarone, 1994) have drawn attention to the fact that exactly the same accusations were levelled at comics and at TV. Of course this does not mean that they are not legitimate concerns but it does suggest that fear of the new is a factor in the concerns expressed.

I have concentrated on three related concerns

that video games are violent

that they are addictive

that they reinforce patriarchal gender stereotypes

I have used the term video games throughout. Tomb Raider is an example of a game which has crossed platforms and is available both for the PC and for the Playstation. Some of the research uses the term computer games loosely although the Playstation and N64 are clearly not computers.

The development of a ratings system for video games was a result of the work of NCTV (The National Coalition on Television Violence) who co-operated with Nintendo and Sega and a compatible system was developed by ELSPA (European Leisure Software Publishers Association) for the European market. Many children I spoke to would not consider playing a game (or telling their friends they played a game) which did not have a 15-17 or 18+ rating as Tomb Raider III had. The effect of the rating system may have been counter-productive if the intention was to steer pupils away from violent games. On the contrary it enabled pupils to more easily identify which games had the most violence or explicit sex.

The shift from the arcades to the home is also significant if we accept the view of Wavell (1995) and Neustatter (1992) that parents are providing TVs and computers for their children as a safe alternative to going out on the streets. The fear of real-life violence will therefore increase the amount of fantasy violence to which children are exposed.

The very title, "The Effects of Video Games on Children - the Myth Unmasked" suggests (at least) two things. Firstly the research which is summarised in the book has concentrated on a passive view of the audience. It suggests children on whom the games can have "effects" without having an active role in interpreting the games and bending them to their own purposes. It is to see the audience in a more active role. Secondly it suggests that there is a myth in the popular consciousness about Video Games which needs to be ‘unmasked’. Does this mean that parents are equally being seen as passive recipients of the ‘moral panic’ generated by the media?

The validity of the actual results can always be questioned in a number of ways - how valid was the sample; did the respondents tell the truth. However it may also be equally important to question the whole basis of the research as Sherry Turkle does (Turkle, 1995). The question is whether children being "affected" by video games or can they use their experience with computer worlds in constructing their personality through what Turkle refers to as ‘Bricolage’ (using ready-made objects for construction)? (I go on to this in more detail in chapter 2)

The extent of the use of video games (‘the extent of the problem’ for some researchers) can be seen in the official statistics. In 1995 the Economic Intelligence Unit suggested that sales of 16-bit consoles had reached saturation point and the high prices of games consoles was pushing consumers towards the use of Personal Computers for games. The sales of computers to British households averaged 500 000 a year in 1991-1995, 39 percent of households had home computers in 1995 (quoted in Sanger et al, 1997, 5). In 1999 the projections suggest that 47% of UK households have personal computers, 66 percent of which have CD ROM drives

The violence of video games was the subject of research by Ballard, Mary E. Wiest, J. Rose in relation to the highly popular video game Mortal Kombat (sic).

The study examined differences in cardiovascular reactions and hostility following non-violent play and violent video game play. Subjects were 30 male college undergraduate students. Only male subjects were used because the researchers believed that "most video games are male oriented, males frequent video game arcades more often than females, and the gender gap in video game play widens with age until the undergraduate years." Hostility and CV reactivity were examined after subjects' played either a non-violent game of billiards or a violent video game. They made use of two versions of Mortal Kombat, one of which was rated as being less violent

Results indicated that subjects who played the video game had higher heart rate reactivity than those who played billiards. Subjects who played the more violent version showed greater systolic blood pressure reactivity than those who played the less violent version or billiards. Subjects who played the more violent version scored higher on the hostility measures than those who played the less violent one, who in turn scored higher than those who played billiards. The results suggest that the level of video game violence, not just the violence per se, should be of concern. (Ballard and Wiest, 1995 )

One significant feature of Mortal Kombat and similar games was that they placed less emphasis on shooting opponents from a distance and more on close-quarters fighting. This is closer to the kind of fighting which pupils actually engage in in real life and fears grew that they might imitate the moves in the games. However, the Ballard and Wiest study actually only shows that the games absorb the interest of players, that they are exciting and release a ‘virtual hostility’ which may or may not be carried over into real life. If they continue to play the aggression will be channelled into the game, if they go out on the football field it is possible it might cause acts of aggression against other players. However, it is equally likely that the play would have a cathartic effect and in any case players would realise the moves were unrealistic on the football field.

Irwin and Gross (1995) made a study, again concentrating on boys. The study looked at interpersonal aggression and aggression toward inanimate objects in a free-play setting where children played video games. Results indicated that subjects who played video games with aggressive content exhibited more object aggression during free-play and more interpersonal aggression during the frustrating situation than youngsters who played non-aggressive video games. Children are well aware that inanimate objects cannot feel pain and taking out feelings of aggression on them is a safety measure to which even adults resort.

However, the issue of interpersonal aggression is another matter. Griffiths (unpublished paper quoted in Gunter, 1998, 101) makes the point that increased fantasy aggression supports the catharsis hypothesis. Children who play-fight after playing Streetfighter 2 may be discharging hostility through the vicarious experiences engendered by these games. In many cases what researchers have described as aggressive behaviour could be reclassified as fantasy aggression. Pupils frequently engage in false or even ironic aggression towards each other which does not lead to injuries. [However, as any teacher knows, these play fights can become all too real as soon as one of the participants is accidentally hurt.]

The aspect of video games which is seen as the most conducive to violent effects on children is their interactive nature: the player is forced to engage in acts of violence not witness them. However, in the context of Griffiths’ argument this would be a positive aspect in intensifying the cathartic effect.

The NCTV (National Coalition on Television Violence)in the USA expressed concern that games rated as extremely violent increased from 53% in 1985 to 82% in 1988 and the violence is seen as a selling point with the survey indicating that 40 out of 47 top Nintendo titles had violent themes. The relevance of this American research is that the same titles are on sale in the UK. However, many popular video games released since (including the Tomb Raider trilogy) cannot be resolved by ‘brute force and ignorance’ but also require the solving of problems.

.

In early computer games neither the entity controlled by the player "the hero" nor the villains had visible human characteristics. Neither the space invaders nor the firing platform; neither pacman nor the monsters he pursued (and was pursued by) encouraged close identification. It is nevertheless the case that the player could identify with pacman in the context of the game as ‘he’ seemed a rounded and faintly humorous character in friendly yellow and that insofaras the villains had any definite shape it tended to be angular and they were often green to accentuate their alien character.

A trend suggested by Herz is that whereas the heroes can become more human the villains tend to remain less so. This is most clearly the case in the games used by the military for training (and presumably for desensitisation to violence) which closely resemble the control systems used to kill Iraqis during the gulf war (Herz, 1997)

This is by no means universal - in Streetfighter 2 for example, the players select from a gallery of male and female characters from various ethnic groups and then fight the other characters. In Streetfighter 2, there is no judgement of good and evil and the opponents are equally human or non-human.

The same technology which could be used to make the opponents more human is in fact often used to make the violence more graphic. There is a case for saying that making the blood and gore more apparent overcomes one of the criticisms voiced by early critics (e.g. Provenzo, 1991, 58) that the violence of the games did not have realistic consequences. The way the pupils themselves react - do they turn away from the game in disgust or do they laugh and carry on - is central to this and I will deal with this issue later on. Even if the reaction is the latter, there is no evidence outside the military context that serious violence involving bloodshed can be linked with video gaming. The military context is so different from the everyday life of pupils that the number of other pressures which would need to be factored out prevents any meaningful comparison.

Research separated by 11 years in Canada and Australia could find no correlation between the use of video arcades and delinquent behaviour (Ellis 1984 and Abbot et al 1995 - quoted in Gunter 1997). The only tentative connection derived from a finding among the older children was that they stayed out later at night and those who stayed out late were more likely to be involved in delinquent behaviour. This does not finger violent video games as the culprit and in any case even this tentative conclusion could not apply to children who are safely playing video games on the home computer.

Of all the studies which have been conducted only one (Kestenbaum and Weinstein 1985) found that video games could have a calming effect on teenagers aged 11 to 14. However, this research made use of relatively non-violent Atari video games which do not involve the user in graphic bloodthirsty action. However, one very extensive study could find no link between amount of video game playing and measures of hostility and self-esteem. (Gibb et al, 1983)

One factor in the link between fake violence in video games and aggressive behaviour in children can be found in the work of Anderson et al "Does the gun pull the trigger" which experimentally demonstrated a link between the mere presence of weapons and aggressive behaviour. However, again the "behaviour" demonstrated was a preference for aggressive words and the experiment did not deal with the issue of whether this spilt over into aggressive actions which a lay observer would call behaviour. (Anderson et al,1998)

Another aspect of video game violence which does not require evidence of aggressive behaviour on the part of pupils is the question of whether violence in video games increases the pupil’s perception of the world as a violent place. It would be logical, for example, if pupils tended to attribute hostile dispositions to others after playing violent video games then they would see the world as a more threatening place. Research was carried out with a group of 52 third- and fourth-grade children. Children who played either "Mortal Kombat II," or a relatively non-violent video game, "NBA Jam: TE," for 13 minutes. Following the video game play, children were read five stories in which a same-sex peer caused a clearly negative event to happen but the intent of the peer causing this negative event was ambiguous. After each story, children were asked a series of questions about the peer's intent, subsequent actions, and whether the peer should be punished and how much. Responses were coded in terms of amount of negative and violent content. Results indicated that children playing the violent video game responded more negatively on three of the six ambiguous provocation story questions than children playing the non-violent video game. The author concluded that "playing violent video games leads to the development of a short-term hostile attribution bias" (Kirsch, 1997).

Of course this is very different from suggesting that violent video games may cause aggressive behaviour. A short-term hostile attribution bias may well cause children to tread carefully in this hostile environment to avoid provoking the dangerous individuals who surround them. It is also noticeable that this is about attributing dispositions to people in a story. The characters in the narrative of Mortal Kombat II do have hostile dispositions, children may well make a similar assumption about the characters in the next narrative they encounter as a result of the learning set acquired while playing the game. It may or may not be the case that they transfer this dispositional attribution into ‘real life’.

There is a common-sense assumption that the involvement of the player in the violence of the game intensifies the effect of the violence. However one study found little difference in the behaviour of pupils slightly younger than mine (10 year olds) when they were paired - one playing and one watching. Interestingly enough the same study measured the aggression of the children by such indicators as willingness to play with an aggressive toy - to switch from one fantasy aggression to another.

Early research on arousal effects similarly failed to find any measurable increase in physiological arousal brought about by playing ‘aggressive’ video games. (Winkel, Novak and Hopson 1984) However, later work by Calvert and Tan in 1994 did find physiological arousal effects in violent virtual reality games. (Calvert and Tan, 1994) The suggestion is that the increased realism of games will intensify their effects on players.

Perhaps the most significant finding was Keller’s finding in an extensive survey of Nintendo use. She that found that children do not think ‘violent’ thoughts while playing, but think of strategy to win the game.(Keller, 1992)

The common-sense view of many parents and teachers that I have spoken to is that video games are ‘addictive’ and that if their children were not playing video games they would be reading, engaged in healthy outdoor pursuits or doing homework. They would not for example watch the television, hang around in the streets or engage in rather more lethal ‘addictions’ instead.

The addiction of children to Saturday morning flicks, comics and TV were problems for parents in the past and it is often the case that parents are concerned about children liking things which the parent cannot associate with his or her own childhood. The term addiction is itself a value judgement, we seldom talk about addiction to reading books, finding out information or doing homework!

The video game creates an enticing and increasingly ‘realistic’ virtual world which enables pupils to escape from the problems of the real world. (Of course books do the same thing in a respectable way). It is also the case of course that the real world from which they are escaping is increasingly dominated by Information Technology systems’ virtual worlds.

The dust cover of "Life on the Screen" (Turkle, 1995) quotes the undergraduate who referred to real life as RL (as is common in online communities) and did not believe it should be given any special status. However the RL to which he refers is the window on his computer screen in which he is writing an essay and the virtual reality (VR) is another window in which he is playing a role in a Multi-User Domain. In his RL window he is alone, in his VR window he is surrounded by friends.

Weizenbaum compared the compulsive hacker with the compulsive gambler. He suggested three reasons for the comparison. The first was the lack of instumentality of hacking - i.e. hackers were not concerned about the value of their results, having developed a system they will continually try to improve on it. The second was the extent to which they neglect other activities such as eating and sleeping and the third was the way their work with the computer is their sole topic of conversation. (Weizenbaum, 1975).

Although Weizenbaum is often quoted in research on video games, in fact this finding undermines the view that video games are addictive. Hackers are certainly not interested in games and it is programming the computer itself which is the object of the compulsion. The growth of online communities may well mean that a ‘compulsion’ to use the computer will be far less isolating than watching the television.

The use of the computer has been ‘causally linked’ with introversion. (Levy 1984) but more respectable activities like reading might have the same ‘pathology’. Children who resort to the computer for solace might be responding to circumstances in their lives which they cannot control by seeking to master the world of the game. However, there is no evidence that this desire for control spills over into a desire for similar relationships with people. . (Thimbleby, Computers and Education 3, 401-402, 1979)

Attempts to find whether certain children are more predisposed to video game addiction have not come up with any results. More obsessional or compulsive personalities do not necessarily gravitate towards video games. (Gibb et al, ,1983). Shotton’s research in 1989 concentrated on computer ‘dependency’ rather than addiction and found that (Shotton, 1989) many of the individuals identified as computer dependent in her survey had gained positive benefits from their use of computers. Their mastery of the computer world helped them to develop self-confidence and they had been better able to communicate with others on non-computer-related topics.

In 1996, Griffiths surveyed 147 11-year-olds about their reasons for playing computer games. Most played for fun, for a challenge, and because their friends did. This contrasts with other kinds of addiction: people may well take drugs because of peer pressure, or even ‘for fun’ but scarcely for "a challenge". He concluded that ‘For most adolescents, computer game playing is a fairly absorbing and harmless activity, but for a few it poses problems when game playing consumes too much time.’(Griffiths, 1996,87)

The same author was involved in the Plymouth survey conducted with the police into criminal activity associated with gambling machines. They found that a small percentage (3.9%) of thefts had ‘some association’ with gambling machines but the only link with video games was that the gambling machines were in the same building. A fairly tenuous ‘guilt by association’ it has to be said. There was no evidence of gangs of video-game junkies stealing to feed their habit. (Griffiths, 1996)

The TV advertisement for Zelda (a game for the Nintendo 64) shows a series of exciting fantasy combat scenes and then ends with the words in gothic script in blood red on a black background

"Wilt thou get the girl ..." which then fades to

"or play like one?" (ITV 12 12 98 and at other times).Setting aside the possible sideswipe at Tomb Raider, what are the implications of this advertising for the role of girls and video games?

A study which I have already quoted differentiated the responses of girls and boys to playing and watching video games. They found that girls became "more aggressive" in terms of active fantasy play and preference for "violent toys" but the play of boys did not change. (Cooper and Mackie 1986 - quoted in Gunter, op cit, 1997) The suggestion is that aggressive play is ‘masculine" and that under the influence of violent video games, girls adopt more masculine play.

In many of the latest games which are based on the model of Doom, the protagonist is an idealised self-image of the player. (Clearly this is changed by the interposition of Lara Croft in Tomb Raider). The game is seen from the player’s point of view and all we see of the protagonist is his hands or feet or the weapon he is carrying. Interestingly the only one of my pupils who mentioned Zelda was a girl. This is consistent with the finding of Buchman et al that "fantasy violence was more preferred by girls than by boys, who preferred human and sports violence games.(Buchman et al, 1996, 29) Perhaps the intention of the Zelda advert was to emphasise that this was a game for real men and oppose the image of fantasy games as "girls’ games"

The Shotton survey cited above suggests that the linking of computers with Science and Maths in the past might be a factor in pupils seeing computers as ‘toys for the boys’. (Shotton, 1989)

Interestingly Funk and Buchman found that for girls, more time playing video or computer games was associated with lower self-esteem.( Funk and Buchman, 1996.) Are girls taking part in an activity which they see as ‘male’ as a means of compensating for poor self-esteem?

Littleton also found that the apparent gender stereotyping of video games had a disproportionate effect on girls Their sample was of Year 7 pupils. Girls in their survey in Milton Keynes did significantly better on a game which was ostensibly gender neutral than on a game which was male orientated with male characters. (Littleton, 1993) This has clear implications for the success of Tomb Raider but these implications run counter to the view of Lara Croft as simply a teenage male fantasy.

Provenzo (1992) examined the top 10 Nintendo video games and pointed out that they were all based on a theme of an autonomous individual working alone against an evil force. The "world of video games has little sense of community and no team players." (Provenzo, 1992) It is possible but unusual for two players to co-operate in a game. Usually if there are two players they are trying to kill each other in the context of the game.

However, Leslie Miller’s (1996) focus group listed characteristics which girls preferred in video games and found that co-operation rather than competition and the use of simulations were regarded as important. The girls in this group wanted to interact with other (male) characters in the game rather than shooting them. Tomb Raider side-steps these concerns by creating a female character who competes with male characters on their own terms ... and wins.

The Sci-Fi backgrounds to many of the stories are also seen as a male preserve whereas the ‘sword and sorcery’ backgrounds of the fantasy games might be seen as more feminine.

The importance of lack of confidence and the apparent exclusion of girls from the virtual world of the video game is highlighted by Yeloushan’s (1989) research into the barriers to girls pursuing careers in the sciences and technology. She sees the male-dominated world of the video games as a significant factor in a constellation of influences including the lack of female role models.

I have outlined the concerns expressed over video games. The evidence suggests that the violence of these games does not pose a clearly proven threat of spilling over into violence in real life. The evidence on addictiveness also suggests that this is not as great a problem as parents might have feared.

1.56 However, on the charge that video games are creating or attempting to create a masculine virtual world there seems to be a case to answer. This case exists irrespective of whether the games are successful in creating such a world or if the audience is capable of redefining that world in ways not predicted by the manufacturers. Games remain manipulative even if they are inefficiently manipulative. Therefore in the next chapter I will look at children and the projection of their personality into video games.

 Computers and Personality