Dr. Matt interview part one
Ryan: That’s actually part of why I was excited to do this interview ... That perspective that you don’t hear in the media often. What were hearing from you that it’s possible that the portrayal of that “Spongebob study" was inaccurate; it’s even possible that the study itself was skewed in some manner, but probably not meaningfully, or intentionally. It’s been really nice to meet you and actually hear that. You’re obviously a well educated man, and you’re obviously intelligent. You’ve put thought into that perspective... I am a gamer, I honestly stayed up until about three AM last night playing a game without realizing it, but it’s not, for me, an issue; like you said, "it’s not crack". I’ve heard so much, in the media, and from “expert witnesses”, who, when you listen to them, are clearly not experts. They’re experts maybe in behavior, like you, but not in video games, and they’re being presented (as such); probably by a third-party, with a really specific, narrow, viewpoint (such as) “These cause violence... these children exhibited these behaviors... ”, etc. I think it’s easy for somebody who is an expert in one thing, but not an expert in another, to misconstrue what’s being presented to them, or have it purposefully misconstrued to them beforehand, to get a certain reaction. It’s nice to know that this is not the mainstream mind.
Dr. Matt: (There are) a few things, if you’re interested in reading psychological information, that might expand on what I’m talking about. (Like Bruno Bettelheim’s book "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales"). You have to wade through some of the psychoanalysis of it, but Bruno Bettelheim, was a psychoanalyst in the forties and he talked a lot about projection, that’s a psychoanalytic term. Psychology itself has kind of gotten away from a lot of psychoanalysis, and (gone towards) cognitive behavioral ... but I think that most of us who work with kids understand that you’re not just in a physiological development, you’re also in a psychological and emotional development. Another book that’s really interesting ... is not by a psychologist, it’s one of my favorites on this subject (though), “Killing Monsters”, (by Gerard Jones). (Gerard Jones) used to be a comic book writer, which is one of my favorite things, and he’s done a lot of writing and public speaking and a lot of that “other-side-of-the-fence” perspective on gaming, and he did a lot of interviewing of psychologists. It’s a very well informed, well written book. ... Another one would be Michael Thompson’s book “Raising Cain” (you can find the) PBS documentary on that which is really interesting to watch, but you could also get the book. Michael Thompson is a psychologist who does research, primarily on children, primarily on boys, talking about how boys need to have monsters to overcome. That’s the point of “Killing Monsters”, a very interesting book actually. (It) talks about video games, rap music, talks about our draw towards characters in stories, like in comic books, and how that is a healthy, normal drive; and if (we) don’t work it out somewhere, like in a vicarious manner through literature, that we will, eventually, work it out somehow, and that’s not always the healthiest thing to do. (Even) Freud and Jung, talked a lot about ... why we have these themes, or archetypes, in literature. Whether its Homer and “The Odyssey”, or George Lucas and “Star Wars”, ... “Harry Potter”, (whatever it is), any of these things that are going to be classics. At the (University of Utah), in some literature class, they're all stressing out reading and analyzing some book that none of us have ever heard of, and in ten-fifteen-twenty years no one will ever hear of again. And I’m sure it’s a great book actually, but, what makes (that story) a classic? It is because we project our needs, thoughts, and emotions into it, through classic themes. One hundred years from now somebodies going to be watching “Star Wars” and some kid will discover it for the first time and he’s like “have you ever seen this, it’s so cool” and he’s going to get into all the character themes. Even my kids will watch this movie made in 1977, and they’re as into it as I was when I was six years old, when it came out. That’s why people can still read “The Odyssey”, and even though the language is a little funky, we can get into the storyline. There is a difference, and these kind of psychological projections play out in different ways ... sometimes it’s hard to see how they fit, but whether it’s a video game, a comic book, like “Hellboy”, (whatever)... the point is, (it's) childhood, kids playing. One of my biggest pet peeves (is) "no tolerance" policies at schools. Is there a need for that? Actually, yes there is. Bullying, and all that, is very detrimental to development, and I’m a big advocate of protecting children and allowing them to have a healthy, safe environment to grow up in. However, I have actually worked with two different students that in early elementary school have been suspended for playing the equivalent of “cops and robbers” on the playground. Taking their finger (pointing like a pistol), going “pew pew”, shooting each other, falling down dead, that sort of thing. The school (has a “no tolerance” policy), it’s a “no thinking” policy really at this point. It’s a ... policy where “we just can’t tolerate that sort of violent play”, (but) adult violence is very different than what adults attribute as violence to children. Children playing “cops and robbers”, "shooting", "war", all that sort of stuff, is part of their normal development of overcoming feelings of inferiority. If you read Michael Thompsons “Raising Cain”, or watch his documentary (from) PBS ... it’s very clear that when children are presented with actual violence they know the difference. It’s a different scenario for them. If you show a child a video of actual violence, not a stage, not a hollywood production, but actual violence (consisting) of people being hurt, it is very upsetting to them. If you show them images blasting aliens to bits, they’re intrigued; they want to participate. Children can tell the difference, even staged violence like in a movie you (where) two human characters (are) fighting; unless it is a “Scorcese film” where someones heads getting split open with a baseball bat, and it’s realistic. If there’s a fantasy component to it, the children know the difference because it’s part of their development. I get really perturbed with the blanket way we deal with that, especially with children, because it doesn’t allow their development. So two areas, read “Killing Monsters”, definitely, and I’d probably go to the library and get Michael Thompson’s “Raising Cain” PBS special and watch that. If you’re interested you can read his book, the book has a lot more information, but the specials done really, really well.
Ryan: As an adult I love comics and video games, but as teenager I got into books, that was my escape. ... That was my form of escapism, reading. Not only did I read Fantasy where you can “be the hero”, but I also ended up reading a lot of classical literature, and as I got older, in my late teens, I started reading things like “The Power of Myth” (Campbell), so I could kind of understand (myself) more. I really appreciate (you mentioning those things).
Dr. Matt: Definitely. An interesting activity you can do as an adult, is go back to your childhood and look at, and actually make a list, (of) what sorts of entertainment was (you were) really into. Not just “what did (you) like”; what (were you) really into? Which books, which movies (were you) really drawn to? And within those, which characters (were you) really drawn to? That can often tell you a lot about who you were at that time, what you were trying to overcome, what was important to you, what you were struggling with. If you look at that through your adolesence and maybe even young adulthood, you can see change over time: which characters, which things (you’re) still drawn to, which have changed, which are important to (you), that sort of thing. We will work it out somewhere. Is it important if a kids working it out in a video game versus a book? Well, I think books probably have more inherent value, as far as the education part goes, but not necessarily more psychological value all the time. I can’t judge the kids I work with, adolescents, based on my experience growing up. I was born in 1971, grew up mostly in the seventies and eighties, and it was a different time ... and things were different (from) what kids are drawn to nowadays. For example, I try really hard to accept the fact that my kids are really into hip-hop music. Hate the hip hop, don’t like it all. The other day my two boys were fighting. I made them sit on the couch and I said “ok, you know what guys I’m sick of it. You guys are arguing, fighting and just kind of “at each other” all the time. You’re going to sit here, you’re not going to say anything and you’re going to listen to the entire “London Calling” by The Clash. It’s one of the greatest albums of all time. You’ll sit here and listen to this entire album and I don’t want to hear a single thing out of you”. It was an interesting experiment; the boys really liked it. And I think they got something out of listening to The Clash frankly. Plus I got to listen to The Clash and not hear arguing. It was great... A win/win.
Dr. Woolley can be found at http://www.askdrmatt.com/beta/, and he answers every email sent to him.
Ryan: I was going to mention those skill-based games. You were mentioning the kind of draw of some of those games... In an interview (a video game developer group) were talking about how when they made (a game) they have had a lot of emails that read “I spend hours a day playing this”, and it makes them cringe. They said when they developed (their game) they didn’t want to make "a life-destroying game". They don’t want people spending hours every day playing it. They just wanted to make something (they enjoyed) and they feel that a lot of companies (use certain "industry formulas") purposefully to make games addictive as possible. They feel this is unethical, and I wonder if we could get your views on that.
Dr. Matt: That’s interesting. I guess you could look at it two ways: on the one hand if you’re producing a product, you want to make it as desirable as possible. You don’t want your soda to taste “ok”, if you’re selling it, right? I guess it would be how you look at it, are they really trying to make it addictive? Possibly. If so I would say there is some ethical questions there that I would be concerned about. Are they just trying to make it really interesting, and something that people want to play, I don’t know. I kind of fall back a lot on personal responsibility. It’s like if you’re dad and grandpa are both alcoholics, you probably shouldn’t drink much. You know what I mean? You’ve kind of got to look ahead at your own life in a lot of ways. They’re upset that people are playing seven-eight hours of their game a day, yeah that person needs some help, and they’re probably in that dependency range we talked about earlier. (But) I wonder how many people play the game, maybe fifteen to thirty minutes a day, and how that percentage compares to the people who are playing seven to eight hours a day. I mean it is a video game, it’s not crack. So I don’t know, that’s a good question, and that’d be a good research question frankly.
Ryan: I was going to mention those skill-based games. You were mentioning the kind of draw of some of those games... In an interview (a video game developer group) were talking about how when they made (a game) they have had a lot of emails that read “I spend hours a day playing this”, and it makes them cringe. They said when they developed (their game) they didn’t want to make "a life-destroying game". They don’t want people spending hours every day playing it. They just wanted to make something (they enjoyed) and they feel that a lot of companies (use certain "industry formulas") purposefully to make games addictive as possible. They feel this is unethical, and I wonder if we could get your views on that.
Dr. Matt: That’s interesting. I guess you could look at it two ways: on the one hand if you’re producing a product, you want to make it as desirable as possible. You don’t want your soda to taste “ok”, if you’re selling it, right? I guess it would be how you look at it, are they really trying to make it addictive? Possibly. If so I would say there is some ethical questions there that I would be concerned about. Are they just trying to make it really interesting, and something that people want to play, I don’t know. I kind of fall back a lot on personal responsibility. It’s like if you’re dad and grandpa are both alcoholics, you probably shouldn’t drink much. You know what I mean? You’ve kind of got to look ahead at your own life in a lot of ways. They’re upset that people are playing seven-eight hours of their game a day, yeah that person needs some help, and they’re probably in that dependency range we talked about earlier. (But) I wonder how many people play the game, maybe fifteen to thirty minutes a day, and how that percentage compares to the people who are playing seven to eight hours a day. I mean it is a video game, it’s not crack. So I don’t know, that’s a good question, and that’d be a good research question frankly.
A lot of it has to do with what gets reported also, what we read. I remember as a kid “Looney Tunes”. We were always getting messages (about it) from teachers or (other) people. My mom was the nicest lady on the planet, I’m not sure she payed attention to (that) stuff, (but) every once in a while she’d say “I heard ‘looney tunes’ are really bad for you, maybe you shouldn’t watch them as much...” and you know to this day I still haven’t dropped an anvil on anybody's head, or pushed anybody off a cliff or blown anybody up with dynamite... though I’ve never actually had dynamite, so I guess I can’t comment on that one.
I think that people are different, they bring their own stuff to (things), and that’s kind of the point that I’m interested in: what are you bringing to, and getting out of, a game? A lot of it has to do with the idea of projection. If (the rest of a persons) life is really unhappy for them, if it’s unfulfilling, and they are immersing themselves into a game in order to escape the reality of their situation, then to me... that’s a problem that they need to address in the other part of their life. It’s not “oh my gosh; my life got ruined because this video game (was) made”. I would wonder how many people are doing just fine who own that video game. I think it has to do more with the psychological state of the person, than it does with the game. For example, some people can drink alcohol occasionally and it doesn’t seem to have a negative impact on their life. Some people can do other sorts of things, go gambling once in a while, obviously have sexual relationships with people, those sorts of things that we sometimes associate with addictions, and they don’t seem to have a problem with it. (I'm) not so sure it’s the substance, or the medium itself, as much as what the person brings to it, but if people are purposefully saying that “I’m trying to make this as addictive as possible” then that is an ethical question that should be looked into. And in order to do that they (would) probably have psychologists on staff, (or) something teaching them how. That’s what Vegas used to do back in the day. Most layouts of casinos are based on psychologists (designs on) how to keep people in: no windows, no clocks, free drinks, (etc.).
Ryan: That leads into something that we had already discussed, that video games get blamed for, violence, addiction, etc.You were mentioning self-responsibility, and obviously that’s key. (However, there have been) many things like Columbine, (and the such), so people, especially a lot of senators and politicians, have specifically tried to tie violence to video games, going so far as to say that one of the terrorist attackers who crashed Flight ‘93 (Sep. 11th, 2001) did some of his flight training on “Microsoft Flight Simulator”, which is, in my opinion, ridiculous. They’re tying it back this really little part of something he did to this incredibly violent act. What are your views on that? I mean is that totally ridiculous to tie those things together, or maybe are these the sort of things these people are going to be drawn to in the first place; because they have these violent tendencies and they are trying to live this fantasy escapist life?
Dr. Matt: That’s a great question. I mean we’ll just get out of the way that I think most politicians are ridiculous. I sort of say that to be funny, but I’m sort of not, because they pander to what they think people want to hear. I don’t know that I trust the opinion of a politician about something like this, about behavior, for any reason at all. Why would I listen to them? I would listen to an expert, and the truth is we have to look at how capable is a person of determining their own behavior. That’s a reasonable psychological question... peoples ability to make decisions for themselves. Some people are less able to do that than others. If we’re talking about a reasonably functional adult, then I believe to blame their behavior on a medium like a video game, or a movie, or a rap song, is absolutely inappropriate. It’s not just ridiculous, but there’s no evidence to suggest that. Otherwise lets look at how many people listen, watch, and play, these sorts of entertainment mediums, and why aren’t there murders and horrific activities all the time? In fact we can look at ... very current research on using these sorts of very highly skill-based video games to train surgeons. It mirrors a lot of the types of surgery that they do nowadays, to practice that way, and it’s shown clearly that it improves their ability; they make fewer mistakes.To say that a skill-based game like a flight simulator would have any impact, that’s just silly; because every military pilot, every pilot, they’ve all been trained on flight simulators and they have for years. Why aren’t planes crashing into buildings all the time? Well, it’s because that has nothing to do with flight simulators or anything except the intent of the individual.
Ryan: That leads into something that we had already discussed, that video games get blamed for, violence, addiction, etc.You were mentioning self-responsibility, and obviously that’s key. (However, there have been) many things like Columbine, (and the such), so people, especially a lot of senators and politicians, have specifically tried to tie violence to video games, going so far as to say that one of the terrorist attackers who crashed Flight ‘93 (Sep. 11th, 2001) did some of his flight training on “Microsoft Flight Simulator”, which is, in my opinion, ridiculous. They’re tying it back this really little part of something he did to this incredibly violent act. What are your views on that? I mean is that totally ridiculous to tie those things together, or maybe are these the sort of things these people are going to be drawn to in the first place; because they have these violent tendencies and they are trying to live this fantasy escapist life?
Dr. Matt: That’s a great question. I mean we’ll just get out of the way that I think most politicians are ridiculous. I sort of say that to be funny, but I’m sort of not, because they pander to what they think people want to hear. I don’t know that I trust the opinion of a politician about something like this, about behavior, for any reason at all. Why would I listen to them? I would listen to an expert, and the truth is we have to look at how capable is a person of determining their own behavior. That’s a reasonable psychological question... peoples ability to make decisions for themselves. Some people are less able to do that than others. If we’re talking about a reasonably functional adult, then I believe to blame their behavior on a medium like a video game, or a movie, or a rap song, is absolutely inappropriate. It’s not just ridiculous, but there’s no evidence to suggest that. Otherwise lets look at how many people listen, watch, and play, these sorts of entertainment mediums, and why aren’t there murders and horrific activities all the time? In fact we can look at ... very current research on using these sorts of very highly skill-based video games to train surgeons. It mirrors a lot of the types of surgery that they do nowadays, to practice that way, and it’s shown clearly that it improves their ability; they make fewer mistakes.To say that a skill-based game like a flight simulator would have any impact, that’s just silly; because every military pilot, every pilot, they’ve all been trained on flight simulators and they have for years. Why aren’t planes crashing into buildings all the time? Well, it’s because that has nothing to do with flight simulators or anything except the intent of the individual.
Now when you are talking about people who are less able to make decisions for themselves, you might consider them either vulnerable populations, or people who have an impaired capacity. They have some sort of mental health problem. A child or an adolescent who in the process of developing (has) any sort of head injury, or other thing that might diminish their ability to choose for themselves, then that could be potentially a different situation. But I’m not convinced that even in those cases we would be able to have such a simple “fix”. The idea, back when “Columbine” happened, was very shocking, as it should have been, but people often want to rush to a simple conclusion. That’s where I think politicians actually make things worse, media makes things worse. They would love to be able to say “oh, this is why these kids did this. So we’ll just get rid of all of that stuff, and then we’ll be ok”. It’s trying to create this sense of security, which is, of course, a false sense of security. In those cases how many kids are listening to rap, or rock or whatever sorts of music that might have aggressive violent lyrics (or viewing) movies that are about these sorts of things? I mean the percentage would be very, very, small of anybody that would ever act on something like that. And in each of those cases my opinion, professionally, is that they would already bringing those sorts of intentions to the situation. Could you be egged on by a movie or a video game? Potentially, but it’s not like that was created out of thin air. If you took somebody that has no intention and allowed them to (play video games or listen to music), it would, in my opinion, have no effect on them. Now you can go back to studies by Albert Bandura back in the 1950’s, (and the “Bobo Doll experiments”), you can look those up on youtube, watch the kids become more aggressive. But the truth is in that environment there are a lot of problems with the study. It’s a great study, it’s a classic study, every psych 101 student learns it, it’s interesting, but it doesn’t play out in real life in the same way. It’s complicated; human behavior is a very complicated thing. When you have people like politicians and media folks trying to simplify it down to a “oh it was because of that song”, that should be a red flag to everybody.
Mike: Do you have any questions for us?
Dr. Matt: What makes you guys interested in this?
Mike: In video games?
Dr. Matt: Yeah, in doing this, why did you want to do this interview with me?
Mike: I kind of talked about it earlier, I heard you on the radio talking about how video games can be a positive influence in peoples lives, and that really grabbed my attention, I (thought) “well wait a sec” I personally don’t think that video games ... drive people to be violent. I agree with youit’s more that persons decisions and motive to be violent, than it is to play a video game. I think it’s a psychological imbalance. That’s what drew me to want to talk to you ... I was hoping to be able to interview you because I really want people to hear what you have to say... I think it’s important and I think the video game industry is incredible now. ... Graphics and technology are so far advanced now that (they're) getting people involved with the game rather than (just being) mindless entertainment. I think there are games that are mindless entertainment (Dr. Matt: For sure) that are just "I want to do this for hours and not accomplish anything"; but I also think there are a lot of video games coming out that are very story driven, like you talked about, that make you involved with the game itself, and also (make) you think before acting, rather than just acting. I think that’s why video games interest me the most, especially now, because they make me think first; where before I was just acting.
Dr. Matt: ... It’s funny when we talk about things like music or movies or video games. Obviously within those umbrella terms there’s a lot of variance. Not all video games are created equal; some have a lot of violent content. Exposing a younger child to lots of violent content I certainly would not recommend. A teenager who has anger management issues, and maybe has had history of abuse, and neglect and has a lot of tough stuff to work out, probably shouldn’t be indulging in hours and hours of violent video games. But those are exceptions to the rule and I think that there’s a lot of value that come out of the skill. I mean we’ve known (this) for a long time; there’s research going back to the eighties. Eye-hand coordination studies are fairly clear that there’s a lot of “practice effect” there. But my interest would be more in the vicarious nature of (games), projecting yourself into the storyline; ... I would say the newest development of video games is that it’s taken it to this level where the graphics and the intelligence of the program allows you to interact with it in a way that you could with “Space Invaders” or “PacMan”. It was set, you just played along, and it was an arcade-type game and that’s what you got. Games nowadays, even just being able to watch kids choose their character in “Mario Kart” might be, and I think often is, a reflection of what they’re feeling at the time. ... Who they want to be in the game is kind of interesting, and how dominant, and what type of car they choose. Can you overanalyze it? Yeah, probably, but it’s interesting to me. ... I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on video games, per se, but I would say I’m an expert on human behavior and psychological aspects of storytelling. I think that people (especially psychologists and doctors) who really are down on video games nowadays, almost always, when I talk to them, have an old fashioned mindset about what they’re talking about. They don’t really understand what a video game is like currently in 2011. They don’t understand the technology, they don’t understand the storytelling aspect, they don’t understand the interactive aspect in it. That right there tells me that they’re kind of ill-informed, and it’s a lot of hype. People like to have something to talk about. Media folks like to have something to talk about. I don’t necessarily blame them, it’s not necessarily their job to filter things out per se, and the more they filter out the less we have freedom of what we can hear. It’s fine for them to say what they want to say, but, for example, the recent study that kind of “downed on” “Spongebob”... (Researchers took) a bunch of four year olds, which are at a particular neurocognitive developmental level, and had them watch “Spongebob”, which is fairly intelligent, from a humor standpoint, fast-paced, highly verbal, cartoon. (The four year olds) did more poorly on tests on attention after watching the ("Spongebob"). I think you can say "lets take “Spongebob” out of it", if we were to just overload a childs brain, how well are they going to do? They’re going to need some recovery time, and that’s whats happening. Now if you were to take an older child whose had more neurological development, have them watch this same thing, I really highly doubt you’d have similar amount of deficit in their cognitive functioning afterwards (and I hope there will be follow-up research that will suggest this). We watch “Spongebob” all the time in my house, I love it, it’s hilarious. I think its kind of our modern day “Looney Tunes”, because you have well developed characters that have a lot of (intelligent humor) ... You have to kind of “get it”, and those are things that are beyond the neurological development of even the most intelligent four year old. So the study in of itself was disappointing, in that it was portrayed a certain way. I’m sure the folks who did the study understand that very clearly. But the way it was portrayed in the media (was disappointing); and frankly the inside scoop on that is in academia money’s tight, and if you want a grant to do studies you’ve got to get some attention. I’m sure they allowed that to just be put out there, so that somebody will grant them more (money) to do more studies. Nobody likes to hear that about that side of academia, but it’s there.
Dr. Matt: What makes you guys interested in this?
Mike: In video games?
Dr. Matt: Yeah, in doing this, why did you want to do this interview with me?
Mike: I kind of talked about it earlier, I heard you on the radio talking about how video games can be a positive influence in peoples lives, and that really grabbed my attention, I (thought) “well wait a sec” I personally don’t think that video games ... drive people to be violent. I agree with youit’s more that persons decisions and motive to be violent, than it is to play a video game. I think it’s a psychological imbalance. That’s what drew me to want to talk to you ... I was hoping to be able to interview you because I really want people to hear what you have to say... I think it’s important and I think the video game industry is incredible now. ... Graphics and technology are so far advanced now that (they're) getting people involved with the game rather than (just being) mindless entertainment. I think there are games that are mindless entertainment (Dr. Matt: For sure) that are just "I want to do this for hours and not accomplish anything"; but I also think there are a lot of video games coming out that are very story driven, like you talked about, that make you involved with the game itself, and also (make) you think before acting, rather than just acting. I think that’s why video games interest me the most, especially now, because they make me think first; where before I was just acting.
Dr. Matt: ... It’s funny when we talk about things like music or movies or video games. Obviously within those umbrella terms there’s a lot of variance. Not all video games are created equal; some have a lot of violent content. Exposing a younger child to lots of violent content I certainly would not recommend. A teenager who has anger management issues, and maybe has had history of abuse, and neglect and has a lot of tough stuff to work out, probably shouldn’t be indulging in hours and hours of violent video games. But those are exceptions to the rule and I think that there’s a lot of value that come out of the skill. I mean we’ve known (this) for a long time; there’s research going back to the eighties. Eye-hand coordination studies are fairly clear that there’s a lot of “practice effect” there. But my interest would be more in the vicarious nature of (games), projecting yourself into the storyline; ... I would say the newest development of video games is that it’s taken it to this level where the graphics and the intelligence of the program allows you to interact with it in a way that you could with “Space Invaders” or “PacMan”. It was set, you just played along, and it was an arcade-type game and that’s what you got. Games nowadays, even just being able to watch kids choose their character in “Mario Kart” might be, and I think often is, a reflection of what they’re feeling at the time. ... Who they want to be in the game is kind of interesting, and how dominant, and what type of car they choose. Can you overanalyze it? Yeah, probably, but it’s interesting to me. ... I wouldn’t consider myself an expert on video games, per se, but I would say I’m an expert on human behavior and psychological aspects of storytelling. I think that people (especially psychologists and doctors) who really are down on video games nowadays, almost always, when I talk to them, have an old fashioned mindset about what they’re talking about. They don’t really understand what a video game is like currently in 2011. They don’t understand the technology, they don’t understand the storytelling aspect, they don’t understand the interactive aspect in it. That right there tells me that they’re kind of ill-informed, and it’s a lot of hype. People like to have something to talk about. Media folks like to have something to talk about. I don’t necessarily blame them, it’s not necessarily their job to filter things out per se, and the more they filter out the less we have freedom of what we can hear. It’s fine for them to say what they want to say, but, for example, the recent study that kind of “downed on” “Spongebob”... (Researchers took) a bunch of four year olds, which are at a particular neurocognitive developmental level, and had them watch “Spongebob”, which is fairly intelligent, from a humor standpoint, fast-paced, highly verbal, cartoon. (The four year olds) did more poorly on tests on attention after watching the ("Spongebob"). I think you can say "lets take “Spongebob” out of it", if we were to just overload a childs brain, how well are they going to do? They’re going to need some recovery time, and that’s whats happening. Now if you were to take an older child whose had more neurological development, have them watch this same thing, I really highly doubt you’d have similar amount of deficit in their cognitive functioning afterwards (and I hope there will be follow-up research that will suggest this). We watch “Spongebob” all the time in my house, I love it, it’s hilarious. I think its kind of our modern day “Looney Tunes”, because you have well developed characters that have a lot of (intelligent humor) ... You have to kind of “get it”, and those are things that are beyond the neurological development of even the most intelligent four year old. So the study in of itself was disappointing, in that it was portrayed a certain way. I’m sure the folks who did the study understand that very clearly. But the way it was portrayed in the media (was disappointing); and frankly the inside scoop on that is in academia money’s tight, and if you want a grant to do studies you’ve got to get some attention. I’m sure they allowed that to just be put out there, so that somebody will grant them more (money) to do more studies. Nobody likes to hear that about that side of academia, but it’s there.
Ryan: That’s actually part of why I was excited to do this interview ... That perspective that you don’t hear in the media often. What were hearing from you that it’s possible that the portrayal of that “Spongebob study" was inaccurate; it’s even possible that the study itself was skewed in some manner, but probably not meaningfully, or intentionally. It’s been really nice to meet you and actually hear that. You’re obviously a well educated man, and you’re obviously intelligent. You’ve put thought into that perspective... I am a gamer, I honestly stayed up until about three AM last night playing a game without realizing it, but it’s not, for me, an issue; like you said, "it’s not crack". I’ve heard so much, in the media, and from “expert witnesses”, who, when you listen to them, are clearly not experts. They’re experts maybe in behavior, like you, but not in video games, and they’re being presented (as such); probably by a third-party, with a really specific, narrow, viewpoint (such as) “These cause violence... these children exhibited these behaviors... ”, etc. I think it’s easy for somebody who is an expert in one thing, but not an expert in another, to misconstrue what’s being presented to them, or have it purposefully misconstrued to them beforehand, to get a certain reaction. It’s nice to know that this is not the mainstream mind.
Dr. Matt: (There are) a few things, if you’re interested in reading psychological information, that might expand on what I’m talking about. (Like Bruno Bettelheim’s book "The Uses of Enchantment: The Meaning and Importance of Fairy Tales"). You have to wade through some of the psychoanalysis of it, but Bruno Bettelheim, was a psychoanalyst in the forties and he talked a lot about projection, that’s a psychoanalytic term. Psychology itself has kind of gotten away from a lot of psychoanalysis, and (gone towards) cognitive behavioral ... but I think that most of us who work with kids understand that you’re not just in a physiological development, you’re also in a psychological and emotional development. Another book that’s really interesting ... is not by a psychologist, it’s one of my favorites on this subject (though), “Killing Monsters”, (by Gerard Jones). (Gerard Jones) used to be a comic book writer, which is one of my favorite things, and he’s done a lot of writing and public speaking and a lot of that “other-side-of-the-fence” perspective on gaming, and he did a lot of interviewing of psychologists. It’s a very well informed, well written book. ... Another one would be Michael Thompson’s book “Raising Cain” (you can find the) PBS documentary on that which is really interesting to watch, but you could also get the book. Michael Thompson is a psychologist who does research, primarily on children, primarily on boys, talking about how boys need to have monsters to overcome. That’s the point of “Killing Monsters”, a very interesting book actually. (It) talks about video games, rap music, talks about our draw towards characters in stories, like in comic books, and how that is a healthy, normal drive; and if (we) don’t work it out somewhere, like in a vicarious manner through literature, that we will, eventually, work it out somehow, and that’s not always the healthiest thing to do. (Even) Freud and Jung, talked a lot about ... why we have these themes, or archetypes, in literature. Whether its Homer and “The Odyssey”, or George Lucas and “Star Wars”, ... “Harry Potter”, (whatever it is), any of these things that are going to be classics. At the (University of Utah), in some literature class, they're all stressing out reading and analyzing some book that none of us have ever heard of, and in ten-fifteen-twenty years no one will ever hear of again. And I’m sure it’s a great book actually, but, what makes (that story) a classic? It is because we project our needs, thoughts, and emotions into it, through classic themes. One hundred years from now somebodies going to be watching “Star Wars” and some kid will discover it for the first time and he’s like “have you ever seen this, it’s so cool” and he’s going to get into all the character themes. Even my kids will watch this movie made in 1977, and they’re as into it as I was when I was six years old, when it came out. That’s why people can still read “The Odyssey”, and even though the language is a little funky, we can get into the storyline. There is a difference, and these kind of psychological projections play out in different ways ... sometimes it’s hard to see how they fit, but whether it’s a video game, a comic book, like “Hellboy”, (whatever)... the point is, (it's) childhood, kids playing. One of my biggest pet peeves (is) "no tolerance" policies at schools. Is there a need for that? Actually, yes there is. Bullying, and all that, is very detrimental to development, and I’m a big advocate of protecting children and allowing them to have a healthy, safe environment to grow up in. However, I have actually worked with two different students that in early elementary school have been suspended for playing the equivalent of “cops and robbers” on the playground. Taking their finger (pointing like a pistol), going “pew pew”, shooting each other, falling down dead, that sort of thing. The school (has a “no tolerance” policy), it’s a “no thinking” policy really at this point. It’s a ... policy where “we just can’t tolerate that sort of violent play”, (but) adult violence is very different than what adults attribute as violence to children. Children playing “cops and robbers”, "shooting", "war", all that sort of stuff, is part of their normal development of overcoming feelings of inferiority. If you read Michael Thompsons “Raising Cain”, or watch his documentary (from) PBS ... it’s very clear that when children are presented with actual violence they know the difference. It’s a different scenario for them. If you show a child a video of actual violence, not a stage, not a hollywood production, but actual violence (consisting) of people being hurt, it is very upsetting to them. If you show them images blasting aliens to bits, they’re intrigued; they want to participate. Children can tell the difference, even staged violence like in a movie you (where) two human characters (are) fighting; unless it is a “Scorcese film” where someones heads getting split open with a baseball bat, and it’s realistic. If there’s a fantasy component to it, the children know the difference because it’s part of their development. I get really perturbed with the blanket way we deal with that, especially with children, because it doesn’t allow their development. So two areas, read “Killing Monsters”, definitely, and I’d probably go to the library and get Michael Thompson’s “Raising Cain” PBS special and watch that. If you’re interested you can read his book, the book has a lot more information, but the specials done really, really well.
Ryan: As an adult I love comics and video games, but as teenager I got into books, that was my escape. ... That was my form of escapism, reading. Not only did I read Fantasy where you can “be the hero”, but I also ended up reading a lot of classical literature, and as I got older, in my late teens, I started reading things like “The Power of Myth” (Campbell), so I could kind of understand (myself) more. I really appreciate (you mentioning those things).
Dr. Matt: Definitely. An interesting activity you can do as an adult, is go back to your childhood and look at, and actually make a list, (of) what sorts of entertainment was (you were) really into. Not just “what did (you) like”; what (were you) really into? Which books, which movies (were you) really drawn to? And within those, which characters (were you) really drawn to? That can often tell you a lot about who you were at that time, what you were trying to overcome, what was important to you, what you were struggling with. If you look at that through your adolesence and maybe even young adulthood, you can see change over time: which characters, which things (you’re) still drawn to, which have changed, which are important to (you), that sort of thing. We will work it out somewhere. Is it important if a kids working it out in a video game versus a book? Well, I think books probably have more inherent value, as far as the education part goes, but not necessarily more psychological value all the time. I can’t judge the kids I work with, adolescents, based on my experience growing up. I was born in 1971, grew up mostly in the seventies and eighties, and it was a different time ... and things were different (from) what kids are drawn to nowadays. For example, I try really hard to accept the fact that my kids are really into hip-hop music. Hate the hip hop, don’t like it all. The other day my two boys were fighting. I made them sit on the couch and I said “ok, you know what guys I’m sick of it. You guys are arguing, fighting and just kind of “at each other” all the time. You’re going to sit here, you’re not going to say anything and you’re going to listen to the entire “London Calling” by The Clash. It’s one of the greatest albums of all time. You’ll sit here and listen to this entire album and I don’t want to hear a single thing out of you”. It was an interesting experiment; the boys really liked it. And I think they got something out of listening to The Clash frankly. Plus I got to listen to The Clash and not hear arguing. It was great... A win/win.
Mike: For our readers: Dr. Matt answers all of his emails, anybody can ask him questions, go to askdrmatt.com and you can ask him anything you want. So everybody knows Dr. Matt answers all of his emails, and I’m a first hand witness of that...
Dr. Matt: (Yeah), it’s sometimes the weekend activity, Sunday nights. Sit there and answer emails, and I enjoy it, it’s fun. Mostly I provide people with some resources in town.
Mike: And everybody can listen to Dr. Matt once a week, every Wednesday morning on 101.9 “The End”.
Dr. Matt: Yeah, about 7:30, usually, on “The Chunga Show”.
Mike: We really appreciate it, thank you for spending the time with us today to talk about video games.
Dr. Matt: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Dr. Matt: (Yeah), it’s sometimes the weekend activity, Sunday nights. Sit there and answer emails, and I enjoy it, it’s fun. Mostly I provide people with some resources in town.
Mike: And everybody can listen to Dr. Matt once a week, every Wednesday morning on 101.9 “The End”.
Dr. Matt: Yeah, about 7:30, usually, on “The Chunga Show”.
Mike: We really appreciate it, thank you for spending the time with us today to talk about video games.
Dr. Matt: Yeah. Thanks for having me.
No comments:
Post a Comment