程阳：游戏是个好东西

   电子游戏是过街老鼠人人喊打。毋庸置疑，许多电子游戏很暴力，而且人们批评电子游戏腐蚀破坏年轻一代的道德体系，这种批评与那些对小说、漫画书和电视的新媒体的批评如出一辙。这类指责也并非无中生有。大量研究表明，即使电子游戏没有让人有暴力行为，它也让人会有暴力倾向。但是，并非所有的电子游戏都是火线保镖类的，而且，那种说电子游戏会影响并持续影响个体行为的说法也缺乏实证。然而，这种现状正在改变。两项近期进行的研究表明，电子游戏有弊也有利。

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The behavioural effects of video games:Good game

Playing video games can make you a better person

VIDEO games get a bad press. Many are unquestionably violent and, as has been the way with new media from novels to comic books to television, they have been accused of corrupting the moral fabric of youth. Nor are such accusations without merit. There is a body of research suggesting that violent games can lead to aggressive thoughts, if not to violence itself. But not all games are shoot-’em-ups, and what is less examined is whether those that reward more constructive behaviour also have lingering impacts. That, however, is starting to change. Two studies showing that video games have a bright side as well as a dark one have been carried out recently.

One, to be published in June by the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, was conducted by Douglas Gentile, of Iowa State University’s media research laboratory. He and his colleagues tested the effects of playing so-called “pro-social” games on children and young adults in three countries.

A group of 161 American students played one of six games for 20 minutes. Some were given “Ty2” or “Crash Twinsanity”, both of which involve cartoonish fighting and destruction. Others were assigned “Chibi-Robo!”, which involves helping characters in the game by doing their chores, or “Super Mario Sunshine”, in which players clean up pollution and graffiti. A third group, acting as a control, played “Pure Pinball” or “Super Monkey Ball Deluxe”, both of which involve guiding a ball through mazes.

Their games over, the participants were asked to choose 11 of 30 easy, medium or hard shape-based puzzles for a partner to complete, and told that their partner would receive a $10 gift voucher if he could complete ten of them. Those who had been playing pro-social games were significantly more likely to help their partner by selecting easy puzzles. The opposite was true for those assigned violent games.

The other parts of Dr Gentile’s study looked at established behaviour. In one, a group of 680 Singaporeans aged 12-14 were asked to list their three favourite games and state the number of hours they played. They were then given questionnaires, the answers to which suggested that those who spent the longest playing games which involved helping others were most likely to help, share, co-operate and empathise with others. They also had lower scores in tests for hostile thoughts and the acceptance of violence as normal. In the second, Japanese aged 10-17 were asked how much time they spent playing games in which the main character helps others. When questioned three to four months later, those who played these types of games the most were also rated as more helpful to those around them in real life.

Screened for virtue

These two, later, parts of Dr Gentile’s study might, of course, just be proving that nice people prefer pro-social games. But a second controlled experiment, by Tobias Greitemeyer of the University of Sussex, in England, and Silvia Osswald of Ludwig-Maximilian University, in Munich, confirms the gist of Dr Gentile’s conclusions. In this piece of research (to be published later this year, also in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology), Dr Greitemeyer and Dr Osswald asked 46 German students to play one of two classic games. In the pro-social one, “Lemmings”, the aim is to protect rodents from various dangers. By contrast “Tetris” acted as a neutral control. In this game players rotate falling shapes so that they slot neatly together instead of saving self-destructive furry animals.

Playtime over, the students were asked to say what happens next in three incomplete stories involving a driver and a cyclist who narrowly miss colliding; two friends, one of whom is unapologetic despite being repeatedly late; and a diner speaking to a restaurant manager after waiting for an hour to be served and then having food spilt on him. Those who had played “Lemmings” suggested endings in which the characters in the stories exhibited significantly fewer aggressive thoughts, responses and actions than the ones suggested by the “Tetris” players.

The upshot of both studies is that video games are like any other medium. Feed the user with aggressive thoughts and you risk making him aggressive. Feed him with the milk of human kindness and the opposite will probably happen. No great surprise, perhaps. But a salutary reminder both that the older generation should not rush to judgment on youthful habits it does not understand, and that the medium is not always the message.