Mythbusting

In this picture: Torill Mortensen, Faltin Karlsen, Jessica Enevold, Rune Klevjer and Snorre Bryne.


Links for an afternoon of discussions about myths around computer games:

Studies from NOVA on youths and computer culture - in Norwegian mostly.

NRK interview with Ole Jensen, concerned grandfather, Dagfinn Nordbø, childrens ward specialist, Leila Torgersen, researcher and psycholog and Rita Brudalen, from the Norwegian Media Authority: Verdibørsen, 24 januar 2009.
Dagfinn Nordbø argued against the idea that children are so impressionable that they don't see the difference between games and society.

Leila Torgersen presented her study of 12000 children and youngsters, and their use of computer games. She had found that children who are interested in violence in general are also interested in violent computer games, and that children from families that did not interfer with the childrens' media consumption and let them play as much and what ever they liked had a slightly higher preference for violent solutions after a some years. It was however not possible to establish a causal relationship between violent computer games and violence in real life.

She had a few very important points to add: Over the last 10 years youth violence has been decreasing in Norway, it is not increasing. In the same period children report less loneliness. This is the opposite tendency of the myths about the lonely, violent youths produced by the increasing use of computer games.

An interesting curiosity: Action games where the player identifies with a character who needs to solve his problem through violence showed a slightly larger tendency to create positive thoughts about violence than the much more directly violent first-person shooters. The difference was not big, we are talking small margins here, but it does change a few ideas about what kind of violence is really violent.

Her findings are also supported by C. J. Fergusons findings in his study of school shooters, which I wrote about recently.

Active gamers and health: Swedish research, which I wrote about in 2008.

Ragnhild Tronstad's blogpost about "interested or addicted" - "Hekta eller avhengig" at forskning.no. A good discussion about addiction and overwhelming interest, and the importance of making a distinction. Here she refers to the report by Jonas Linderoth and Ulrika Bennersted: "Att leva i World of Warcraft". This is a study of very active World of Warcraft players, where ten young players describe their lives.