NAME — Chris Reissaus
AGE — 19
Video games have evolved since they first became popular in the late 1970s.
Early games such as Pac Man involved simple tasks, like gobbling up dots while following a trail. Today's games are more interactive, more complicated and more realistic. For example, in a scenario from Grand Theft Auto, the player drives a car while shooting at a target.
Countless studies have been done on both the drawbacks and the benefits of playing video games. In general, these studies have found that the negative effects generally involve behavioral problems and possibly compromised social interactions. The positive effects generally revolve around a player's visual processing skills and knowledge base.
Douglas Gentile runs the media research lab at Iowa State University, where he studies media's effects on children and adults. He says four factors determine the degree to which a player is affected by video games: content and type of game played; mechanics of the game; amount of time spent on the game; and risk factors that make some people more susceptible to being affected by a game.
C. Shawn Green, a graduate student at the University of Rochester in New York, has studied the effects of video game-playing on visual skills. Both he and Gentile agree that the games promote learning on multiple levels. They also agree that playing video games can put a person at risk of exhibiting more aggressive behaviors, but other factors carry more weight.
A controllable risk
"Media violence does make us think more aggressive thoughts, be more willing to act aggressively and be a little more willing to say something rude. It's not the only (risk factor), and it's not the most important one, but it is one that we can do something about," Gentile said.
In discussions about video games, the content most often is debated. (Content refers to what is seen during game play: blood and other gore, or images involving sexual behavior or drug use.) The type of game determines its content to some extent. For example, racing or sports games rarely show violent images, but shooting games often do.
The mechanics of a game also can have an effect on players. Arcade-style shooting games often are under fire because they require players to hold and shoot a fake gun.
In addition, the amount of time spent on a video game can determine a game's impact on a player. Researchers agree that excessive video gaming of any kind can lead to diminished work and school performance. "Kids' grades in school go down the more time they spend playing," said Gentile.
All of these factors help to determine whether a game might make a player more aggressive. As important, however, are the risk and protective factors that a player has that are unrelated to a game.
Gentile says factors that put an individual at risk of aggressive behavior include being abused as a child, doing drugs, being in a gang, and seeing violence at home, on the streets or through the media. Protective factors include having good parents and good friends, and not using drugs, he said.
Blamed the game
How these factors work together can be seen in the case of Devin Moore of Fayette, Ala., who was 18 when he gunned down two police officers and a 911 dispatcher in 2003. His defense argued that Moore's continuous playing of Grand Theft Auto was partly to blame for the crime, which closely resembled a scene from the game. However, the jury disagreed, and Moore was sentenced to death.
Aggressiveness can come out in different ways, and may not show a direct link to gaming.
"That's the problem; it's just such a slow effect. You would never notice it, and then someday someone cuts you off on the highway and you make an obscene gesture at him or her. You're going to think that that's just totally natural for you, that you would've always done that. Well, no, you wouldn't have always done that. But by the time it happens, it does feel natural because you have been practicing having aggressive thoughts for all these years," said Gentile.
He has other anecdotal evidence. "Kids e-mail me and say, 'I've been playing violent video games all my life and they never make me aggressive, you (expletive),' and then they go on to tell me how they're going to come and hurt me. And then they don't see the irony in that."
But just as research has found a link between video game-playing and aggression, it has found a more direct link between gaming and improved hand-eye coordination.
Green has done extensive work with visual perception. He also is an avid video gamer. "I started programming an experiment to test peripheral vision in congenitally deaf people. But when I started doing the task, I noticed I was really good at it. So I thought maybe I had programmed it wrong. I got my roommate (who also plays a lot of video games) to come in, and he was really good at it, too. So I got another friend of mine (who doesn't), and he was normal," said Green.
Following more in-depth research, Green concluded that playing video games increases visual acuity.
"People who play video games can pick out a little target, even when there's lots of distracting stuff. They can also track more objects that are moving around at the same time."
Just as a video game can help someone learn how to handle a gun, it can improve other fine motor skills, too. "If you play a driving simulator with a wheel and pedals, that probably would transfer to your real driving a lot easier than if you played a driving simulator with a mouse and a keyboard," said Gentile.
One more thing: Video games can make you smarter.
"Education games are really good at teaching," Gentile said. "When my daughter plays Reader Rabbit, her reading skills improve, and when she plays Math Rat, her math skills improve."
Video games are like sweets: acceptable in moderate doses.
"Video games are a really powerful tool. They're very engaging, they're very motivational," Green said.
REPORTERS: Max Dean, 13; Jeff Hou, 12.