Jon22: The Website of Jonathan Dobres

I’m tired of studies like this one, in which a group of German researchers determined that playing racing videogames correlates with risky driving behavior. Worse, I’m tired of the way that CNN and other news outlets jump on these highly preliminary studies to imply that straightforward links have been found between dangerous, dangerous videogames and our otherwise safe, well ordered world.

I have no doubt that the researchers found legitimate correlations between a history of playing Gran Turismo and risky real world driving. I’m certain that their exposure trial, in which participants played a racing game and then used a driving simulator, also showed a similar correlation.

The human brain constantly adapts itself to new information. Depending on which level of cognition you’re talking about, you could call this neural plasticity, or you could call it learning. Either way, the basic idea is the same: our environment and our minds are in a constant feedback loop, with each perpetually changing the other, often in powerful ways. We swim in a sea of information that constantly molds the way we think, and even the way we perceive. Do you like Diet Coke? Of course you don’t, not really. Who would? It is a black, bubbling liquid with an indeterminate flavor (the secret answer is cinnamon). Diet Coke should send up all kinds of perceptual warning flags, but thanks to nearly a century of clever marketing, it’s one of the most popular beverages in the world. Exposure changes thought. This much is undeniably true.

The German study should rightly be questioned for a few reasons. First, racing games are not that popular. Everyone has played one at some point, but I think very few people really dedicate themselves to Gran Turismo the way they would to Final Fantasy XII or Doom. There’s just not much in a racing game: no real story or characters to grab you, no real plot, and no real sensation of driving. Who are these people who love to play racing games? What kind of person gets really invested in such a game, enough to have a significant history with it? Maybe they’re just adrenaline junkies in general.

What game did the German study use? Gran Turismo, Crazy Taxi, and Grand Theft Auto all have cars and racing elements, but they are very different games. It would have been helpful if the CNN summary had dropped a name or two.

Then there’s the methodological critique. A racing game and a driving simulator are the same thing. Frankly, I’d be shocked if you didn’t find a correlation between the two activities. Tell me to play an exciting racing game, and then moments later tell me to play a boring simulator, and I’ll bet money that I’d be doing stupid things to spice up the action on Crazy Berlin Intersections 3: Der Speed Macher. I’d be much more interested in a study that examines real world driving behavior with and without exposure to a videogame, but then the correlation would probably evaporate. Real world behaviors are complex, influenced by a mountain of memory much more than momentary exposure.

The real danger with studies like this is that they are easily misinterpreted by a society hungry for popular science. Authorities like CNN take nuanced research and strip it down to an easy, one to one correlation between the simple and the complex. I’m all for studying the ways in which this strange new medium of videogames influences our lives, but it seems that the only studies that ever get funded are the ones looking for violence and danger, and the only studies that get attention from the news are the ones that find it.