[Release Date: May 24, 2022] Video games have been accused of being addictive and making players more violent and sexist. Studies have been cited that confirm these claims. And politicians suggesting laws limiting what video games can do have referenced the “scientific consensus” on these issues. But how does good research on these topics actually work and what does it tell us about the connection between games, violence, addiction, and sexism?
SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Shlomo Sher: Alright, welcome everybody today here with we’re here with Rachel co worker PhD Rachel is a reacher psychologist and the researcher sorry, let me start this again.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s the call and the research director of take this Okay, by the way, I don’t I don’t say what take this is so just out of curiosity what is take take this.
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Take This: It is a mental health nonprofit that works with the gaming industry and gaming communities.
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Shlomo Sher: God why don’t we have that in there that’s.
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Take This: that’s already been asked me this The first question was take this and i’ll tell you.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, all right let’s do.
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A Ashcraft: It for sure.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah I mean that is that’s super awesome all right, everybody we’re here with Rachel cohort PhD rachel’s a research psychologist and the research director of take this Rachel, can you tell us a little bit about what take this is.
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Take This: Yes, take this is the first mental health nonprofit that was formed to serve serve the gaming industry and the gaming community.
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Shlomo Sher: awesome.
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Shlomo Sher: that’s amazing Besides this, and we gotta could we blade to find out more about this, in fact, can you just tell us, so what, what do you guys do I mean that’s.
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Take This: that’s that’s amazing yeah yeah we work to D stigmatizing mental health challenges and provide mental health information and resources that are tailored to the gaming community in the gaming industry.
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Take This: So, as we know, there’s specific mental health challenges with the industry like burnout and crunch and.
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Take This: harassment and that sort of stuff and there’s also special considerations when it comes to talking about mental health in the gaming community, so we serve as that that bridge of information and research.
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Shlomo Sher: that’s fan.
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A Ashcraft: I love that yeah how great is that are we, the like the last industry in the world to get one of those or.
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Take This: I mean we’ve been around since.
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Take This: I want to say 2017 as i’ve been around for a while.
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Take This: So maybe not the last.
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A Ashcraft: Industry but.
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A Ashcraft: yeah well that’s amazing I had no idea that this existed and i’m so happy to hear about it.
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Take This: yeah thanks we’re happy we’re happy to serve.
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Shlomo Sher: I write a Rachel, we might ask you to come back and just as a side and then then just just do something about what you guys do to kind of.
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Shlomo Sher: Help out that that sounds really, really interesting all right.
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Shlomo Sher: Besides this Rachel is a world renowned researcher on the uses and effects of digital games, including their impact on the physical, social and psychological well being.
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Shlomo Sher: An award winning author is he’s published a variety of books and scientific articles related to the psychology of games and, more recently, the relationship between games and mental health specifically.
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Shlomo Sher: Recently, she founded her YouTube channel a site geist which serves to bridge the gap between moral panic and scientific knowledge in a variety of psychology and game related topic and we’re gonna be talking about the about that today.
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Shlomo Sher: At least in part, about the gap between the moral panic that can happen and well scientific knowledge versus ignorance of what really is going on there’s got to be a balance between those two things.
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Shlomo Sher: And she does this, for a variety of psychology and game related topic and we’re going to get into this.
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Shlomo Sher: Last year in 2021 Dr Cohen, was chosen as a member of the game awards feature class representing the best and brightest of the future of video games.
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Shlomo Sher: Dr court has been featured in various media outlets, including npr the Washington Post The Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic wired and Coca Cola and Polygon all right Rachel corey welcome to the show.
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Take This: for having me thanks for the lovely introduction.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, so we want to talk today about the the big debates in the psychological impact on video game so we’re going to focus on violence sexism addiction and yeah and I wanted to, I wanted to start with this, so you know violence seems almost past say of a topic at this.
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Shlomo Sher: Point but.
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Shlomo Sher: Really it never is as and as a parent it’s certainly something that you know every parent I talked to.
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Shlomo Sher: has at least some concerns about and violent video games were accused of making players more violent since the 90s Study after study seem to confer this to the point where people like Congressman Joe baka.
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Shlomo Sher: which I know Andy has a particular.
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Shlomo Sher: animosity for him and he might putting a wrong.
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A Ashcraft: Yes, yeah you know you’re you’re.
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A Ashcraft: you’re conflating in with the California Congressman.
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A Ashcraft: who’s now in jail for for for smuggling arms to Mexico.
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Shlomo Sher: That was the other one block and the California is Congressman.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah okay yeah you’re right we’ve got his name okay.
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A Ashcraft: Can we leave.
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Shlomo Sher: Leave yes.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, let me, let me, let me get back to this.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so what we have people like Congress Congressman Joe buck, a call for a label and all games that informing parents about the scientific consensus so.
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Shlomo Sher: You know referencing to a consensus that video games cause violence as a consequence of violent violent video games.
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Shlomo Sher: And now, as I understand it, the consensus seems to be the violent video games in the current forms.
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Shlomo Sher: may lead to increased aggression and players but don’t lead players to actually become violent, first of all, just to make sure we start in a solid foundation is this an accurate description of the current consensus of the issue is is their current consensus on this issue.
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Take This: There is a pretty strong consensus on this issue at this point, you know we’ve been studying violent video games for 4050 years.
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Take This: And the vast majority of people would agree with the statement that there’s no evidence to indicate that violent video games make you violent now, the problem is that conflation with the term aggression.
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Take This: Because there are laboratory studies that look at basically you bring somebody in.
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Take This: You take a baseline measurement of some kind of aggression, usually like a fill in the blank a blank blank you see that on a page you write kiss you play 10 minutes of what’s considered a violent game come back to see K I blink blink instead you put kill.
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Take This: And that’s considered an increase in aggression and that’s not an exaggeration, these are actual measures that are using this research and that.
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A Ashcraft: Can I can I can I ask if that so.
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A Ashcraft: yeah is that a good measure.
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Take This: Well that’s the thing right, so how how ecologically valid is what you’d say in the psychology world is that does that actually mean that I am then going to behave in a way that’s different.
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Take This: Because of being exposed to this 10 minutes of video gameplay and that’s question number one question number two is that.
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Take This: Technically, this would be a measure of cognition changes and thoughts which you could say is perhaps indicates aggression, but that aggression and violence are not the same.
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Take This: right that doesn’t mean i’m going to go rob a bank that doesn’t mean i’m going to beat somebody up and and commit something violent.
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Take This: And the third thing to consider is this is, you know, a laboratory study what happens in a lab in a highly controlled setting isn’t does not really reflect what happens in the wild world around us with all these different variables.
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Take This: But you know even taking that aside, at this point there’s been a lot of like the Meta analyses of this research and really looking at all of the variables and when you consider.
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Take This: personality variables previous exposure to violence peer deviance all of these things are far more impactful and whether somebody behaves aggressively or violently than any media consumption, whether it’s like.
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Take This: Karen tino movie film festival, or if it’s you know, a weekend of mortal kombat those seem to have no no impact at all when you consider other other more demographic factors.
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A Ashcraft: um.
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Shlomo Sher: Can we go back to the difference between because you said conflating aggression with violence, so yeah What is the difference, but what is the difference that supposed to be here.
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Take This: I think, generally speaking, it’s the difference between a thought or a cognition versus an actual behavior.
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Take This: So although you know a great you can have aggressive behaviors as well that aren’t necessarily violent like when I play first person shooters which I don’t do very often because i’m terrible at them and hate them.
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Take This: I get very angry yeah.
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Take This: breach I get very angry and I break my mind i’ve broken several ways SLIM it when I blame myself with the fragrance and it makes me very frustrated that is aggressive and that is the behavior but it’s not violent i’m not throwing the mouse at my fastest face, you know.
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A Ashcraft: Right right you’re not being aggressive to sue somebody else.
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Take This: Somebody else.
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Take This: Right right.
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A Ashcraft: you’re you’re taking it out on inanimate objects and and then, and then it gets sort of released and it’s sort of a cathartic moment right.
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Take This: you’re you’re correct and you know recent more recent research from the Oxford Internet institute actually says those actions are not a.
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Take This: sign of aggression or not a sign of an increase in aggression there a sign of getting out your frustration and that is actually a key their friends, if we want to talk about.
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Take This: Violent media changing your behavior and your thoughts to become more violent versus you know the frustration of blinding yourself with a firm thing which.
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Take This: I no longer do.
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Shlomo Sher: That that’s actually really interesting right because you brought up the terrorists tino example right tarantino film festival right we’re talking about super super violent but you’re the passive watcher of that versus acting aggressively as a interactive, you know as as a game player.
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Take This: Right, where you’re into what’s going on.
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Shlomo Sher: Is the impact itself different because.
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Shlomo Sher: What you’re doing as in terms of aggression or relieving.
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Take This: Aggression itself different yeah that’s you know that’s always the the contention right that people are like well video games are interactive.
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Take This: But our brands are really good at differentiating between what’s real and what’s not and we are very well aware that when we’re playing grand theft auto and accidentally run over a pedestrian that is not analogous to me driving down my street and running somebody over.
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Take This: With my car the emotions are not the same, the intentions are not the same, so in that sense, they are.
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Take This: Similar and how they impact us as humans in our our thoughts and our subsequent.
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Take This: behaviors and I, like the example of the tarantino movie and I give it in one of my YouTube videos because they say.
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Take This: You know how I feel when I watched django unchained it was very little too violent, for me, I enjoy tarantino movie but that one you know the scene, at the end and the House it’s very violent.
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Take This: But how I would feel if I was in that House when that was happening is completely different to how I feel.
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Take This: Just one yeah and and the same.
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A Ashcraft: is greater.
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Take This: If I ran somebody opens my car I would be devastated right but I run them over like nobody’s business and grand theft auto cuz i’m just not a very nice driver in that game, but it doesn’t mean anything to me because I know it’s not real.
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Shlomo Sher: Right um.
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A Ashcraft: Let me interrupt for just a moment because I just realized that my recording is not recording any of my audio.
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A Ashcraft: So I apologize, but let me, let me get this, let me get this straight.
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A Ashcraft: Let me get let me figure out what is going on and why is it that audacity is not listening to the same microphone.
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Take This: least we have a zoom backup.
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A Ashcraft: Yes, we have a zoom backup and then.
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Take This: that’s OK last time I did a podcast ever recorded on garage band, and it recorded nothing I see it’s recording now.
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Take This: Okay, so we’re.
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A Ashcraft: just happen to notice.
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A Ashcraft: That when I was speaking, nothing was happening on the little little.
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A Ashcraft: On the sound like.
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Shlomo Sher: it’s it’s probably still connected to to your other MIC.
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A Ashcraft: All right, let me see if I can figure out how to.
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A Ashcraft: do that.
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Shlomo Sher: add the sense okay.
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A Ashcraft: All right, I.
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Shlomo Sher: guess, we can always go to the zoom.
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A Ashcraft: How do I, how do I change the microphone and this.
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Shlomo Sher: Is the density.
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yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Well here’s.
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Shlomo Sher: So.
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A Ashcraft: Once we.
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Shlomo Sher: start with the destiny, it is no longer.
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Shlomo Sher: Once you started, you have to.
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A Ashcraft: Be close out the.
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Shlomo Sher: year either close out from a desk today.
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Shlomo Sher: or i’m not sure if you can stop and keep going that way.
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Shlomo Sher: That would be the idea.
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A Ashcraft: So sorry.
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Shlomo Sher: kiss kill.
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Shlomo Sher: It happens oh.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah well you know another another good example is.
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Take This: The hot sauce another like actual example that they use in these laboratory experiments about aggression is they bring someone in and they say hey.
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A Ashcraft: Shalom was in the room next door and.
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Take This: he hates hot sauce how much hot sauce do you want to make him eat I don’t want to make you mean any hot sauce that’s terrible he doesn’t like it.
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Take This: And then I play 10 minutes of grand theft auto or call of duty and they say how many hot sauce you want to eliminate now i’m like Oh, the hot sauce and they’re like okay that’s an increase in aggression, but again that’s.
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Take This: What value does that have in terms of how.
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Take This: person actually.
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Shlomo Sher: that’s that’s great definitely want to ask I I definitely want more of us, because these are.
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Shlomo Sher: You know.
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A Ashcraft: yeah can you hear me now.
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Shlomo Sher: yep you have like a whole lot of stuff oh there we go there static.
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Shlomo Sher: And now it’s gone okay.
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A Ashcraft: All right, Okay, let me see if this is going to take, am I am I recording yes i’m recording okay great.
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A Ashcraft: yeah you mind if we do you mind if we do another class.
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Take This: Oh, oh.
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Shlomo Sher: OK, I see you just to get your.
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A Ashcraft: so that you can rethink me.
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Shlomo Sher: OK, I see haven’t done that, before so let’s do 2020 okay everybody’s up.
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A Ashcraft: Okay, and we’re.
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Shlomo Sher: back.
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A Ashcraft: And we’re back.
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A Ashcraft: So that I don’t I stop the zoom recording at all, so the zoom recording will have that the whole thing and then we’ll have this after that, after that break.
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Shlomo Sher: Thanks Andy i’m going to figure this all out and.
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Take This: post will fix it in post know we get.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah yeah you know we were in Hollywood here.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, I mean I literally live across the street from a from a film studio awesome okay uh so Okay, a kiss pill, I want to go back to this Rachel this idea of first of all, what was the idea behind the kiss killers that just kind of subconsciously what your.
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Shlomo Sher: motivational set is like, of whether you would complete a word in a certain way with the kiss kill.
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Take This: yeah well, I mean it’s a classic word completion task which is looking for like priming right, so what what.
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Take This: cognition and what thoughts and ideas are primed based on your exposure to this.
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Take This: particularly violent media, but I mean it does make sense if you’re playing a game and which the objective is to kill other people in the game, it does make sense that that thought would be.
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Take This: primed and you would then complete the word that way deciding that indicates an increase in aggression is when we start to get into a little bit like does it, though.
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A Ashcraft: Right is that the same is that the sort of the same technique that magicians used and.
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A Ashcraft: mentalist.
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Take This: This direction.
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A Ashcraft: Well, no, no, they.
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A Ashcraft: Like when they they can, I think that I think the terminology is that can push they can sort of pushing an idea, and then they can you know ask you a question and then, and then you give them the word that they’re expecting.
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Take This: That they’re looking for perhaps and never heard that connection.
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Take This: Before, but it could be.
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A Ashcraft: Like i’ve been watching a lot of penn and Teller so I know.
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A Ashcraft: that’s it.
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A Ashcraft: that’s all my knowledge.
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Shlomo Sher: So beside the word completion what other sort of a test have they done because i’m assuming it’s always interest i’m always so interested in how psychologists try to make these tough real world experiences in you know in in as a research project what.
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Shlomo Sher: They do you say.
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Take This: I mean well, you have to be creative because you can you know follow someone around and see if they commit violent crimes or not that’s not really possible, so the other, the other popular one is called the hot sauce paradigm.
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Take This: Which is where you bring somebody into the lab and you say hey there’s this other person in the room, next to you, you don’t know, but I can tell you that they dislike hot sauce and I have this.
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Take This: jar of hot sauce how much hot sauce do you want them to eat you’d be like well probably none because that’s cruel.
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Take This: And then you play 1015 minutes of the game considered violent and then they asked me the same question and then you say oh I.
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Take This: wanted to give them a teaspoon of hot sauce a tablespoon apostles a gallon of hot sauce you know, whatever it might be, and if the volume increased.
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Take This: that’s considered an increase in aggression and again it baffles me who came up with these measures, because I don’t really know exactly what that’s measuring or how that indicates that increase in violence or aggression.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah so I mean this leads to me to want to ask two questions, essentially, the first is.
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Shlomo Sher: I must i’m assuming, these are not stupid people you know.
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Shlomo Sher: These are psychology he’s doing research What were they thinking, or is this just kind of.
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Shlomo Sher: creative thinking when you’re trying to start.
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Shlomo Sher: researching something that has not been researched before is that kind of the idea.
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Take This: yeah I mean I mean that there’s there’s validity and measuring a change in your thoughts like with the word completion task, there is validity in that, but the problem is, it has.
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Take This: Low relation to like actual behavior change the hot sauce i’m not really sure there’s a really good paper by Malta elson and I want to say, Chris Ferguson did a whole paper talking about the hot sauce paradigm and basically being like why.
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Take This: Why are we doing this, why are people replicating it, why is this a thing that one’s a little work there.
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A Ashcraft: Right, it sounds like it reminds me of the old electro shock sort of.
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A Ashcraft: thing that like that the Stanford experiment and that sort of and that sort of thing it’s like well I guess you’re taking it down a little bit by changing it from from you know from electrodes to like you know electricity to hot sauce.
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A Ashcraft: But it seems like the idea is the same right.
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Take This: Right you’re in a similar idea.
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Shlomo Sher: Somebody I mean you know the hot sauces painful yeah so I mean.
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Take This: isn’t it yeah well, I mean, but the Stanford experiments were about obedience to authority.
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Take This: Right, so those were about will you listen to the man in the white coat when he says gives you more.
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Take This: Give him more shocks, whereas the hot sauce is that’s your own decision to give the poor guy in the next room.
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Take This: Right.
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A Ashcraft: Right right you’re somebody’s not telling you hey.
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A Ashcraft: yeah okay.
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Take This: Go burn out, it was direct yeah do it.
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Take This: Do it come on and they’ll be fine.
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Shlomo Sher: So so okay let’s say we’ve gone beyond word completion and hot sauce we’ve learned from this um the games of the future might be really different to the games of today, and you know i’m thinking about my favorite example is manhunt vr 2042.
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Shlomo Sher: Right, where i’m imagining right right.
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Shlomo Sher: It could be.
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Shlomo Sher: Right yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: Sure um how are the psychologists of the future, do you think going to get better answers about the potential connection between violence in video games.
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Take This: I mean, I think, at this point we’re very well aware that media generally has a low impact on our behavior in the long term.
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Take This: Whether that changes if it’s more you know, has higher visual fidelity and behavioral fidelity you know, like we talked about the metaverse and we talked about.
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Take This: right man on vr I mean I guess that remains to be seen, but it would really have to get to a point where it’s indistinguishable from reality.
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Take This: I think, to have any sort of actual long term impact because you’re talking about a change in one’s entire disposition and their behavior and their personality they’re going to become.
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Take This: More or less empathy are they going to you know all of a sudden change what they see is between right and wrong and that sort of thing I mean I feel like that’s a long term.
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Take This: Impact so like I said the other research we see on what actually impacts this stuff is pure delinquency is.
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Take This: A family violence previous exposure to violence, low frustration tolerance things that are built over the long term, and some of which are very ingrained in one’s personality and demeanor so I don’t really see any.
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Take This: indication that media, even if it is fully immersive would have a more of a greater impact than these other variables on violence.
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Shlomo Sher: right though Morris oh sorry go ahead.
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A Ashcraft: Go ahead trauma.
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Shlomo Sher: I was thinking a first of all yeah I mean that seems seems obvious right but there’s still obviously going to be a question of whether it has a still a significant.
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Shlomo Sher: kind of impact right or will it have a significant kind of impact and obviously we would still want to know that i’m thinking of the sexism stuff we’re going to talk about later.
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Shlomo Sher: Where let’s say that the Gentile study that says, you know that video games have a you know, a small but significant impact on sexism.
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Shlomo Sher: And you know spot significant right it’s still kind of interesting, at least to us who.
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Shlomo Sher: who care about the impact of video game, the biggest.
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Take This: People in, and you know for the gentiles study there’s there’s other studies that say they don’t so.
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Take This: Right, you have to take it with a grain of salt.
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Take This: You know it all depends let’s get to research, it, but you know it all depends on what you’re looking at how you’re measuring it if you’re measuring it over time this and the other thing.
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Take This: Can media impact the way we perceive the world absolutely can the portrayal of women in certain ways impacts, the way you know, we think that women should be and or behave and or you know that sure.
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Take This: So that is something to consider, but you know, the thing that will come out of vr.
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Take This: is finally people will be like oh that’s 3D games as duty games stills were no big deal there’s a real problem.
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Take This: This is the real problem.
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A Ashcraft: Right and that gets us into the moral panic right.
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A Ashcraft: Yes, now.
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A Ashcraft: Now we’re in the new technology and there’s always some moral panic about the new technology.
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Shlomo Sher: Can you explain what a moral panic is actually did that follow that up.
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Take This: yeah absolutely i’m world panic.
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Take This: Is a is the desire to have a simple solution to a complex problem so it’s the panic, we have every so often around new technology is it being the source of all.
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Take This: evils in society and we’ve seen it over history it actually you know, there was panic over the written word, you know, no one will remember anything, there was.
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Take This: Panic over women doing crossword puzzles oh my God they’re gonna learn how to read and this is going to be tragic, you know more recently Elvis Elvis Elvis caused quite a panic and my my father’s generation dungeons and dragons video games.
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Take This: So, like I said when we get vr then it’ll be vr and video games like it was fine, just like now Oh, this was was fine right it didn’t actually collapse society.
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Take This: The way that he was dancing on the stage right.
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A Ashcraft: d amp D did not actually cause a rise and Satanism.
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Take This: It did not D amp D is super fun.
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A Ashcraft: yeah it’s it’s my first love of gaming yes.
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Shlomo Sher: Yes, um my to actually know now my second atari definitely beat it.
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Shlomo Sher: Okay, so let’s let’s move on it, I want to come back to the sexism stuff as kind of the last stuff but.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah Kim addiction right it’s been another one of these issues where.
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Shlomo Sher: The numbers of video game of players that are supposed to be addicted to video games.
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Shlomo Sher: From what i’ve seen has just varied so dramatically and i’m assuming this has to do with the way the kind of testing we’re doing the kind of definitions we’re doing, I mean i’ve literally seen claims that 1% of the population or 20% of the population.
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Shlomo Sher: of players are addicted to video games, I think that 20% came from South Korea and i’m assuming one of the problems is the differences in the way people define addiction.
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Shlomo Sher: What, what are the kind of different ways that you know it’s really weird where you have like numbers, given that have such a wide wide range what’s the different ways that people might define the addiction that might lead them to have really different results.
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Take This: yeah you know a lot of these numbers come from before there was any sort of parameters put around How would be defined to i’ve seen from point 2% to like 20% and it’s like something is wrong here you’re not measuring this the same way.
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Take This: But you know people again kind of like with the fill in the blank with the hot sauce we’re trying to figure it out from the beginning, so it’s like, how do we measure, it is it about too much time spent.
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Take This: Is it about the repercussions that you’re experiencing another part of your lives like what is it that you’re.
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Take This: Measuring exactly so now in 2019 the World Health Organization move forward with the designation of gaming disorder and let out released some set of criteria.
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Take This: And then the American psychiatric Association, which is not formally classified gaming disorder, but did put together a tentative set of criteria.
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Take This: and put it in the back of the book being like maybe this is a thing, maybe this isn’t a thing, but if this is a thing here’s some you know boundaries that we can start looking at.
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Take This: So there’s different ways to define it, but it has at least become a little more universal now with the World Health Organization moving forward with kind of their criteria i’m gonna have problems with their criteria, but at least there are criteria there.
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Shlomo Sher: what’s the difference, by the way, before before we get to it 20 fields between the APA and the organization in terms of their criteria.
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Take This: Oh well, they do API has seven I think in the World Health Organization has five but APA is North American based in the World Health organization’s opposite global.
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Take This: organization, but they kind of go along the same parameters, whereas you have to.
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Take This: have experienced distressed I think it’s 12 months or more, you had to meet you know, the majority of these criteria, which are things like.
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Take This: I have sacrificed other activities to play games I spend more time playing games that I wanted to spend playing games those sorts of those sorts of things it’s mostly around more time spent than intended and consequences and other areas of your life because of playing games.
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Shlomo Sher: Do you take an.
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Shlomo Sher: acid, do you think addiction is kind of the right term for us to use them in clearly a lot of people have problems with playing too much or playing in ways that they you know they may be personally don’t consider healthy or obviously if it’s kids off often it’s a parental concern.
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Shlomo Sher: Do you think, replacing the world would like excessive or pathological gaming or anything else.
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Shlomo Sher: might be better, do we want addiction to be the term that.
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Take This: People use.
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Take This: You know the way that and a regular person and non clinical person uses addiction and the way that a clinician uses addiction is vastly different I do not think that Games are a big thing inherently until we do not think addiction is the correct term.
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Take This: Do people use games in a way that causes problems 100% do people use games problematically I like to term problematic.
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Take This: problem gaming.
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Take This: Because of course they do, of course, there are some people that are are using games maladaptive Lee.
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Take This: That was my doorbell someone’s at the front door, I have a package everyone there’s absolutely people who use games maladaptive Lee but the difference between an addiction is an addiction is a.
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Take This: Is a term that has a set of clinical term that has a treatment plan your understanding may have a biological basis or behavioral basis, but we don’t have any of these understandings around games.
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Take This: And when you look at the research, the research is far more points to games are being used as a maladaptive coping strategy for something else depression, anxiety.
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Take This: Isolation whatever it might be, and that is very important from a clinical sense because you’re going to want to treat the depression, anxiety or the isolation.
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Take This: Not you know take away the games which tends to be the strategy for like gaming addiction centers and this sort of thing because you’re taking away the coping strategy that’s helping them process these these feelings and emotions.
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Take This: So yeah I think addiction is the wrong term and I, I have not seen any kind of sufficient evidence to indicate that games themselves are uniquely addicting as like a medium.
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Shlomo Sher: Can you talk a little bit more about the research, then, first of all I guess.
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Shlomo Sher: What kind of research would kind of would tell us if games are.
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Shlomo Sher: addictive and problematic gaming is it seems like such a broad term but.
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Shlomo Sher: I.
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Take This: Have a better suggestion yeah.
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Shlomo Sher: What what what kind of research are we talking about that that settles this kind of question.
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Take This: Well, I mean for me, like the key research is is is gameplay having a negative impact on somebody well being that’s kind of the baseline coming from a mental health perspective.
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Take This: that’s kind of the baseline for me and there was a really good study.
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Take This: That came out last year, I want to say again from the Oxford Internet institute they’re doing a lot of good work they work together with Nintendo of America and electronic arts and actually managed to get server logs data of playtime.
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Take This: And they look at the relationship between playtime and mental well being and they actually found not that more playtime led to worse, while back there was no evidence that playing more.
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Take This: inherently lead to worth levels of well being and they said wait a minute here if we’re saying that playing too many hours is the key argument.
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Take This: that something is addicting and something is engaging in a way that’s maladaptive we’re looking at it wrong because it’s not associated with these negative well being outcomes and instead by limiting it, you may be preventing the positive wellbeing outcomes.
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Take This: that are associated with it, like social.
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Take This: Community and social closeness and that sort of thing So for me, you have to be able to to show that it has a negative impact on your mental health, if you want to you know, put it in the diagnostic statistical manual of mental health disorders, that seems like a good baseline.
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Shlomo Sher: yeah i’m.
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Shlomo Sher: Sorry, so any did you want to sorry.
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A Ashcraft: yeah so so a bit back you were talking about tolerance to frustration.
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Yes.
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A Ashcraft: and
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Shlomo Sher: You have a lot of static suddenly coming from you you’re having a lot of Mike is.
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Take This: Gone now.
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A Ashcraft: it’s gone now.
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A Ashcraft: yeah yeah all right, I don’t know what it is.
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A Ashcraft: Anyway, so i’ll repeat the question.
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A Ashcraft: or a little earlier on you, you talked about tolerance for frustration and and I wonder like.
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A Ashcraft: Do games make us more tolerant to frustration.
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A Ashcraft: Like is it sorta or less.
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A Ashcraft: Less tolerant of frustration, is there any research to talk about God Oh, I remember what it was, it was one of the things that that you listed as as being another factor for for for indicating violence or.
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A Ashcraft: indicating like.
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A.
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A Ashcraft: meal.
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A Ashcraft: A more aggressive sort of.
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Take This: yeah yeah you know low tolerance for frustration is one of those key indicators of, especially for adolescents or children for like you know outbursts of anger, because they can’t handle the frustration.
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Take This: Do games help us.
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Take This: generate that skill I can’t say that i’ve necessarily seen it linked specifically to frustration, tolerance, but I have seen games linked specifically to teaching.
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Take This: Strategies around persistence and I feel like that is related.
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Take This: You know continually trying to be the enemy, at the end of the water temple and it was arena of time, you know you have the persistence, to continue to try and try and the strategy so that could be tangentially related but I haven’t seen it specifically linked to frustration for tolerance.
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Take This: Tolerance frustration, but that would be interesting anyone listening looking for PhD project that might be.
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Shlomo Sher: I want to go back to to the to the idea that essentially any of the problematic gaming that we might see that.
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Shlomo Sher: might be attributed to addictive behavior might instead be part of a coping mechanism, yes um How would we figured that out right.
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Take This: yeah yeah I mean for me what I usually tell parents when when I start talking about you know.
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Take This: My kids play too much is it Christmas break are they playing a lot, you know that’s just increased engagement or yeah, how do you tease out between like a period of increase engagement problematic gaming addiction.
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Take This: For me, is is the person in question suffering negative consequences in all areas of their lives and it all seems to be around gaming so Are they not going to score or not doing their work are they.
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Take This: not going to work or they’re not breathing properly or they’re not doing any other activity.
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Take This: That they normally would do and are we seeing this you know and their social life, occupational educational physical across the board for 12 months or more, now we are in gaming is the common thread.
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Take This: Then what I advise is going to see a mental health professional who is culturally competent in and around game, so I take this at org we actually have a list of clinicians across North America who.
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Take This: Who identify themselves as understanding that games can be spaces for social communication, they can be spaces for first.
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Take This: Stress release and that sort of thing.
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Take This: So they have that understanding when they say hey games seem to be serving the central purpose and they instead of saying it’s the Games, take the Games away, they can say okay what function is this serving for you let’s tease this out and see how we can you know.
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Take This: Not have all these negative consequences.
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Take This: anymore that are happening.
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A Ashcraft: Right now, it seems very, very reasonable, I mean.
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Take This: The parents have that question and I don’t want to discredit the experience that people have that I know they have say my kids will get off the game is my kids are only playing games.
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Take This: They seem very frustrated or angry when they’re playing it like these are real experiences that that parents have but it’s not about the game right it’s about something else underlying.
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Shlomo Sher: um yeah you know, since I remember uh you know i’ve had lots of problems stopping to play games.
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Shlomo Sher: Right and I remember talk, we had to and on the show, and you know he talked about you know, throwing away civilization and then digging through the trash going, you know, to the big trash and I was like I.
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A Ashcraft: You know i’ve practically done.
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Shlomo Sher: The same thing right, but these are were obviously people who you know I feel like you know uh you know either had a problem or prone to a problem but also managed to you know to deal with it.
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Shlomo Sher: Where does that kind of stuff kind of fall into this whole talk about addiction problematic gaming etc just kind of the.
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Take This: yeah I.
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Shlomo Sher: I can’t stop playing but, and I know.
387
00:38:21.000 –> 00:38:25.350
Shlomo Sher: But I know it’s bad for me, but i’m also kind of eventually going to take steps to be able to.
388
00:38:25.980 –> 00:38:36.750
Take This: write these are self regulation skills, these are important and and again if you find that you are lacking the self regulation skills are for a parent is recognizing that their child is lacking the self regulation skills that’s when.
389
00:38:37.080 –> 00:38:42.480
Take This: going to see a mental health professional can be really beneficial, because there are strategies that can be learned and taught.
390
00:38:42.900 –> 00:38:49.140
Take This: In and around and one of the key issues is time management and I talked about this with parents, a lot, especially parents have.
391
00:38:49.530 –> 00:38:53.280
Take This: younger children like preteen children, they say I tell them five minutes.
392
00:38:53.670 –> 00:39:06.480
Take This: And they’re still playing and I get really frustrated and I try to explain to them, you know they don’t know what five minutes feels like first of all, they can’t very properly gave you a five minute says you don’t want to live your life late 20s really about how to gauge time effectively.
393
00:39:06.570 –> 00:39:07.890
Take This: Really, but secondly.
394
00:39:08.070 –> 00:39:08.460
A Ashcraft: or not.
395
00:39:08.490 –> 00:39:09.150
Take This: You know games.
396
00:39:09.180 –> 00:39:10.050
Shlomo Sher: are meant to be.
397
00:39:10.830 –> 00:39:22.380
Take This: forever games are meant to be engaging right, so you don’t want to leave after five minutes like you said you know you should get off, but you don’t want to because they’re designed to be engaging that’s the whole point of them.
398
00:39:23.100 –> 00:39:26.910
Take This: So it’s about learning strategies like Okay, I know a fortnight naturalist 45 minutes.
399
00:39:27.150 –> 00:39:36.840
Take This: So when I tell my child five minutes and I see, they just started a fortnight match that’s kind of an unreasonable expectation, because there are social pressures to playing for night with your friends there’s all these other things there’s engagement issues.
400
00:39:37.320 –> 00:39:42.120
Take This: So the parents, I say help teach your child time management, but also accommodate you know the space of the game.
401
00:39:42.570 –> 00:39:53.100
Take This: itself how many times, my mom said pause world of warcraft Lord okay you can’t pause world warcraft calm i’m in the middle of dungeon like I can’t do it doesn’t work but, having just a basic understanding of what’s going on.
402
00:39:53.850 –> 00:40:04.260
Take This: And then you can find that a lot of the fights around time and time management in Games will at least reduce because you have a better idea they’re not they’re not lying when they say this world of warcraft.
403
00:40:05.430 –> 00:40:06.810
Take This: And you’ll understand it yeah.
404
00:40:08.820 –> 00:40:10.980
Shlomo Sher: i’m okay let’s move to our third issue.
405
00:40:11.280 –> 00:40:16.260
Shlomo Sher: gets too many people, the biggest concern about video games today is sexism.
406
00:40:17.490 –> 00:40:25.950
Shlomo Sher: And this is a obviously sexism, not just in video games, but also in the video game industry.
407
00:40:27.300 –> 00:40:45.150
Shlomo Sher: I I I read a I think it was a did you see survey That said, the top I think one or two or two and three things that developers were worried about was sexism in video games and the perception of video games as being sexist.
408
00:40:46.260 –> 00:40:48.240
Shlomo Sher: i’ve also looked at a bunch of study that.
409
00:40:48.240 –> 00:40:53.250
Shlomo Sher: said that playing games with sexualized female characters increase a hostile sexism.
410
00:40:53.520 –> 00:40:55.260
and racism, with acceptance.
411
00:40:56.340 –> 00:41:05.400
Shlomo Sher: Right so hostile sexism meaning it’s not the put a woman on a pedestal sexism it’s the you know, a you know, a.
412
00:41:05.460 –> 00:41:07.470
Take This: Third, of the kitchen and make a sandwich kind of sexism.
413
00:41:07.800 –> 00:41:08.190
Shlomo Sher: That.
414
00:41:08.340 –> 00:41:18.570
Shlomo Sher: that’s exactly it right make right myth acceptance is exactly what it’s what it means right, the more likely to not believe women were essentially they say they have been raped.
415
00:41:19.710 –> 00:41:23.910
Shlomo Sher: Then there’s a Gentile study that the origin to study that I mentioned earlier.
416
00:41:24.120 –> 00:41:32.610
Shlomo Sher: right that playing video games by teenagers in general corresponds to an increase in sexist attitudes and that’s that has nothing to do, I guess, with just.
417
00:41:34.140 –> 00:41:43.020
Shlomo Sher: Specifically sexualized female characters but that kind of speaks to the background of video games in general, though i’ve questions about the way that study was was done.
418
00:41:43.980 –> 00:41:55.470
Shlomo Sher: So you know it seems to me that things like sexism and racism are just they’re really hard to define in any kind of non controversial way, which seems to make it really hard.
419
00:41:56.670 –> 00:42:12.540
Shlomo Sher: To say that something is sexist or racist I realized that kind of a hostile sexism, known as hostile sexism means it’s it’s sexism right so Given this, what are the challenges, do you think i’m studying the impact of video games on things like sexism.
420
00:42:12.750 –> 00:42:29.340
Take This: mm hmm yeah well there’s a lot of challenges with studying the impact of games on any outcome, just because, just because they’re multifaceted spaces they’re constantly changing, is it the content, or is it the social environment, I am a much more inclined to lean towards the social environment.
421
00:42:30.720 –> 00:42:36.150
Take This: kind of festering these ideas and attitudes and beliefs, more so than the content itself but that said.
422
00:42:36.390 –> 00:42:42.360
Take This: When we look at work and mental health representation, for instance in the media, we do see that the representation of.
423
00:42:42.600 –> 00:42:53.790
Take This: The mentally ill as violent, for instance, people who have mental health diagnoses are far more likely to be victims of violent crime and perpetrators of violent crime, but in the media, we see them constantly as perpetrators of violent crime.
424
00:42:54.030 –> 00:42:59.670
Take This: And that does change the idea and stereotypes and dispositions that we have and attitudes towards people who are mentally ill.
425
00:43:00.150 –> 00:43:08.460
Take This: So I can see that there’s like there’s lots of elements here that can be teased apart and then you have the element of the industry itself, which is no secret that it has had you know.
426
00:43:09.060 –> 00:43:15.870
Take This: Its own news headlines in the in the past couple years about the way that it treats anyone who’s not you know, a white male basically.
427
00:43:16.500 –> 00:43:22.920
Take This: um so there’s a lot of elements to tease apart here, I think the kind of biggest challenge now is.
428
00:43:23.580 –> 00:43:33.900
Take This: Moving forward, and you know we were just talking about gtc and the neatest our keys and gave a great talk at gtc about 10 years and shrubs first video games it’s been 10 years since you came out with that series on YouTube.
429
00:43:34.320 –> 00:43:40.710
Take This: And we actually have come a long way, I think there’s even a slight you put up this is like we won like we have come a long way look.
430
00:43:40.710 –> 00:43:54.060
Take This: At the female protagonists, we have today that we did not have 10 years ago the conversations were having about the industry, now that we are not having 10 years ago and it was most certainly the same then, if not worse and so i’m optimistic about this.
431
00:43:54.330 –> 00:43:59.850
Take This: about this one, maybe, but it’s still you know something worth discussing something worth researching something worth.
432
00:43:59.880 –> 00:44:02.490
Take This: You know figuring out how to make how to make it go away.
433
00:44:03.000 –> 00:44:10.020
A Ashcraft: yeah I saw that I saw that talk as well and, and I think the one thing that that struck me the most about it was.
434
00:44:11.160 –> 00:44:11.730
A Ashcraft: That.
435
00:44:13.410 –> 00:44:20.520
A Ashcraft: She said that going back and looking at her at the videos that she made 10 years ago was horrifying her now.
436
00:44:20.910 –> 00:44:24.540
A Ashcraft: i’m in a way that she hasn’t been horrified in a while.
437
00:44:26.010 –> 00:44:31.710
A Ashcraft: yeah right yeah nobody’s using dead hooker bodies as shields in their shooters right.
438
00:44:31.920 –> 00:44:33.300
A Ashcraft: anymore yeah.
439
00:44:33.750 –> 00:44:35.070
Take This: Right, they were 10 years ago.
440
00:44:35.190 –> 00:44:36.450
A Ashcraft: So they were 10 years ago yeah.
441
00:44:36.480 –> 00:44:38.880
Take This: yeah yeah it’s progress.
442
00:44:39.840 –> 00:44:45.840
Shlomo Sher: Good for her for getting I don’t wanna say getting the conversation started but being such a big mover in that conversation.
443
00:44:46.590 –> 00:44:57.720
Shlomo Sher: You know, really, really fantastic I mean yeah I mean the fact that we’ve gone from that to again, you know, this being an issue that developers are so aware of it, so.
444
00:44:58.380 –> 00:45:00.390
Shlomo Sher: yeah and want to do, obviously something about.
445
00:45:02.190 –> 00:45:06.300
Shlomo Sher: While we’re going through the companies themselves and how the companies that are.
446
00:45:06.300 –> 00:45:08.610
Shlomo Sher: Trying to trying to deal with it um.
447
00:45:08.730 –> 00:45:12.210
Shlomo Sher: But I want to go back to kind of the original question, which was.
448
00:45:13.380 –> 00:45:18.000
Shlomo Sher: As a researcher, how does a researcher look at a question like that.
449
00:45:18.690 –> 00:45:20.250
Take This: And yeah the question.
450
00:45:20.370 –> 00:45:25.530
Shlomo Sher: Like are these are you know, are these just if we go back to the representation right.
451
00:45:25.740 –> 00:45:27.780
Shlomo Sher: ids ids just.
452
00:45:28.080 –> 00:45:33.540
Shlomo Sher: fun, or they actually having an impact on sexism, and again part of the question is that.
453
00:45:34.620 –> 00:45:36.450
Shlomo Sher: How much yeah loaded into that term.
454
00:45:36.960 –> 00:45:38.130
yeah that’s the question I mean.
455
00:45:39.360 –> 00:45:47.310
Take This: yeah I mean I did a study looking at um yeah like sexist beliefs, over time, based on.
456
00:45:47.940 –> 00:45:53.040
Take This: playtime and that sort of thing at the University of Manchester when I was there and I found that there was no.
457
00:45:53.400 –> 00:46:02.730
Take This: Change in Texas believes over time that was related to play time, specifically, so you can kind of look at it that way, and even if you do find an increase.
458
00:46:03.180 –> 00:46:07.560
Take This: The same question would remain of does that actually mean they’re behaving differently.
459
00:46:08.430 –> 00:46:18.570
Take This: Or does it mean in the content, because he studies, you are very much do you play video games, how much you like you’re clearly priming them to think about the context of video games right, so if you’re thinking about video games and you’re thinking about.
460
00:46:19.020 –> 00:46:29.160
Take This: Was that dead or alive is at the football game like if you’re thinking about you know the representation of women and games and then that sort of thing you’re already have that on your mind and you say Oh, do I agree with this statement that.
461
00:46:29.700 –> 00:46:39.720
Take This: Women should be pretty and not heard oh yeah Okay, you know so it’s hard to say does that actually mean that they have that way, but their partners and their friends who’s to say.
462
00:46:40.530 –> 00:46:41.130
Take This: But you know.
463
00:46:41.220 –> 00:46:50.100
Take This: We do know that there are repercussions in the industry or the we do know that culture is there that’s why I say I think it’s more about the social impact and less and less concerning about.
464
00:46:50.580 –> 00:47:00.870
Take This: The way that women are represented, I think they should be represented more accurately and, of course, but they don’t think that necessarily hasn’t significant impact on the way that somebody believes or behaves or procedure woman.
465
00:47:03.270 –> 00:47:03.840
Shlomo Sher: um.
466
00:47:04.860 –> 00:47:06.930
Shlomo Sher: I still want to push a little bit more into.
467
00:47:06.930 –> 00:47:12.570
Shlomo Sher: The into getting the actual way that the research is done.
468
00:47:12.840 –> 00:47:29.670
Shlomo Sher: Right so so human so you mentioned that let’s say it’s great because I didn’t know you did research on this, so you mentioned a particular a particular question right yeah yes, so what what sort of questions, did you ask the kind of see if there is to kind of see if there’s sexism there.
469
00:47:30.480 –> 00:47:43.050
Take This: I can actually let me pull this up i’m doing i’m doing a study right now looking at the social impact of games and we have questions on sexism, so I can pull it up, and I can actually play with these questions like.
470
00:47:44.100 –> 00:47:51.870
Take This: They are like validated scales that have been created by you know not me but i’m like using them to study so here’s a measure of.
471
00:47:52.500 –> 00:48:03.960
Take This: Hostile and benevolent sexism every man ought to have a woman, whom he adores strongly agree or strongly disagree, many women have a quality of purity that few men possess so that’s going into the benevolent.
472
00:48:03.990 –> 00:48:08.880
Take This: sexism, women are more mature women should be on the pedestal kind of thing women should be cherished and protected by men.
473
00:48:10.950 –> 00:48:15.480
Take This: When women lose two men and a fair competition they typically complained about being discriminated.
474
00:48:17.460 –> 00:48:18.150
Take This: here’s a good one.
475
00:48:18.210 –> 00:48:36.210
Take This: Once a woman gets amanda commit to her, she usually tries to put them on a tight leash so it’s just like what are the perceptions of the roles that women should holds in society generally and if it’s not an equitable position to any other gender and it is sexist right yeah.
476
00:48:37.260 –> 00:48:47.790
Shlomo Sher: Interesting very, very interesting what Out of curiosity, what do you think a DS a Is this a good way to do these kinds of studies or maybe not a not a maybe.
477
00:48:48.060 –> 00:48:49.800
A Ashcraft: Not the way I hope she.
478
00:48:51.090 –> 00:48:51.420
Take This: well.
479
00:48:51.510 –> 00:48:52.560
Take This: Because i’m doing them.
480
00:48:52.560 –> 00:48:54.780
Shlomo Sher: So true.
481
00:48:54.900 –> 00:49:02.760
Take This: I mean it’s a good way to assess how how the perception is if the idea is to what is the way you perceive women and their role in the world, what is the.
482
00:49:02.790 –> 00:49:12.510
Take This: Do you perceive them as equitable two men or do you perceive them as less than then yeah it’s a good way of assessing that, but the the I guess the key argument is.
483
00:49:13.200 –> 00:49:22.290
Take This: Is this at all related to the media you’re consuming or is this related to the social environment in which you are living to me that’s what’s more important to do, because we know that some.
484
00:49:22.290 –> 00:49:33.420
Take This: People agree with the statement and some people absolutely believe that but it’s like, why do you believe that is it something that you were taught from your parents or is that something that you learn from the way you see women portrayed in the media.
485
00:49:33.990 –> 00:49:46.470
A Ashcraft: So, in some ways, this is this mirrors the violence issue right in the sense that it’s probably not games it’s except that games are part of this larger thing that we’re we’re all.
486
00:49:46.590 –> 00:49:48.900
A Ashcraft: yeah sort of social environment that we’re in.
487
00:49:49.710 –> 00:50:00.570
Take This: yeah that’s the thing, though, I think the social environment is is it’s a little different when it comes to sexism because, generally speaking, these are beliefs, that are learned versus behaviors.
488
00:50:01.140 –> 00:50:08.010
Take This: it’s a lot easier to change a belief, like, I mentioned the example about mentally mentally ill, individuals and the way they portrayed.
489
00:50:08.250 –> 00:50:16.050
Take This: In the media stereotypes, these are all kind of like cognitive beliefs, that are very informed by the people around us, whereas actually committing an act of violence that.
490
00:50:17.100 –> 00:50:22.440
Take This: can be informed by our peers, if our peers are violent but there’s other factors that are going into that okay.
491
00:50:23.070 –> 00:50:24.000
Shlomo Sher: yeah yeah that.
492
00:50:24.360 –> 00:50:29.580
Shlomo Sher: That that makes that makes a lot of sense the socialization that comes from games.
493
00:50:31.530 –> 00:50:36.330
Shlomo Sher: You know I want to go back to this idea of okay so we’re asking these questions.
494
00:50:37.410 –> 00:50:48.720
Shlomo Sher: And i’m assuming yeah So are we trying to draw a correlation between the amount of time played and how people answer these questions is that they are the kinds of games played and how.
495
00:50:49.500 –> 00:50:56.190
Shlomo Sher: Is it like the violence, research, where i’m going to give you 10 minutes to play this game and now i’m going to have now i’m going to ask you to answer these questions.
496
00:50:56.700 –> 00:51:03.810
Take This: Right work yeah no these aren’t so much experimental studies, which is what that would be with them finance where you play the 10 the 10 minutes.
497
00:51:04.110 –> 00:51:11.580
Take This: These are yeah looking at relation to usually amount of time you play and the kinds of games that you play it’s typically.
498
00:51:11.850 –> 00:51:20.190
Take This: How it’s done, but every Sunday will be different, like some we’ll put will pop these questions and strictly just do it with the time played and that’s when you come up with the research question like.
499
00:51:21.000 –> 00:51:27.180
Take This: You don’t know what kind of games they’re playing or you don’t know how the women are portrayed in the Games are that they’re playing you know they could be playing you know.
500
00:51:27.480 –> 00:51:31.830
Take This: among us for 20 hours a week you don’t know right those don’t have any gender.
501
00:51:32.700 –> 00:51:39.450
Take This: So yeah so there’s a lot of you have to look at each individual piece of research very specifically and be like, how do they measure it and what conclusions.
502
00:51:39.750 –> 00:51:47.850
Take This: Are they actually drawn like what can you actually say, first, is not what are they saying what can you actually say from what they actually measured in this instance.
503
00:51:49.650 –> 00:52:06.120
Shlomo Sher: yeah i’m thinking of the thinking of that of that genteel study, where the question was a do you think women’s Natura primary function, I think, is to have babies, I think that was that was their question and I remember thinking of.
504
00:52:08.310 –> 00:52:10.020
Shlomo Sher: Who would say this.
505
00:52:11.340 –> 00:52:11.610
Take This: Is.
506
00:52:11.820 –> 00:52:14.190
Take This: Just like these questions, who would agree.
507
00:52:14.310 –> 00:52:15.690
Take This: Some people agree.
508
00:52:16.050 –> 00:52:26.040
Shlomo Sher: I think that the question is that most of the questions you brought are, I can see more nuanced answers, then, then, then that.
509
00:52:26.460 –> 00:52:42.000
Shlomo Sher: But he’s also asking teenagers and I don’t know I don’t know I mean you know when when I talk about the someone I teach you know about sexism in you know my classes sexism is so complicated that that’s why part of me is just so.
510
00:52:43.350 –> 00:52:44.160
Shlomo Sher: i’m.
511
00:52:45.780 –> 00:52:48.360
Shlomo Sher: Not skeptical exactly but cautious about.
512
00:52:48.390 –> 00:52:49.890
Shlomo Sher: This idea of.
513
00:52:50.130 –> 00:52:52.680
Shlomo Sher: Asking direct questions to measure it.
514
00:52:53.250 –> 00:52:57.690
Take This: here’s The other thing, though, that why I say you need to really look into the research because.
515
00:52:58.560 –> 00:53:14.730
Take This: The like the gentilly study I don’t remember exactly off the top of my mind, but if I recall correctly, you know the numbers that come from these are very middle of the road so it’s a one to five scale numbers are like 2.5 for people who don’t play games and 2.7 people who do.
516
00:53:15.030 –> 00:53:17.550
Take This: yeah that’s small but significant, but to me, that means nothing.
517
00:53:17.580 –> 00:53:30.750
Take This: And I know that small but significant still can be significant, but if it’s like less than a half point difference is it really, especially since we already have these concerns about how accurate, this measure is in terms of the way that people behave.
518
00:53:31.050 –> 00:53:42.090
Take This: So I think the headlines we get a lot of headlines about the sexism, and the violence or whatever, but when you really dig into it it’s we find a word completion task, or we found an average difference of point two.
519
00:53:42.450 –> 00:53:47.550
Take This: On a on a scale that we’re already thinking is kind of dubious right gotta keep that in mind.
520
00:53:48.390 –> 00:54:01.530
Shlomo Sher: let’s let’s actually move that to the reporting part of all this right so right obviously there’s a temptation here, for you know popular media to exaggerate the meaning of any giving study.
521
00:54:04.260 –> 00:54:17.370
Shlomo Sher: That kind of goes without saying, right because I mean grabbing headlines, as what kind of media tries to do, but what do you see as the challenges of reporting the results of studies like this for researchers what’s responsible of reporting of studies like this look like.
522
00:54:19.560 –> 00:54:27.540
Take This: we’re putting the good and the bad and you know it’s hard, because everyone wants to click they have mine and nobody likes the.
523
00:54:28.950 –> 00:54:38.130
Take This: The headline you know Researchers say it doesn’t really make so much of a difference, and it can go either way nobody’s going to kind of put that headline, but we also see that in research itself.
524
00:54:38.400 –> 00:54:46.860
Take This: Like there’s been a large push to publish research that has non significant results, nobody will publish research so that’s not significant results they only want the peace less than Point five.
525
00:54:47.910 –> 00:54:56.250
Take This: So there is a challenge there, but I again optimistic, I guess, because it Colin coven started, we started seeing headlines publishing the positive.
526
00:54:56.700 –> 00:55:05.130
Take This: That the auction Internet institute setting, for instance, got a lot of press about games being related positively to mental well being so.
527
00:55:05.640 –> 00:55:12.240
Take This: Maybe we’re starting to see a little bit more flexibility and it doesn’t all have to be you know, the world is ending and games are the source of it.
528
00:55:12.840 –> 00:55:16.320
A Ashcraft: and wonder if that if that started because because.
529
00:55:17.400 –> 00:55:28.650
A Ashcraft: Like like the Court, the coincidence of that happening with the beginning of coven and all of a sudden students or kids having to be home all the time and parents trying to figure out what to do with their kids for many, many, many hours.
530
00:55:29.280 –> 00:55:31.380
A Ashcraft: Yes, mo you have a you have a boy, you know.
531
00:55:32.730 –> 00:55:36.450
A Ashcraft: Like is it like people like please God, is it really okay.
532
00:55:37.710 –> 00:55:40.110
Take This: Like i’m so bad yeah no.
533
00:55:41.070 –> 00:55:49.770
Take This: I think it did it did coincide it did coincide, the timing was nuts in that sense, because video games were on everybody’s mind for sure.
534
00:55:50.850 –> 00:56:03.660
Shlomo Sher: Right and we’re all looking for good news that you know at that time, as I mean you know I mean we went from a son having an hour of screen time a day to our son having you know seven hours of screen time of day, or something right.
535
00:56:03.750 –> 00:56:05.100
Shlomo Sher: And same.
536
00:56:05.220 –> 00:56:06.480
Take This: You know I feel yeah right.
537
00:56:06.780 –> 00:56:14.880
Shlomo Sher: And that that concern is there and it sure is nice to hear a study that says hey don’t worry right everything’s okay right.
538
00:56:15.330 –> 00:56:25.200
Shlomo Sher: yeah we’re in normal times you won’t you won’t have the audience for a study like that well, maybe you would, because how many parents don’t think about the amount of time their kids play video games.
539
00:56:25.770 –> 00:56:27.690
Take This: Right so maybe it’s always a good time to.
540
00:56:28.020 –> 00:56:33.840
Take This: To do that, well, I think it’s always a good time whether the reporters think it’s always a good time to something else but.
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00:56:34.170 –> 00:56:37.440
A Ashcraft: And i’ll start with the recording with the reporters to right.
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00:56:37.860 –> 00:56:40.140
A Ashcraft: yeah porter’s what am I interested in.
543
00:56:40.350 –> 00:56:45.510
A Ashcraft: What do I, what do I want to research, what do I want to find out what’s like who’s doing studies on this.
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00:56:46.440 –> 00:56:47.760
Take This: yeah you know reporters.
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00:56:48.240 –> 00:56:49.290
Take This: are really talk to me.
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00:56:49.680 –> 00:57:00.000
Take This: they’re like give me some statistics about how bad things are and i’m like well I can’t really do that because really at the end of the day, it’s actually not too bad and i’m like oh find somebody else to talk to.
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00:57:00.540 –> 00:57:01.950
Shlomo Sher: Right that’s right.
548
00:57:01.980 –> 00:57:02.280
yeah.
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00:57:03.510 –> 00:57:11.160
Shlomo Sher: yeah that that itself is so you have this kind of selective process, both in journals and in.
550
00:57:12.390 –> 00:57:20.970
Shlomo Sher: In popular media that is essentially selecting for whatever is going to make a headline and negative information usually is what is going to make the headline.
551
00:57:21.060 –> 00:57:24.780
Take This: Well yeah and that’s also you know, a human disposition.
552
00:57:25.080 –> 00:57:38.010
Take This: we’re looking for preferred challenges and threats and like as humans, we are exposed to that so it’s not you know some of it’s an unconscious bias, but I do hope we could all be a little more cognizant of you know speckling in the good news.
553
00:57:39.000 –> 00:57:44.250
A Ashcraft: yeah it’s interesting that all right at the beginning of the coven when we’re all under so much threat.
554
00:57:45.270 –> 00:57:47.340
A Ashcraft: Then they start looking for hope.
555
00:57:48.540 –> 00:57:51.540
Take This: Yes, yes you’re right that is interesting.
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00:57:53.490 –> 00:57:54.840
Shlomo Sher: um okay so.
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00:57:55.380 –> 00:57:57.810
A Ashcraft: Anyway, just need to threaten everybody.
558
00:57:57.900 –> 00:57:59.250
A Ashcraft: With something worse.
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00:58:00.390 –> 00:58:01.890
Take This: vr coming.
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00:58:03.210 –> 00:58:03.510
Shlomo Sher: Oh.
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00:58:03.750 –> 00:58:09.390
Shlomo Sher: The metaverse it’s already you know the metaverse is already out of games.
562
00:58:09.390 –> 00:58:19.350
Shlomo Sher: Or you know dirty seems like a nice deflection yeah so let me, let me ask you and I think, maybe this will be Andy How far are we in terms of a.
563
00:58:19.650 –> 00:58:20.820
A Ashcraft: vicious be our last question.
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00:58:21.720 –> 00:58:22.920
Shlomo Sher: Great so.
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00:58:23.970 –> 00:58:25.380
Shlomo Sher: Parents and public officials.
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00:58:26.490 –> 00:58:31.680
Shlomo Sher: A lot of times they want to make video game policy based on what they read and places.
567
00:58:32.850 –> 00:58:35.670
Shlomo Sher: In the popular media usually about what research has discovered.
568
00:58:36.780 –> 00:58:41.730
Shlomo Sher: it’s interesting to me, and we had an episode about South Korea and China, and how they deal with.
569
00:58:42.510 –> 00:58:49.950
Shlomo Sher: The way they look at the problem of addiction, but South Korea has like eight different government ministries dealing with kids and game addiction.
570
00:58:50.610 –> 00:58:58.560
Shlomo Sher: China by was the last year that it started banning the Internet Internet gave me for kids except for seven to eight Friday to Sunday.
571
00:58:59.490 –> 00:59:08.910
Shlomo Sher: California tried to fail to ban the sale of mature video games to minors and parents follow right obviously what the government and the government is supposed to be.
572
00:59:09.780 –> 00:59:17.130
Shlomo Sher: Listening to experts on this is there anything you think public officials need to consider when reacting to psychological research about video games.
573
00:59:18.570 –> 00:59:36.360
Take This: yeah they they need to consider the positive and the negative and they need to consider you know, the role of parental guidance, you know it’s one thing to have age labels I think age labels and content labels from the srp which came out of that original legislation.
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00:59:36.540 –> 00:59:39.060
Take This: That was fueled by moral panic, but I do think that that.
575
00:59:39.270 –> 00:59:45.540
Take This: is a good thing to come out of it because parents can be informed about what’s the content that my kids are consuming do I think it’s appropriate for them or not.
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00:59:45.930 –> 00:59:52.770
Take This: i’m very wary of governments coming into regulate our leisure time which is basically what it is they don’t.
577
00:59:53.100 –> 01:00:02.760
Take This: regulate how many videos I can watch how many you know music albums I can listen to, but they do provide warnings like hey this might be explicit or hey this might be for mature audiences.
578
01:00:03.150 –> 01:00:12.780
Take This: So I think it’s important to maybe just leave the regulation to that and let parents decide what’s appropriate and what’s not appropriate, I did do an interview about the China.
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01:00:13.230 –> 01:00:20.340
Take This: bill that limited playtime and I will say that my perspective, was very different from the perspective of there was a woman there, who was trying to use.
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01:00:20.850 –> 01:00:28.320
Take This: Her perspective was it’s great that the government is regulating it, because now i’m not the bad guy and I can just say hey it’s the law that’s a totally different perspective.
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01:00:28.740 –> 01:00:32.400
Take This: To take, then I think we normally taken in the West, I mean i’m in Canada you’re in the United States.
582
01:00:33.270 –> 01:00:48.030
Take This: So i’m more of a fan of parents to be informed parents you take the onus on regulating this within their household and deciding what’s best for them and their children and the government can just provide us with information to help us make the best decision that we can make.
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01:00:48.540 –> 01:00:58.230
A Ashcraft: yeah and I think it’s interesting in the case of the US, at least the all of these these like the srp and all of that our our.
584
01:00:59.670 –> 01:01:03.090
A Ashcraft: Our industry created right they’re not government created.
585
01:01:03.180 –> 01:01:03.960
Take This: Except and then.
586
01:01:04.020 –> 01:01:06.330
A Ashcraft: The industry only created them at the threat of.
587
01:01:06.540 –> 01:01:06.870
Yes.
588
01:01:08.250 –> 01:01:11.730
A Ashcraft: So, so the industry wasn’t going to do anything until the.
589
01:01:12.000 –> 01:01:19.410
Take This: date right their hand yeah, but these are big is wonderful, I mean and they continue to grow and they even have parental tools.org now which.
590
01:01:19.650 –> 01:01:28.320
Take This: Literally will walk you through how to set parental controls, unlike any system and limit spending and limit time and all of that stuff yeah right so yeah yeah.
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01:01:28.740 –> 01:01:33.720
Shlomo Sher: um can I go back to that interview about China sounds really I know this was.
592
01:01:33.720 –> 01:01:35.760
Shlomo Sher: yeah last question, but a.
593
01:01:36.030 –> 01:01:37.980
Shlomo Sher: day to be about China sounds super interesting.
594
01:01:38.250 –> 01:01:50.610
Shlomo Sher: up how how to China reach such a different conclusion about the dangers of video game addiction, do you think, then the rest of the world.
595
01:01:51.630 –> 01:01:59.790
Take This: I am not well informed enough to say for sure I mean if I had to hypothesize I think that games are very, very popular.
596
01:02:00.870 –> 01:02:07.230
Take This: And they have a different approach to regulation, then we have over here.
597
01:02:07.620 –> 01:02:13.860
Take This: And I think it’s just kind of a combination of those two things like I said the the parent that was in the interview, I can send you the link it’s on YouTube.
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01:02:14.040 –> 01:02:23.310
Take This: She was very relieved she’s very relieved that the government passed, whereas if it were me I would be like a Pole, if the government pass a law saying my case you only play video like who are you to tell me what.
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01:02:23.310 –> 01:02:24.990
Shlomo Sher: My right right right right.
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01:02:25.080 –> 01:02:26.730
Take This: So it’s just a totally different perspective.
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01:02:27.540 –> 01:02:39.960
Shlomo Sher: Interesting all right Rachel court, thank you for coming on our show this has been super fascinating um is there any last words you, you want to tell our audience anything you want to leave them with.
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01:02:40.680 –> 01:02:56.760
Take This: um I guess just at the end of the day, just keep in mind games you’re just one of many things that we do, and the research, says the effects are generally more positive than negative or at the very least neutral, so we can get off the moral panic train until you know vr becomes more affordable.
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01:02:59.280 –> 01:03:01.710
Shlomo Sher: awesome alright, thank you, Joe.
604
01:03:01.980 –> 01:03:03.570
Take This: Thank you, thank you for having me.
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Shlomo Sher: All right, good podcast play nice everybody.
