If you make products or software that other people use, this is pretty much a must-see kinda thing…the last 5 or 6 minutes are dizzying, magical, and terrifying.

I think this video is just as important if you’re a parent who has a child who are interested in some of the products Jesse talks about. I hope you’ll watch this and it will help make clearer the way these micro and reoccurring transactions can creep into your family budget.

The Economist printed an interesting article last week that gathers some recent research on the behavioral effects of video games.

The first bit of research focused on what the researchers called “pro-social” gaming. Dr. Douglas Gentile studies the effects of gamers after playing games from one of two groups. The first group involved fighting and destructive games and the second were games in which the player assists other characters. (A third group of games were the control – puzzle games.)

…those who spent the longest playing games which involved helping others were most likely to help, share, co-operate and empathise with others. They also had lower scores in tests for hostile thoughts and the acceptance of violence as normal.

Tobias Greitemeyer and Silvia Osswald followed the thinking in  Dr. Gentile’s research and focused even more on positive gaming leading to positive thoughts.

…the students were asked to say what happens next in three incomplete stories involving a driver and a cyclist who narrowly miss colliding; two friends, one of whom is unapologetic despite being repeatedly late; and a diner speaking to a restaurant manager after waiting for an hour to be served and then having food spilt on him. Those who had played “Lemmings” suggested endings in which the characters in the stories exhibited significantly fewer aggressive thoughts, responses and actions than the ones suggested by the “Tetris” players.

The conclusion drawn is that video games in which the player is rewarded for assisting other characters tend to result in players to act positivly in real life social situations.  Games with violence, or where you harm characters, resulted in players acting in anti-social ways.

Some of the comments are thought provoking.  One claims that the researchers should have picked more current and mainstream games to test with.  Others argue that other societal factors, such as the current state of the economy, are more likely the cause of violent behavior.

Photo by Helico – Licensed under Creative Commons (Thanks to Tim S. for sending this in)

This particular individual happens to be one of the smartest and most successful people I know.  At 5 years his senior he makes me feel like some sort of devolved monkey.  While talking about him we came to a theory about why he is more successful than his peers.

He likes to try new things.  And he spends his time doing new things.

I think parents need to encourage their children, even at very young ages, to try new things.  Kids need to be raised without fear – of course as long as they won’t recieve physical or mental harm.

Take my daughter for example.  She likes bugs and dolls. When we find a bug crawling around neither my wife or I freak out and start swinging at it. We calmly explain to Kari what it is and how to interact with it.

If it’s a dangerous insect we tell her to stay back and let us handle it.  If it’s something benign we encourage her to watch it, ask questions and tell us what she sees.

These days parents are fearful of everything.  Every object, social scenario, environment – is a mine field of things that we only see as potential harm. I witness far too many parents who won’t let their kids play video games, for fear of what they might see.  

These same parents, frustratingly, would willingly plop their tyke down infront of the TV for hours and be comfortably oblivious to what they’re experiencing.

If there are no other benefits of video games over TV but one, let it be this – Video games, even the most basic, offer more interactivity and create more mental stimulus than your average television show.

My theory is that parents are too fearful and don’t want to try new things.  Therefore their children suffer the same fate.  We wonder why so many children rise to mediocrity as adults when the cause is us, the parents.

Once again, I’m not suggesting you plop your children down with a video game.  You need to interact with them regardless of the medium they are experiencing.  (Yes, books too!)  But video games are inherently curved to produce a more meaningful experience than most mainstream media.

For more on this subject I encourage you to check out two books.  The first is Free Range Kids - a book about allowing kids to take risks as they grow up.  The second is by Malcom Gladwell called Outliers.  In Gladwell’s book he discusses how benefits at young ages creates opportunities latter in life that give some individuals a leg-up on their peers.  Both are highly recommended.

In the December issue of the Journal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling, Christopher Ferguson takes a critical look at the media’s obsession with the potential impact of violent video games on our youth. In his article, The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?, he attempts to identify if there is scientific evidence that school shootings are the result of exposure to violent video games.

The important argument here that many tend to overlook is the concept of true causality. One can easily identify commonalities and even correlations. However, causality means that without the presence of a particular element, the outcome would be different. And conversely, because of the presence of a particular element, an outcome is inevitable. Jack Thompson, the anti-gaming activist and (former) lawyer is cited in this article almost immediately because he stated through the national media outlets that the Virgina Tech massacre was a result of Seung-Hui Cho’s exposure to violent video games. As investigators eventually revealed, Seung-Hui Cho didn’t play video games. Jack Thompson was betting that he had, though, because the majority males in college do.

But even if the shooter had been an avid gamer, scientific method would dictate that we verify causality by looking at others who play violent games. If the games cause shootings, then all people playing these games are attempting to commit similar acts. This is obviously not the case. Instead, gaming is a pervasive part of the culture and  everyone playing these games is not committing violence on this level. This attempt at causality is much like identifying that a shooter breathes oxygen, therefore oxygen causes the urge to kill.

Still, with such violence in our society we must continue to reflect upon the true source(s). I believe that children should not be exposed to any form of violent media before they are old enough to distinguish between reality and fantasy. Modeling such acts without grasping the consequences is tragic. As parents it is our responsibility to maintain an active dialog with our families to identify what our children see, hear, and believe.

Yeah.

To summarize there was a positive feeling felt after the player was killed in the game and a negative one when they killed their opponent! How interesting. From gamecritics.com
“From the article: “instead of joy resulting from victory and success, wounding and killing the opponent elicited anxiety, anger, or both.” In addition, “death of the player’s own character…appear[s] to increase some aspects of positive emotion.” This latter finding the authors believe may result from the temporary “relief from engagement” brought about by character death. Whatever the underlying basis, however, the results seem highly counterintuitive.”

I think there’s more research to be done, but brings up an interesting discussion. Just what exactly are gamers feeling at different stages of gameplay? The emotional responsise a good video game can elect cover the total gamut of human feelings. Very cool stuff and I hope the researchers continue their work to delve into the gamer psyche even more!

CC image from CommandZed’s Flickr page! 

So you would think that with all the hub-bub about mature video games that they would have to be the largest percentage or rated games. Or at least a high percentage. Cause it would be strange if all this noise was for a minority of rated games…

Yeah, well not exactly. Kotaku brings us a note about the games that were rated in 07. Guess what percentage OF ALL GAMES did mature titles encompass? 7%. Wow.

Kotaku puts it thusly:

“For as violent a reputation as has been bestowed upon the video game industry, ‘M’ rated games only make a small percentage of their total numbers and, according to the ESRB, this small percentage is actually down 50% since 2005. Back then, 12% of titles were rated M. And in 2006, that figure was already down to 8%. In 2007, a year in which the ESRB rated 1,563 games, ‘M’ rated games only accounted for 6% of the titles.”

So the number of mature games has decreased in the last 2 years. Yet the number of goobers who keep making a big deal of mature rated titles are neglecting to mention the content of the other 94% of ESRB rated games. This includes T rated games, which sometimes can contain rather mature content….Hmm…

Picture respectfully stolen from Drunken Moneky’s Flickr stream.

“Common sense tells you that you don’t let an elementary school kid or an older child with a history of aggressive behavior play Grand Theft Auto. But that same common sense tells you that if 90 percent of households have owned or rented a video game every year – while the juvenile crime rate has been going down for more than a decade – then a little Halo 3 never hurt anybody…”

If only more people had that common sense thing.  Take a read and let us know what you think!

“A recent study of the video games market shows that heavier gamers and lighter gamers are equally inclined to enjoy playing video games as a family, group or as a party activity, and both groups value gaming as a way to bring their families closer together. The majority of gamers — especially teens and older gamers ages 15 to 65 and older — view playing video games as a way to alleviate stress and to help them unwind.”

Boo-ya!

I saw a fascinating episode of Frontline on our local PBS affiliate last night. It was entitled, “Inside the Teenage Brain.” In typical PBS fashion, you can find a tremendous amount of related information at their site including a viewable version of the entire episode!

One insight that I learned from this broadcast was that the average teenager gets only 7.5 hours sleep and they need 9.25 hours. This “sleep debt” makes focusing and studying even more difficult. Another observation that came out of research referenced in this program was teenagers’ misinterpretation of facial expressions. It appears that the adolescent brain interprets visual displays of emotion in different areas than the adult brain. Because of this, it processes the visual stimuli differently and reaches conclusions which are inconsistent with what adult brains understand.

There is some wonderful information in this program and one of the final messages that they share with the viewer is that in spite of teenagers’ erratic emotions and potentially abrasive behavior, they really want contact with their parents. Sometimes they don’t know how to say this and their desire for independence makes it difficult for them to express it.

“…while heavier gamers are much more inclined than lighter gaming groups to prefer playing games alone, both groups are equally inclined to enjoy playing games as a family, group or as a party activity, and both groups value gaming as a way to bring their families closer together. Notable also is that the majority of gamers, especially teens and older gamers ages 15 to 65 and older view playing video games as a way to alleviate stress and to help them unwind.”

Pretty cool news.