The effects of computers and video games on behaviour
- 1. The negative effects of computers and video games
- 2. Video games and aggression - Lab studies AO1 AO2 - Have found an increase in physiological arousal, hostile feelings and aggressive behaviour following playing violent computer games (compared to non violent computer games) - Anderson and Dill, one group played violent games + one control group. They were blasted with white noise, they failed then then filled out a hostility rating scale and found that those who played the violent games had a higher hostility rating × Ethical issues, causing distress in real life (aggression) Protection from psychological harm if we provoke children to be aggressive, hostile, physiological arousal we cant generalise to real life Lab studies are also artificially controlled which means that they are highly reliable × However they do not resemble real life, which means that demand characteristics may take place
- 3. Video games and aggression- Longitudinal studies AO1 AO2 - Anderson et al surveyed 430 children aged 7-9 twice during the school year (start+ end). They found that children who played a lot of violent video games were more physically and verbally aggressive. This was a field experiment, based on real life so it was an improvement × However with these types of experiment extraneous variables aren't controlled for. Some children may just gravitate towards video games because they are already violent in nature × They also do not have a reliable causal link, which causes which? Gentile criticises this study for this
- 4. Video games and aggression- Meta-analysis on the video games and aggression link AO1 AO2 - Several meta analysis’ have found a consistent link between violent game play and aggressive behaviour. This association seems to hold for both children and adults - It might be expected that there larger effects with newer studies as video games have increasingly become more violent over time, this was the pattern found in Gentile and Anderson’s study at least × Again however it is hard to establish a causal link between the two does an already aggressive child cause them to play violent games or do violent games cause aggression?
- 5. Computers – Facebook use, friends and stress AO1 AO2 - Researchers in 2011 interviewed 200 undergraduate students in Scotland they found that 2% of users experienced anxiety. Those who reported anxiety described stress as deleting unwanted contacts and the constant pressure to be humorous and entertaining 32% of users said that they felt guilty about rejecting friend requests Further support of this is the case study of an 18year old asthmatic man, who had managed to keep his asthma under control, he hadn't had am asthma attack in a while. However his girlfriend broke up with him over Facebook and deleted him as a friend off of it. So he created a new account with a different name so he could add her again however when he saw her pictures his asthma worsened. × A criticism of this is that, there is no further evidence that Facebook caused his asthma to worsen, he could have seen her in the street and the same thing happen to him, her face is what caused his asthma to worsen not Facebook × How you choose to use Facebook is their decision, no one told him to create a new account and stalk his ex girlfriend that was his choice, so his worsened asthma maybe his own doing × There also maybe other extraneous variables that caused his asthma to worsen for example a change in environment/ weather/ illness × As this was a case study we cannot generalise this to the whole population either
- 6. The negative effects of Facebook use and grades AO1 AO2 - Karpinski conducted a study at Ohio university. He found that the majority of students who used Facebook everyday underachieved by as much as an entire grade in contrast to students who didn’t use Facebook as often. × We can’t establish a causal relationship as we cant isolate extraneous variables. Are they already easily distractible students? × There is lack of supporting evidence for the negative effects of Facebook as the internet and social media accounts are quite new to the world and so there is a limited amount of studies conducted into them However, there is some supporting evidence of Facebook, for example when Greenfield showed a presentation at the house of Lords arguing that Facebook shortens a persona attention span
- 7. The positive effects of computers and video games
- 8. Helping behaviour AO1 AO2 - Researchers had participants play lemmings. This game was about ensuring the safety of all the lemmings. Researchers then pretended to accidently knock over a box of pencils. Participants who played lemmings were more likely to volunteer to help than the control group who hadn't played lemmings × But why don’t pro-social video games have more of an effect? The researchers who conducted the lemmings study came to the conclusion that even though social games can influence behaviour 85% of video games involve violence Researchers have found that the video game Tetris can help to reduce or even prevent memory flashbacks after post traumatic stress events. Researchers showed images from a film of personal injury from traffic accidents for instance. 30 minutes later some volunteers played Tetris for 10 minutes some played pub quiz and some didn’t play anything. In a second experiment the wait between being shown the film and playing the games was extended to 4 hours. They found that in both experiments those who played Tetris had significantly fewer flashbacks from the images on the film compared to the other groups. Tetris was effective as long it was played within a four hour window after the traumatic event. The researchers concluded that playing the game minimises the minds tendency to flash back to memories or traumatic events. It is thought that Tetris reduces flashbacks because it competes with the same sensory memory channels that are need to form that memory Therapeutic applications of video games – a certain video game ‘virtual Iraq computer game’ is a computer simulation which has been used to allow soldiers suffering post traumatic stress disorder to relive and confront psychological trauma in a low threat context.
- 9. Facebook use and self esteem AO1 AO2 - Researchers conducted a study, participants were given 3 minutes to do wither one of the three things, look in a mirror, go on Facebook or just do nothing for 3 minutes. They asked the participants afterwards to say something positive about themselves the researchers found that those who had been on Facebook gave more positive feedback about themselves × Why does Facebook increase self esteem? This study has been criticised because its argued that Facebook is only a self esteem booster because we get to select what information and photos are on there, so how we represent ourselves to others is always in a positive light because we control it