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By The Gamer, September 28, 2009 12:08 pm

I’ll preface this by saying that I do have an addictive personality, so this is something I take very seriously. In the past I’ve struggled with alcohol, mostly, but have gotten that completely under control thanks to the support I receive from my family. However, I’m not going to preach. Having said that, for those who played (or still play) MUDs, get ready for some nostalgia.

When I was younger (we’re talking 11, 12 years old) I played a lot of MUDs and continued to do so well into college. To be fair, I played a lot of two MUDs: Apocalypse IV (which graduated to Apocalypse V and is now known as Apocalypse Forever and located at telnet://apocmud.org:4000) and Enertopia. Apocalypse you may have heard of; Enertopia, probably not.  In fact, I just logged on Apocalypse for the first time in quite a while and, to my surprise, there are 6 people online! Granted, this is considerably less than in its heyday when 100 unique people would be logged on at any given time. I would spend hours upon hours in front of the computer leveling my characters, trying to pop equipment, bartering and what-have-you.

I had no internet connection aside from the multiple free accounts provided by my local library, which only provided accounts that timed out after two hours, resetting after 24 hours. Not just two hours per day; two hours every 24 hours. It was brutal. Eventually I found another provider that offered unlimited time (thanks, friend’s brother’s friend I didn’t know). I would spent eight hours a day playing one or more MUDs, mostly using the zMud client (couldn’t stand TinTin++) and playing multiple characters simultaneously.

I still have the character files with all my triggers and aliases and variables, not to mention a (very outdated, surely) equipment database. Ah, the good ol’ days.

But, like all things, that too passed. That, and I honestly wasn’t very good.

Text-based MUDs gave way to the MMORPG (massively-multiplayer online role-playing game; a mouthful, I know), but the chance for addiction never ebbed. In fact, it seems to have grown considerably and branched out beyond adolescents and college kids.  The October 2009 issue of the American Journal of Family Therapy contains an article by Dr. Kimberly Young, the director of the Center for Internet Addiction Recovery, called Understanding Online Gaming Addiction and Treatment for Adolescents. There’s not a whole lot to say about it, really. It’s a good resource for what to watch for if you’re concerned someone may be addicted to gaming (it’s really no different than the tell-tale signs of alcoholism: preoccupation, losing interest in other things, lying about/hiding usage, becoming defensive or angry when confronted, and withdraw, both social and psychological). Abstract:

Massive Muti-user Online Role-Playing Games or MMORPGs as they are often called are one of the fastest growing forms of Internet addiction, especially among children and teenagers. Like an addiction to alcohol or drugs, gamers show several classic signs of addiction (Grusser, Thalemann, and Griffiths, 2007). They become preoccupied with gaming, lie about their gaming use, lose interest in other activities just to game, withdrawal from family and friends to game, and use gaming as a means of psychological escape (Leung, 2004). This paper explores the emergence of online gaming addiction and its impact on individuals and families. This paper reviews the nature of online games and what makes them addictive among some players. As computers are relied upon with greater frequency, detecting and diagnosing online gaming addiction may be difficult for clinicians, especially as symptoms of a possible problem may be masked by legitimate use of the Internet. This paper reviews the warning signs of online gaming addiction, adolescent issues involved in gaming addiction, especially as the industry targets youth, and parenting and therapy considerations for this emergent client population.

When you think if MMORPG, what do you think of? Yep, you got it. World of Warcraft. South Park did a great episode on WoW in which the boys become addicted to the game. It’s worth watching if you haven’t seen it. Their addiction is a noble one, however: they dedicate all day, every day to beefing up their characters in order to kill a superpowered character who gets his kicks by pkilling lower-level players. In the end, they decide it’s a better idea to just go outside and play.

Some people never come to that conclusion.

In fact, there’s an entire chapter devoted to “information overload” in Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives by John Palfrey and Urs Gasser. On page 187 they write the following:

Some recent headlines from around the world:

• “A South Korean games addict died after playing nonstop for 86 hours.”
• “An overweight 26-year-old man from north-eastern China has died after a ceaseless gaming session over the Lunar New Year holiday.”
• “A 30-year-old man has died in the south China province of Guangzhou after apparently playing an online game continuously for three days.”

A 2007 poll found that 8.5 percent of youth gamers in the United States could be classified as pathologically addicted to playing video games. In an online British study that same year, 12 percent of gamers demonstrated addictive behavior. In summer 2006, the first inpatient clinic for computer game addicts in Europe opened its doors; Korea, meanwhile, already has more than forty game-addiction counseling agencies registering thousands of cases per year.

While the generalized title is “internet addiction” it’s clear the focus is on MMORPGs, as, regardless of how addicting Stumbling may be, there’s only so many times you can run across Charlie the Unicorn.

Addiction really is nothing to be scoffed at. Thinking something is innoculous or “just a game” is a dangerous thing, too. People can become addicted to nearly anything and adolescents are particularly prone to this sort of behavior as it can provide them without an outlet they, perhaps, can’t find anywhere else. In WoW, for instance, the unpopular teenager is a well-known and respected guild leader.

Still, I’m not entirely sure you need to pay $14,000 to kick the habit.

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By The Gamer, September 17, 2009 1:47 pm

Violent games do not create violent children. There. I said it.

A good researcher reports findings that support his or her position, as well as those that fly in its face. The October 2009 issue of Issues in Mental Health Nursing contains an article titled “Young Children’s Video/Computer Game Use: Relations with School Performance and Behavior” by Erin Hastings at the University of Florida in Gainesville, FL, and Tamra Karas, Adam Winsler, Erin Way, Amy Madigan and Shannon Tyler, all from George Mason University in Fairfax, VA. As always, the abstract:

This study examined the amount and content of children’s video game playing in relation with behavioral and academic outcomes. Relationships among playing context, child gender, and parental monitoring were explored. Data were obtained through parent report of child’s game play, behavior, and school performance. Results revealed that time spent playing games was related positively to aggression and negatively to school competence. Violent content was correlated positively and educational content negatively with attention problems. Educational games were related to good academic achievement. Results suggest violent games, and a large amount of game play, are related to troublesome behavioral and academic outcomes, but educational games may be related to positive outcomes. Neither gender nor parental monitoring emerged as significant moderators of these effects.

There is a fairly sizable collection of research that supports the claim that violent video games (or television, for that matter) are related to higher levels of aggression, both in children and adults. However, speaking frankly, this is akin to saying that owning many books is directly, causally related to a high frequency of reading. There is very little support for a direct causal link between violent gaming and violent behavior. Reciprocation is more likely; a feedback loop. Violent is as violent does.

It’s important to remember–and I say this with all sincerity–that the most important aspect of a child’s development is the parents. No amount of video game or television curtailing by watchdog groups is ever, ever going to replace the effects of just one good parent. If a parent truly believes that violent video games will turn his or her child into a raving, homicidal maniac, then guess what: be an adult and say No to that child. Parental responsibility is nothing to be shrugged at. Television producers and game designers are not out to make upstanding paragons of civility out of your children; they’re out to make money by producing consumer-based materials that people buy. Two things sell, unequivocally: sex and violence. That math isn’t hard to do.

An interesting aspect of research like this is the number of variables involved. In just the article there are:

• Gender
• Age
• GPA
• School  competence
• Time playing games
• Violence level of games
• Parental monitoring of content
• Parental monitoring of time
• Social context
• Previous behavior of child
• Media type

Any researcher worth his or her salt, given that list of factors, would never try to make a causal link out of all that. This is not to say the authors did; I’m just pointing it out. The authors list a number of limitations on their study, as per usual in academic articles (all citations found on page 646 and are not found immediately following one another):

First is the fact that only parents reported on their child’s video/computer game playing habits.

In addition, parents may misreport the amount of monitoring that they actually do.

Finally, to obtain child grades, parents were permitted to either (a) submit a grade report from school, or (b) report their child’s grades. It is conceivable that the self-report option may have introduced some error, presumably due to parents inflating grades to enhance their child’s academic standing.

Also, our sample was limited to generally high-achieving children from relatively well-educated, mostly middle- to upper-class families,

Another limitation is the correlational and exploratory nature of the study. Although links among game playing and children’s aggression and academic achievement were found, the direction of the causality is unclear. It is likely that, as previously mentioned, the relationship between aggression and violent media is reinforcing.

When splitting the sample to analyze by gender, [the limitation of a small sample size] became clearer, as correlations that were significant overall with the enter sample only approached significance when the sample size was halved to look at boys and girls separately.

It is not my intent to rip apart this article and I apologize if it comes across that way. However, I feel it’s important to point out that when articles like this are published (that show a correlation between one thing and another) it’s all too easy for people to that correlation to causation and assume a causal link. We’ve all seen the Tipper Gores and Zackery Morazzinis and even the Hillary Clintons hell-bent on preventing violent video games from falling into the hands of impressionable, moldable youth.

It reminds me of an old George Carlin bit: “It’s a great country, but it’s a strange culture. This is a country where gun store owners are given a list of stolen credit cards, but not a list of criminals and maniacs! Where tobacco kills millions of people every year, so they ban artificial sweeteners! Because a rat died! And now they’re thinking about banning toy guns . . . AND THEY’RE GOING TO KEEP THE FUCKING REAL ONES!”

Coming up next: addiction.

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By The Gamer, September 10, 2009 2:04 pm

In last week’s Economist an article titled “Games Lessons” appeared in the Education, psychology and technology section.

I have a question, though. Why would saying “the future of schooling may lie with video games” “sound like a cop-out”? To “cop-out” of something means to “avoid taking responsibility for an action or to avoid fulfilling a duty”… so how is using an extremely effective medium in an educational setting to improve students’ learning and performance… a cop-out?

It seems that the author (not sure who wrote the piece) disapproves of “transferring much of the pedagogic effort form the teachers themselves (who will now act in an advisory role)” to the games the students are playing.

Obviously this author has never been a teacher.

The main focus of the article is on the Quest to Learn school in New York.  One of the theoretical foundations of the Quest to Learn school rests firmly on the work of James Paul Gee (click here to see a couple videos I posted a while back of an interview with him), though James is not directly involved with the school itself.

One of the neatest things about the Q2L school (at least, if you ask me) is the reworking of the traditional class periods. English? Science? History? Math? Adios. (No word on whether Spanish is being replaced.)  Here’s the PDF of Q2L’s Overview of Curriculum. Really interesting stuff. “The Way Things Work, Being, Space and Place, and Wellness being just a few examples of course blocks.

You may be asking, “Yeah, sure, sounds like fun. But what can you possibly do with an education like that?” Seems that the Q2L folk have heard that before. Here’s a list of Future Careers the school suggests for graduates:

Urban planner · Organizational Management · Economist · Engineer · Scientist (all) · Computer Scientist · Financial Analyst · International Relations · Entrepreneur · Business and Finance · Design (all) · Political strategist · Judge · Sustainability and Environmental Scientist · Human Factors Researcher · Anthropologist · Writer · Investigative Reporter · Learning Scientist · Inventor · Information architect · Playwright · Actuary · Biotechnologist

Doesn’t sound half bad to me.

Anyway, the Economist article does make a good point in that the level of success will

take a few years to find out. The school plans to admit pupils at the age of 12 and keep them until they are 18, so the first batch will not leave until 2016. If it fails, traditionalists will no doubt scoff at the idea that teaching through playing games was ever seriously entertained.

Let’s just hope it does. I mean, what kid wouldn’t love a school whose supply list for the new school year includes a pack of blank CDs, a pack of blank DVDs, a flash drive (at least 2 gigs) and a pair of USB headphones.

To keep tabs on exactly what’s going on at the Q2L school, check out the Q2L Parents blog. Tell ‘em who sent ya.

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By The Gamer, August 29, 2009 11:09 am

The Official Journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics just published two new articles about gaming, exercise and the potential benefits for children. Though this isn’t obviously directly related to COTS games in the classroom, you could make an argument that a well-funded (or grant-funded) school could look at, for example, Wii Fit for Phys Ed classes.

The first, Playing Active Video Games Increases Energy Expenditure in Children, uses Dance Dance Revolution to measure whether or not actively-engaged video games (think games that make you get up and move) are tantamount to actual exercise. Turns out, yes, they are.

Energy expenditure during active video game play is comparable to moderate-intensity walking. Thus, for children who spend considerable time playing electronic screen games for entertainment, physically active games seem to be a safe, fun, and valuable means of promoting energy expenditure.

Similar results were seen between DDR Beginner level and Wii Bowling, and also between DDR Level 2 and Wii Boxing, which turns out to be about as strenuous as walking at nearly 6km/h.

Though, I will say that any child doing this is definitely burning some calories.

The second article, Can Exergaming Contribute to Improving Physical Activity Levels and Health Outcomes in Children?, found that exergaming is not really a substitute for real sports and physical activity because most “exergames” do not reach the same level of intensity as actual sports. The author does say, however, that there are a few games that provide sufficiently intense activity (like, I would imagine, half an hour of doing what that kid is doing). The author addresses previous studies and future suggestions:

Only 3 very small trials have considered the effects of exergaming on physical activity levels and/or other health outcomes in children. Evidence from these trials has been mixed; positive trends for improvements in some health outcomes in the intervention groups were noted in 2 trials. No adequately powered randomized, controlled trial has been published to date, and no trial has assessed the long-term impact of exergaming on children’s health. We now need high-quality randomized, controlled trials to evaluate the effectiveness and sustainability of exergaming, as well as its clinical relevance; until such studies take place, we should remain cautious about its ability to positively affect children’s health.

So, as with most things, more research is needed. Imagine that. If nothing else, it has promise, right?

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