From the Mar 1983 _Video Games_ magazine, p. 21-24, 72. ** _The Great Debate_ Featuring Dr. Joyce Brothers, Ronnie Lamm, Don Osborne, Mitchell Robin, Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo. by Howard Mandel "Video games may be hazardous to the health of young people .... More and more, people are beginning to understand adverse mental and physical effects of video games on preteenage and teenage children .... There's nothing constructive in the games. Everything is eliminate, kill, destroy." U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop unloaded this bombshell last fall at a seminar on family violence at the University of Pittsburgh. The Associated Press picked it up and carried it to media outlets across the country. But a day later, Koop retracted his statement, saying: "This represented my purely personal judgment and was not based on any accumulated scientific evidence, nor does it represent the official view of the Public Health Service .... Nothing in my remarks should be interpreted as implying that video games are, per se, violent in nature, or harmful to children. What to believe? After this highly publicized incident, a search of published studies -- conducted at Koop's request by the American Psychological Association -- turned up nothing to prove, or disprove, his point. In fact, little research has been done on the effects of video games. Most of what has been written on the subject is pure speculation. But the urge to speculate -- on how the games affect children and adults and on what ways they are changing patterns of entertainment -- is irresistible. Professional observers and concerned citizens are quick to offer their opinions to whomever will listen. To present a wide spectrum of opinions on the subject, _Video Games_ conducted a round table discussion by phone, asking several noted participants in the ongoing video games debate the same questions in separate interviews. The panel includes: * Dr. Joyce Brothers, the nationally syndicated newspaper columnist and radio commentator. A psychologist, she addresses a wide range of issues confronting society daily. * Ronnie Lamm, president of a Long Island, NY PTA District Council encompassing 12 schools and 14,000 students, and former teacher with a master's degree in early childhood education. She spearheaded a drive to stop the proliferation of arcades in her community in '81 and continues to urge for regulation of amusement centers in general. * Don Osborne, vice-president for sales and marketing of Atari's coin- operated games division. An Atari employee since '77, he has prior experience in the educational technology industry and in public recreation, as director of a West Coast regional park system. * Mitchell Robin, professor of child psychology and data processing at New York Technical College of the City University of New York and the New School for Social Research, also in New York. * Dr. Philip G. Zimbardo, professor of psychology at Stanford University. He has studied shyness, madness, prejudice, conformity, violence, the nature of social identity, and behavior in prisons. VIDEO GAMES: Surgeon General Koop originally stated that "video games may be hazardous to the health of young people." Do the games, indeed, pose a threat of any kind to young Americans? Dr. Brothers: I don't see them as posing any sort of threat, but they do have the potential for abuse. If the games become an obsession -- if they're being played when homework is supposed to be done, or when money spent on them is supposed to go into something else -- that isn't good for children. I'm also concerned about arcades, where there's no adult supervision, because whenever and wherever children gather in groups, people who prey on children gather, too. So parents who let their children play games in arcades should stop by the arcades now and then to see what is going on. At home, games played in moderation are alright: I believe we all have the right to have some fun in our lives. Mrs. Lamm: We're in a world where there are so many problems, some of which our children will face. We need people to populate this society of tomorrow who will look and find the creative solutions, rather than just press a button or turn on a switch in reaction to problems. The zapping and killing of objects on the screen -- what is that doing to the consciousness of our children? It's an easy form of warfare, where children don't see the blood and guts and victims. Mr. Osborne: I don't see the games as threatening at all. Young people are a heck of a lot more logical and understanding of the situation than most of the adults who are flying the banner of decrying video games. Perhaps a small percentage -- I'd guess less than five percent -- are playing the games to an extreme degree. Most have a very wholesome attitude towards the games. They take them in stride. There's been a tremendous amount of distortion as to the amount of involvement young people have in the games -- they're playing as they're doing other things, like reading books, being active in athletics, watching television and doing their homework. The involvement is not anywhere near what the critics have pointed out. Mr. Robin -- I don't think video games pose any threat to young Americans whatsoever. I know there's a great deal of controversy about that, but based on my research and some other research I've seen, it seems the games are probably beneficial, if used properly. I'm not talking about someone who's playing 24 hours a day, plunking in quarter after quarter to escape from a pressing problem; there are children and adults who do that, and they're addicted. They have difficult family lives, don't understand how to control their own lives, and escape into the games. But based on my experience, I'd say that's a minority. Dr. Zimbardo: I'm Mr. Shyness. I've done research and written books for the last ten years on shyness, and what I see the games encouraging is isolation. The games seem to have a lot of appeal to people who are social isolates, who are loners or somewhat alienated. By playing them, it increases both the amount of time they are not trying to relate to other people and their status from being good at something that does not involve any other human interaction. The question is: How is that going to prepare them to be social creatures? I think my answer is: It will not. To me, life is all about learning how to relate to and cultivate social resources, and the games tend to make those irrelevant, at best. VG: Whenever the pros and cons of video games are discussed the matter of eye-hand coordination seems to pop up. It is generally accepted that the games teach this skill quite effectively. Is this at least one reason to get excited about video games? Mrs. Lamm: Yes, there are children with very specific eye-hand coordination problems and yes, very specific kinds of reaction drills that video games offer are needed to benefit these children. But for your average child, I don't see the need for that kind of eye-hand coordination -- unless we are going to enroll them in the Air Force. Mr. Robin: True, the games enhance eye-hand coordination, but that's not all. They tap into skills some children have that are acceptable to their peers, even though they lack skills in other areas that may also be acceptable. Let me explain: I'm your basic, paunchy, middle-aged psychologist, and I was your basic, paunchy, non-middle-aged kid. I was not a great athlete, and in my neighborhood when I was growing up athletics were at a premium -- you got brownie points for being good. I think there are a lot of kids out there who are finding that maybe they can't play basketball well, but darned if they can't play video games as well as their peers, and get a lot of moral support, peer support, for being a high scorer. That support is a rare enough commodity in the world that we need to encourage it. Mr. Osborne: I don't think there is any question that eye-hand coordination improves significantly, and other visual skills are improved as a result of playing. The ability to deal with and manipulate information on a video screen is enhanced, and I do think this will carry over to greater involvement with computers. I don't think there's any question that it will be beneficial somewhere down the road. But to make a big ballyhoo about it and play it up is ludicrous. VG: What is about the games that makes them so captivating? Mrs. Lamm: The lights, the noise, the action -- it's exciting to kids. But I have a concern about spoonfeeding kids these things. The accountant, the attorney, the doctor, plumber, electrician -- that's not how they work. A boiler doesn't light up in red, green and orange while the plumber is working on it. I think we are giving our kids a false impression of what life is all about. Not that education should be tedious. But if we allow our children to close their eyes and listen, really listen to music, something exciting can occur; if we encourage them to read a book, they can make their own music. If the child walks out of the gameroom feeling super-great, how long does that feeling last? I'm not saying that every moment of the day kids need to be involved in creative, intellectually stimulating activities, every once in a while it's fine to lay on your bed and do nothing, not even think. Our bodies need that from time to time. I just can't accept the "instant gratification" and "feeling of success" theories psychologists come up with. Video games is a meaningless activity. Mr. Osborne: Where I live -- San Jose, Calif. -- more and more recreation programs are being taken away from the kids because the cities can't fund them anymore. The cost of movies, records, bowling is going up. Video games haven't gone up since 1972. It's an exciting, active involvement, an opportunity to extend one's fantasy world. Entertainment, laughing, just being able to have some sort of diversion from the oppression of reality is very necessary -- video games provide this in a special way. Dr. Zimbardo: They're an incredible challenge, and there has been very little that poses the equivalent challenge of video games to young people in their lives, or their education. The point is, you can learn to play without adult supervision, without elaborate instruction, and you can do it in a matter of minutes. Another reason they're so addictive is that you can improve on your own, simply by practice. You don't need any external motivation, it's all intrinsic; the challenge is with the context of "You can do it all." And then there is the instant feedback; Unlike most things in education, you know immediately whether you've done something right or wrong, whether you moved too slowly or too fast, too much to the right or left, or if you fired your weapons too soon. So you can make adjustments, you can learn. Playing video games is almost like having your brain wired into the system. And the instantaneous nature of the feedback no only makes the learning faster, but it's part of the excitement of the game. VG: Is there any scientific research being done regarding video games? Dr. Brothers: There's little that I know of -- it's been a difficult subject to get funding for. I don't think research would be particularly useful, anyway -- by the time it's published, the kids will be on to something else. Mr. Osborne: there are a number of scientific evaluations going on through the Veterans Administration hospitals and rehabilitation centers where video games have been show to help people regenerate their skills. There have been studies with learning disabled children and kids with perceptual problems. I know of a Dr. Emmanuel Donchin, head of the psychology department at the University of Illinois, who is studying whether through part-task training on video games you can enhance whole-task training. The Atari Institute has funded a number of worthy educational programs involving the use of the computer. But let's face it -- if Atari funded the study, the results would probably be considered biased. Funding really needs to come from objective third parties. Dr. Zimbardo: I'm aware of a few projects: Mark Lepter, in the psychology department at Stanford, is looking at sex differences in the appeal of the games and in microcomputers. There is earlier work, done by Tom Malone at the Xerox Research Institute in Palo Alto, which focused on understanding what makes the games, and video displays in general, so addictive and exciting. AT MIT, Dr. Sherry Turkle is writing a book on various aspects of video games, she is the one whose been researching the longest. I think if the Surgeon General is going to come to conclusions -- even if he has the good grace to retract them when he finds them unsupported -- he's going to have to have some research done, and this is the time to start, while there are still groups of children who don't play the games. The National Institute of Mental Health, the Office of Education -- they should sponsor research, and so should the video game companies who are making enormous profits. VG: Do you or your children play video games? Mrs. Lamm: I have two children, a 13 year old and a nine year old; neither of them frequents the arcades, but my little one enjoys the games and plays them occasionally in her friends' homes. Two years ago we had a birthday party for her in a large arcade / restaurant, where the children were given two quarters to spend on rides and games. There was popcorn, and we were entertained by clowns -- it was a lovely afternoon. It was supervised, and the children were limited to 50 cents, which was really all they needed at age seven. I can see it as a form of family entertainment, though we don't do it very often. But I don't claim everyone should have the same priorities as I have. Mr. Osborne: I play about 30 minutes a day, which is not as much as I'd like to. I guess 75 percent of my playing is business-oriented, where I have to evaluate a product, and 25 percent recreational. I have a 16-year-old daughter and a 13-year-old son; we have an Atari Video Computer System at home and my son is the one who plays it the most. But I have more problems with him and comic books than I do with video games. Dr. Zimbardo: I'm not much of a game player -- I've played them, but not much. However, my son is an addict -- he's 20 and goes to Stanford. He's done surveys and some interviews with other self-confessed video game addicts -- college-aged people who play every day -- for my studies. I also have two young daughters, but they're too young to play. VG: Finally, what do you foresee as the future of video games in our society? Dr. Brothers: I don't think they will affect our society in the future at all. Last year, the rage was Rubik's Cube; this year, it's video games; next year, it will be something else. I suppose the next generation of video games will require more imagination, because now they're rather one-dimensional -- once the eye-hand coordination is mastered, there's little else there. Mrs. Lamm: Video games are going to continue to be part of our future, I'm sure. As with anything new, these games have bombarded us; they've changed the complexion of our communities. I'm hoping that with video games becoming a more accustomed thing, there will be more controls set by parents. Just as they control, or at least monitor, the hours a child watches television and the selection of programs, they should monitor the hours a child plays the games the selection of the actual game. Mr. Osborne: I think video games will continue to advance as an electronic form of recreation and entertainment. The special quality that video games have -- the interactive quality -- will continue to be developed, and it's my feeling that we'll see video games and other forms of entertainment or recreation blend together to produce even newer forms. We like to think we have an entertainment form that can relate to any age level and both sexes; potentially, whole families might go to arcades together and play games in which they act out an entire story, with everybody having a different role. Mr. Robin: Alvin Toffler was right -- we're going through a future shock. There's a new technology out there and we're just learning to develop consistent and non-threatening behavior in response to it. We've yet to institutionalize our response to this technology, and in many cases we're thrashing about, sometimes in agonized fashion, looking for rules to apply. Until we get enough people who can behave in a comfortable way with video and computer technology, this old-time morality response to video games will continue. Dr. Zimbardo: Currently, video games reinforce learning how to be optimally destructive. From my professional experience, I think that might have long term negative impact on society. Video games put the player in command of enormous resources, typically to destroy some enemy. The question is: How much do you want to promote that kind of fantasy, especially among young males who have very little control over anything in their lives? We don't know if the fantasy stops there or has long-range effects. The long-range impact might be to have a generation of males who are reinforced to have this kind of cognitive structure, which could be dangerous 10 to 20 years from now. It's a military mentality, which we already have enough of now. In a positive vein, it is possible to reprogram the games. They could be exciting, challenging and visually appealing as well as teach the player to learn messages that are important to make that person a responsible citizen. Use the games to teach interdependence with other humans, where part of the mechanism teaches cooperation, sharing and negotiating, and where the outcome of the game is not so much destruction as salvation. In either case, this phenomenon -- using new technology for immediate electronic feedback -- is going to play an important role in our lives for years to come.