Why we fear the influences of electronic games PART TWO

OK - so if you didn't read PART ONE of this post you might want to do that before you read this bit. PART ONE dealt with the issue of violence in electronic games, and continuing on with that I'm going to try and address the other main part of my mothers argument that electronic games make people not only violent but also ANTI-SOCIAL. Alright, here goes...

The term antisocial, while often being expressed as anti, or against, social, or society, in relation to electronic games, has come to refer, in this instance (or atleast from my mothers perspective), to the potentially addictive quality of electronic games and the lack of socialisation associated with such addictions. I’ve got to say that on this part of the argument I’m probably more with my mum – while I don’t think violence is caused by too much gaming, people alienating themselves from traditional social activities so they can be gaming instead certainly does in my limited experience. BUT on that note, perhaps I’m just offended that my brothers would rather spend time gaming then hanging out with me. I guess it’s not so much that gaming makes you anti-social, but it changes your social patterns and behaviours. Just like any hobby that someone else doesn’t understand, its about what YOU do for enjoyment, not the person sitting beside you…

I suppose what it comes down to is that the comment that electronic games make people antisocial is to an extent over publicised and exaggerated and suffers severely from stereotypes such as “nerds” and “key-board junkies”. Nevertheless, this anecdotal evidence should not be discounted. These personal experiences give us an opportunity to gain depth in our knowledge of the impact of electronic games on individuals, past that which can be found in the constructed artifices of a laboratory experiment.

The surfacing and acknowledgement of gaming cultures have fuelled the notion of electronic games being a bad-habit. But one must ask, what distinguishes a good habit from a bad one? In essence, gaming is little different from other hobbies that we indulge in because, to the individual, it is a rewarding experience (sorry I realise I’m sort of repeating what I said just before). Here is a good quote from Marshall (2004, 70):

Calling this process of involvement and mastery addiction is medicalising what many of us do in all sorts of pursuits from gaining competence in playing sport to understanding a subject or language. Although (this) compulsive behaviour may be irritating to those around who are not playing and there may be a sense of wasted time, (players are) simply motivated by a desire to master the particular game in all its intricacies.

This is particularly true for real-time strategy games like Age of Empires and Command and Conquer, where you have the opportunity to play God, as well as role playing games and first person shooters such as classic Dungeons and Dragons or Halo III: Combat Evolved, where characters become a projection or an extension of yourself (Quittner, 1999).

Another element of electronic games as a perpetrator of antisocial behaviour is illuminated by Robert Kerbs (2005) who divulges that while gaming cultures can be thought of as pro social through their level of interactivity, the environment and atmosphere in which these cultures are cultivated may not be so healthy. Since its mass introduction in 1994, the world-wide-web has gathered over 380 million users (ok note that this is 2005, I’m sure its grown massively beyond 380mil…) and acts as a key to intricate expanding virtual realities and cyber-worlds. If you have ever played or even heard of Second Life you will see what I mean. I guess what Kerbs (2005) was trying to say is that this portal to a new virtual presence is not without dangers. It would be detrimental to forget that social interaction and communication has a physical element that does not and can not exist in an online network. Sure I have a facebook and a myspace and I chat on msn and am writing this blog with some small hope that it might get read but I tell you what, I’d take a face-to-face conversation with a friend any day over my online ‘social’ activities. Jenkins (2006) makes the point that while gaming cultures can extend past the world of the internet, to clubs and social gaming with friends and family, physical communication and the element of touch is lost on these online cultures (Jenkins, 2006). And if you’re still not persuaded (sorry if this is about to be totally inappropriate) think about whether you would rather cyber-sex or real sex… Unless you’re being a smartarse I would say the majority of people would opt for real sex.

With that said demand and demographics that previously defined games and gamers are changing, perhaps due to the release of games like Nintendogs (by Nintendo in 2005), The Sims (by Maxis first in 2000) and Everquest (by Sony Online Entertainment first in 1999). As more and more games emerge that are typified by their element of social interaction and those who play, electronic games can no longer be seen as an independent pastime for boys cooped up in computer rooms at school. Online and offline gaming cultures are a new segment in society, existing on local and global scales, where gamers from every context can engage and exchange with others, enriching their own gaming experiences through networking, knowledge and understanding (Kerbs 2005).

Forgive me for this next comment but I’m trying hard to see both sides of the argument here – it seems to me that while elements of contemporary gaming can be described as social, there persists some pervasive elements in electronic gaming with the potential to manifest antisocial behaviour and self-isolation. In my eyes addiction, to anything, is not a healthy thing. Another citation from Marshall (2003, 72) who quotes Martti Lahti on the alluring concept of electronic games:

One of the characteristics of video games throughout their history has been an attempt, with the help of various technologies, to erase the boundary separating the player from the game world and to play up tactile involvement. Indeed, much of the development of video games has been driven by a desire for a corporal immersion with technology, a will to envelop the player in technology and the environment of the game space. That development has coincided with and been supported by developments in perspective and the optical point-of-view structures of games, which have increasingly emphasized the axis of depth, luring the player into invading the world behind the computer screen.

It is this very nature that Lahti is arguing that provides an environment where the merger of boundaries between the real and the corporeal is encouraged to take place. In 2003 the Sydney Morning Herald ran an article on a young gamer who was found dead at a cyber-café booth after playing Diablo II for five hours straight (Sydney Morning Herald, 13/1/2003). While the article was slightly removed from context, this case is still significant in representing the potential severity of allowing ourselves to overindulge in electronic games (or anything for that matter), despite how aesthetically pleasing or interactive we find them.

Lou Robson raises a similar alarm for Australians, stating that ‘hundreds of Queensland couples are calling it quits as a result of computer game addiction’ (The Sunday Mail, 22/1/2006). Everquest, a MMORPG (massive multi-player online role playing game for those of you who don’t know the acronym) has developed an obsessive following since release and can be viewed with a sense of irony. Everquest is often used as an example to support arguments for the pro-social developments of gaming, and yet the multiplicity of EverQuest widow’s detailing the disintegration of their relationships with gamers hooked on ‘EverCrack’ is an undeniable demonstration of antisocial behaviour as a direct result of electronic gaming. Kerbs (2005) re-establishes this allusion to gaming as a form of drug as ‘The (gaming) industry is the only industry… that refers to its customers as users – similar to illicit drug dealers who sell their wares to their own users’, with the most solemn part in this being that the average age for gamers is now close to 30 and we can no longer blame our age for this childish profligacy.

Although most of the evidence supporting the existence of a psychological condition of game addiction is anecdotal, the quantity of these documented experiences is considerable, so much so that detox clinics for game addicts have been opened in China and Europe. Allowing indulgence and letting the line between fantasy and reality to fuse during game time is acceptable as long as you are able to self-monitor and self-regulate (Van Horn, 1999). It is when we are unable to do this that we risk falling into antisocial practices and jeopardising our place in society and our relationships with those around us.

Electronic games have become ‘a normal and everyday experience for the more than two generations of 50 million Americans that are now in adulthood, whose memory and imagination have been coloured by Atari, Nintendo and Sega, the same way that the memory and imagination of previous generations were tinted by television, cinema and vinyl records’ (Marshall, 2004, 62). While much research is focused on the effects of electronic games on children, perhaps because they are naively seen as unwittingly more susceptible to overindulgence (Gauntlett, 1998), advances in electronic games and their availability have given rise to the development of gaming cultures and progressed to cater to much more diverse audiences. It must be admitted however that surrounding these cultures is an underlying community dis-ease (take that as a pun if you like) and the willingness to slip too far into these often violent fantasy worlds.

Don’t get me wrong, I think that it is obvious that the vast majority of people are able to recognise the difference between reality and the reality of a game. But I do think that we should be mindful of the minority who cannot. Maybe we wont be able to ever pin-point abnormal behaviour to a particular cause but even if one individual is unexplainably affected by an electronic game, whether it is a violent or antisocial or some other form of negative response, it should be identified and utilised as a precaution to others. Equally, if an individual is inexplicably affected by an electronic game in a positive way, this should then be publicised so others may reap similar benefits.

I think that it is unfortunate that violence and antisocial behaviour are an inescapable part of our modern world, but whether or not this behaviour is spawned from new technologies (in this case electronic games) and their related activities is doubtful. It is inevitable that this blemish on humanity has a permanent quality that can only be reduced by a unanimous effort to remain open to the fears that exist within society. A fear is still a fear, whether it has validity and substance or not, and can only be overcome by being confronted. So the jury remains out on the question: what do we have to fear from electronic games?

REFERENCES

Banks, J 2002, ‘Everybody knows that gaming makes people antisocial and violent’, Lecture in KCB102 Media and Society Public Lecture Gaming Cultures at Queensland University of Technology, Kelvin Grove Campus, on 11 May.

Gamer Widow: Gaming’s other half, 2006, an online gaming community, http://www.gamerwidow.com/ (accessed 12 April 2008).

Gauntlett, D 1998, Ten things wrong with the media ‘effects’ model, http://www.theory.org.uk/david/effects.htm (accessed 23 January 2008).

Jenkins, H 2006, Reality Bytes: Eight Myths about Video Games Debunked, PBS, Arlington Virginia, http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html (accessed 10 June 2006).

Kerbs, R 2005, ‘Social and ethical considerations in virtual worlds’, The Electronic Library, vol. 23, no. 5, 2005, pp 539-546.

Marshall, P D, 2004, New Media Cultures, Hodder, London.

National Institute on Media and the Family: Mediawise 2006, ‘Watch what your kids watch: computer game addiction’ http://www.mediafamily.org/facts/facts_gameaddiction.shtml (accessed 12 April 2008).

Quittner, J 1999, ‘Are video games really so bad?’, Time, vol 153, no 18, pp 50-59.

Robson, L 2006, ‘Game over’, The Sunday Mail, January 22, p 27.

Sydney Morning Herald, The, 2003, ‘Computer addict found dead at screen’, The Sydney Morning Herald, January 13

Van Horn, R 1999, ‘Violence and video games’, Phi Delta Kappan, vol 81, no 2, pp 173-174.

Apologies again for any referencing errors!