"Dit barn bliver riktig dyktig til at slå ihjel"

This is my response to a blogpost by the Danish Ph D, medical doctor and author Vibeke Mannich. In her recent blogpost Dit barn bliver rigtig dygtig til at slå ihjel!  she attacks computer games violently, based on her reading of a list of articles by Craig Anderson et. al. If you have followed this blog for a while, you know that I have repeatedly cited other studies which question and disprove this research and meta-research, at most levels from methodology to knowledge about games in general to the funding.

Anyway: Vibeke Mannich was surprised at the vehement reactions to her blogpost, a post where she blamed World of Warcraft for the terror shooting at Utøya, and warned parents that their children will grow up to be just like the killer. Her blogpost was offensive to me as a Norwegian citizen who has been following the case against the Utøya-killer day to day, as a researcher who has spent the last 16 years studying games and gamers, as a gamer who has played that "horrible" game World of Wacraft for years, and as a mother of children (now adults) who have also played the game and not killed anybody yet. (Instead they are working to save the world from climate change, and care for children with social and physical problems.) She has also written another blogpost about how offensive the responses she received to the original gamer blogpost were, which is why I post my response here. She is moderating her comments heavily, and I am not convinced that my post will make the cut. So, here goes:

Update: Vibeke Mannich responded to my comments, particularly when I pointed out the criticism of Craig Anderson, and how the research and meta-research had been criticised and to a large degree disproved.  That's when I realised that I have been trolled. From her response:

Jeg må så sige, at det er tankevækkende som du beskriver Craig Anderson og hvordan han er blevet mistænkeliggjort og dæmoniseret. Jeg oplever jo i virkeligheden det samme – måske trods alt i mindre målstok. Men at jeg dæmoniseres i uhyggelig grad og udsættes for ja regelret chikane.

Translation: "I have to say, it's throught provoking how you describe Craig Anderson and how he has been drawn in doubt (made suspicious - direct translation) and demonified. I am experiencing the same - maybe to a lesser degree. But I am demonified in a terrifying degree, and am a victim of straight out harassment."

With a response like that to being made aware of criticism (he has published in peer-reviewed journals - well, who hasn't?) there's nothing more to be done. All I can do is tick her blog off on the list of online weirdos, which in itself is a learning experience. It's been a while since I was properly trolled.***

Kjære Vibeke

Jeg ser at den kjente og uhyre omstridte amerikanske forskeren Craig Anderson er en sentral kilde til din forståelse av computerspill. Da er det kanskje nyttig for deg å vite at hans forskning er sterkt kritisert både av psykologer, pedagoger og rene computerspillforskere. Hans forskning har vært forsøkt brukt som basis for å forby en rekke spill i USA, men det ble stoppet i høyesterett i California med begrunnelsen om at forskningen ikke er bred, grundig og uhildet (unbiased).
Se denne beskrivelsen av en artikkel fra 2009 av Christopher Ferguson, som kritiserer nettopp den type forskning på computerspill som du siterer over: http://www.gamepolitics.com/2009/01/21/researcher-no-link-between-violent-games-amp-school-shootings. Jeg kan også foreslå at du leser forskningen til denne svenske forskergruppen, som leverer en meget kunnskapsrik analyse om hvordan vold blir oppfattet og behandlet av spillere av spill som nettopp World of Warcraft.

Breivik-saken: Når du bruker Anders Behring Breivik som et eksempel på hvordan computerspill gjør en person farlig, så er jeg også nesten nødt til å spørre om du har fulgt med på rettsaken? De sakkyndige uttalelsene sendes direkte på norsk fjernsyn, og NRK er ofte en del av danske fjernsynspakker, så jeg går ut fra at du har hatt anledning til å studere dette? Dersom du har fått med deg hva debatten handler om, så er computerspill en forsvinnende liten del av det hele. Spillenes betydning for hans handlinger har blitt tonet kraftig ned. Tvert imot er det mye som tyder på at han har fått sine meninger og holdninger fra blogger på nettet, hvor mennesker som mener de er spesialister på et felt har uttalt seg skarpt, autoritært og ensidig uten å lese mer enn et par bøker som støtter deres egne meninger, samtidig som de stempler alle som er uenige med dem som hjernevaskede og kunnskapsløse. Noe som er litt ironisk i denne sammenhengen.
For å gå videre med forskningsartikler rundt massemordere og computerspill, så har det vært gjort forskning direkte på dette. En av de som har skrevet en rapport om skoleskyttere [og] risikofaktor er Mary Ellen O’Toole (pdf)

Det stedet hvor hun nevner computerspill er i denne passagen: “The student spends inordinate amounts of time playing video games with violent themes,and seems more interested in the violent images than in the game itself.”

Som du vil se når du leser rapporten er det ikke spillingen i seg selv som er problemet, det er interessen for vold. Forskning rundt vold viser at barn og unge som har lært fra sine omgivelser (venner og familie) at vold er en god løsning på deres problemer bruker alle ressurser de har på å bli dyktigere til denne form for problemløsning. Disse bruker blant annet bøker, filmer, musikk, kurs, skytterklubber, militæret, politi- eller vektertrening og ja, også computerspill, til å finne inspirasjon og idéer om hvordan de skal bli dyktigere til å bruke vold. De er imidlertid allerede voldelige, den ofte brede og varierte mediebruken er bare en måte å bli dyktigere til noe de har bestemt seg for å gjøre.

Så til et av dine egne utsagn fra debatten om dataspill: “Tak for jeres kommentarer – desværre må jeg jo sige, at en del af jeres ganske aggressive indlæg desværre bekræfter hvad jeg skriver i min tråd – nemlig at voldelige videospil gør (nogen af) jer voldelige/aggressive.”

Til dette vil jeg svare med en uhyre underholdende leder fra dn.se: Fiktivt våld gör forskare aggressiva. 

Når du publiserer et så skarpt utsagn som er så sårende og svakt begrunnet i erfaring og i forskning som “Dit barn bliver rigtig dygtig til at slå ihjel! ” og kobler tusener (millioner) av hyggelige, vennlige, kunnskapsrike unge mennesker til et så brutalt tilfelle som Anders Behring Breivik, da er det dessverre ikke helt uventet at du gjør mennesker opprørte. Kanskje ikke alle er så høflige som de burde være, men deres reaksjon er forståelig.

Med vennlig hilsen
Torill

An endless loop of repetition

Another research meta study was published today, about games and violence. This time it was the Swedish media council that published the study of all articles written on video games and violence 2000 - 2011. They conclusion was, as usual: No, there is no proof of a causal connection between games and violence.

A lot of the research is quite flawed, as it uses dubious methodologies and measures violence by standards that are unconnected to the context. Also, most of them ignore other possible connections. Those who do look at anything except games as causes of violence, find that among the strongest causal connections to violence are family background and psychic health.

There is a slight connection between games and violence in the sense that people with a previous interest in violence tend to pick violent games. The causality is however the opposite of the traditional view: an interest in violence leads to violent games, not the other way around.

It is quite amazing that 10 years of research deliberately aimed at proving that games create violence so far has not been able to create any good, solid evidence. Perhaps it's time to start trusting the research and settle for the fact that games do not create insane killers. Once we have that settled, let's get down to creating good, interesting, engaging games that can enhance creativity in other ways. Imagine if some of those research budgets had been devoted to studying games as an arena for promoting fair play and moral choices? Now, wouldn't that be a novel idea for all those organisations that worry about our children...

Games and massacres - again

I thought I had dodged this, when nobody had called me all through Monday, after the massacre on Utøya. I did not want to stand there and sound like I defended a mass murderer, by claiming that no, computer games are perfectly innocent, particularly not after glancing through his manifest. Luckily I don't have to go through the manifest step by step with you myself, Nick Ross at ABC went through it for us all.

Oh, by the way, I am not linking to it. Find it yourself. I am not linking to anything any more, that's written by that wannabe. Actually, from now on I will refer to him as the wannabe or the n00b, because he is a wannabe that doesn't get what it means to be a hero, and a total n00b when it comes to stringent, rational, critical, political thought. I don't even want to hate him. He wants hate. The only thing I want to feel for him is contempt, and I want to drown him in ridicule. Like this.

Anyway, the wannabe was a gamer, and he did great in PvE. He writes about how he uses games to strengthen himself when he is in doubt. This has lead to the inevitable conclusion: Computer games made him a monster. Dagens Næringsliv, otherwise a pretty sober newspaper, neglects the caveat, but at least they are honest enough to tuck it in at the end:

Hun presiserer at dataspill ikke nødvendigvis skaper mordere, men legger til at mennesker med personlighetsforstyrrelser kan være svært mottagelige for slike inntrykk.

Their expert points out that games don't create murderers, but that people with personality defects can be vulnerable to that kind of impressions.

The world is full of impressions a man like the wannabe can be vulnerable to. He quotes them happily, and spends a lot of time for instance on religion. He thinks of himself as a Christian, and struggles with the sin it is to use prostitutes before he plans to go on a killing spree. He decides however that, like a holy crusader, he is about to do so much good that minor sins will be forgiven him. Now you'll claim there are crusaders in games, but there are crusaders in history, in poetry, in literature, as Knight Templars and Freemasons, and in a whole lot of graves all over Europe and the Middle East. If you want to be a crusader, you don't need to make the effort of leading a raid guild to get your ideas confirmed.

And then there are the political debates. Even now, after the shooting, people manage to write things like "we don't agree with how he did it, but he is right, the multiculturalists are dangerous and are ruining our culture, and should be stopped." Even as he was killing people in Oslo, the website "for promotion of Nordic culture" nordisk.nu (where the wannabe supposedly was a member, and where there are people he emailed his manifest to) had members claiming that somebody needed to clear out the multiculturalists once and for all. The n00b didn't need to play games to feel like his ideas were justified.

OK, back to games, violence and wannabes.

Yes, there is research which states that murderers like the wannabe play games, but also research that shows that there is no causal link. Let me link to an article I have linked to before, The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link: Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?. Ferguson writes: "Although much speculation persists regarding the role of violent video games and school shootings, this speculation is seldom based on factual evidence." Ferguson goes on to cite and quote studies specifically of school shooters, where the scenes tend to look like first-person shooter games. I am attaching a long quote here, because I know many will not go on to read the article itself:

The FBI report (1999) had included ‘unusual fascination’ with violent media amongst its potential predictors. As most young males consume considerable amounts of violent media (e.g. Griffiths & Hunt, 1995; Olson et al., 2007), ‘unusual’ consumption necessitates reaching a very high bar. The report also suggests that incessantly reading/viewing a particular book or visual media with violent, or school violence content, may be a predictor. The FBI report appeared to focus on individuals who approved of hateful or destructive messages in the media, rather than merely enjoying the media for entertainment purposes. For instance, an individual who praised Mein Kampf and its message of racism and hatred would arguably be considered more ‘at risk’ than would someone who enjoyed playing the violent video game Medal of Honor because it was fun. Indeed, related to violent video games, the FBI report specifically stated, “The student spends inordinate amounts of time [although inordinate is never defined and is left subjective] playing video games with violent themes and seems more interested in the violent images than the game itself ” [italics added]. Thus, an overall interest in causing harm is potentially predictive of violence, not exposure to violent media in and of itself, a conclusion supported by the recent Savage, (2008) meta-analysis.

This is what the research shows. If you have learned that violence is the solution to problems, then you may show an interest in violence, including games.

Now who are these experts Dagens Næringsliv have contacted? Deborah Schurman-Kauflin is a profiler. Her list of publications is impressive, with a heavy bias on imported violence and female killers. The other expert is Pat Brown, who offers cost-effective profiling if you have a problem with serial killers.

Two American profilers who have not done research explicitly on games and gamers, where the one with the more impressive list of articles tries to point out that there isn't necessarily a causal relationship between games and mass murderers; and Dagens Næringsliv goes out and reduces the entire political agenda behind the wannabe's horrible act to something to do with games.

I didn't want to talk about this, because I felt it would be insulting and misleading to push the debate into yet another "dangerous media" discussion. This goes far beyond computer games.

The truth is that I have no idea what exactly set the wannabe off. Anything could have caused it. Perhaps he dated a girl who went to Utøya and fell in love with somebody else. Perhaps his teen-age friends who were muslims turned him off multiculturalism by being too conservative islamists and displaying the unlucky, but existing, opinion that white women are all asking for it if they get raped. Perhaps his father wasn't there in those formative years when he could have learned that real men protect others, rather than harm them. And so I was hoping not to have to stand there and say "No, games don't lead to violence."

But here it is. Political terrorism is committed in the name of ideas and conviction. Ideas are the most dangerous thing on this planet. Ideas created the wannabe, not games.

And a last, deeply felt statement: If I thought abolishing games would lead to world peace, I'd never play again. If I thought forbidding rock was the way to go, I'd never dance again. If I thought the reason why people hurt each other was because we have television, I'd break it, right now. But it isn't that simple. We had war, violence, crime and fanatic killers - some of them real crusaders - long before we had modern media.

Årsakssammenhenger og spill

I anledning VGs ualminnelig dårlige artikkel om sammenhengen mellom et drap på Kongsvinger og spilling av World of Warcraft og Counterstrike, vil jeg vise til en artikkel om skoleskytinger og moralske panikker. Denne artikkelen kritiserer den overforenklede ideen om at mennesker ikke er i stand til å skille mellom fantasi og virkelighet, og den like enkle forskningen som underbygger denne konklusjonen - blant annet ved å vise til et solid forskningsmateriale som gir andre/alternative svar. Samtidig viser den til FBIs funn når det gjelder drapsmenn som spiller spill (s 28 i C. J. Fergusons artikkel):

The FBI report appeared to focus on individuals who approved of hateful or destructive messages in the media, rather than merely enjoying the media for entertainment purposes. For instance, an individual who praised Mein Kampf and its message of racism and hatred would arguably be considered more ‘at risk’ than would someone who enjoyed playing the violent video game Medal of Honor because it was fun. Indeed, related to violent video games, the FBI report specifically stated, “The student spends inordinate amounts of time [although inordinate is never defined and is left subjective] playing video games with violent themes and seems more interested in the violent images than the game itself ” [italics added]. Thus, an overall interest in causing harm is potentially predictive of violence, not exposure to violent media in and of itself, a conclusion supported by the recent Savage, (2008) meta-analysis.

I følge FBI er altså ikke årsakssammenhengen mediebruk -> vold, men interesse for å bruke vold -> mediebruk. Altså, hvis du liker/ønsker å bruke vold er du interessert i medieuttrykk som inneholder vold. Videre påpeker de at voldsmenn som bruker spill er mer interessert i voldshandlinger enn å kose seg med å spille. De er altså fokusert på våpen og vold, uansett kontekst.

VG gjentar imidlertid et mantra som har kommet inn i mediene for en del år siden, og de gjentar det ved å ta kontakt med personer som har sagt akkurat det samme i årevis. De overser konsekvent all forskning som viser noe annet enn denne overforenklede årsakssammenhengen.

(The above is a public service research-reference directed at Norwegian readers who might be interested in alternatives to a piece of intense and single-minded journalism claiming that gaming leads to serious crime.)

Violence and violence...

A new study claims that there is no causal relationship between videogame violence and real life violence. In "The School Shooting/Violent Video Game Link:
Causal Relationship or Moral Panic?", C. J. Ferguson studied the people who were perpetrators in school shootings, and their relationship to video games. From the study:

Indeed, related to violent video games, the FBI report specifically stated, “The student spends inordinate amounts of time [although inordinate is never defined and is left subjective] playing video games with violent themes and seems more interested in the violent images than the game itself ” [italics added].

This confirms what media studies has been saying about entertainment violence for a very long time. It is a lot more relevant to the use of violence whether the person is interested in violence than if the person is exposed to violent media. If they are interested in violence (for instance through learning that violence is an acceptable tool to solve problems), they will seek out violent entertainment. It's not the violent entertainment that causes the violence, if anything, it's the other way around.

Tag this article, fellow media scholars. It's one of the few that looks with a critical eye on the methodology of other studies, and which looks for more than the one, simple and obvious connection.

Article found by way of Lisa Galarneau's notice on facebook. Thanks, Lisa :)

Battlefields

There has been another school killing in Finland, a horrible tragedy that turns out to have been the result of a long-standing plan. A young man has entered a school and killed students, teachers, a health professional and himself. He killed 10 people.

In the shock of this people look for something to blame. And look, he played Battlefield II just before he committed his acts.

Battlefield II is a multi-user game from the producers of Battlefield 1942. It's a game where they put a lot of emphasis on details and correctness both in images and in the function of the weapons and strategies. A lot of people who are interested in strategy, tactics, weapons, uniforms, history, current politics and a long list of other issues that connect into the playing of a complex game, like Battlefield II.

The two school-shooters in Finland in (2008) and (2007), knew each other, according to witnesses. One of the things they did together was to play Battlefield II.

It's very easy to assume that the game caused the killings, when you look at it like this. But the truth is, it's harder to find a person their age who has NOT played a computer/video game, than one who has. And if your main interest in life is weapons, violence and death, you won't be playing Tiger Woods PGA Tour.

The second killer probably did a lot of very common things the last hours before his act. He got dressed. He probably ate or drank something. He was studying to become a cook, and went to his school. He had a cat. He played a computer game.

These are not the things that turn a person into a killer. A person who wants to kill others may choose to surround himself with things that will make his decision and his task easier and more acceptable to himself. If you believe the only solution to a problem is violence, then you surround yourself with proof of this. There's enough proof. Look at Iraq. Israel. Afghanistan. Or closer: the entire south/east of Europe. People who believe that a problem can be solved by violence are not hard to find. Did the second killer watch the news? Did he listen to the radio? Did he read a newspaper? Did he hear George Bush speak about warfare, and a firm line?

Faltin Karlsen is interviewed in Dagbladet.no, where they discuss games and violence, and the fact that the second killer played before he died. Faltin's research is on games and violence, and his response is as sane as it can be. To plan for six years to kill others is not something you do impulsively after playing a computer game. It's absurd to say there's no connection, as it's probably not a coincidence that a man with his interests preferred Battlefield II. But it's equally absurd to claim there is a direct causal connection from gaming to killing. It's more likely that his gaming is a result of what ever made the second killer kill. He wanted to shoot. The game let him pretend to shoot. So he played the game. Gaming should be viewed as an effect, not a cause.

Karlsen suggests another angle at the end of the article. He points out that the media give killers a huge amount of attention. If you want to be famous, murdering your schoolmates means instant fame. Like terrorists, they use terror to become visible.

A way to dampen this trend might be to stop fetishising the killers. Don't show their pictures, don't mention their names. They are not heroes, they deserve no fame. Give their victims a face, show the lives they disrupt and ruin, show the devastation left in their path, and grieve the deaths they cause. But don't make them famous.