Video games are excellent teachers, the experts say. But a new study suggests that these digital diversions may teach some unintended lessons.
A gaggle of researchers who conducted a study at Nottingham Trent University and Stockholm University came up with a new video game term: game transfer phenomena (GTP). It seems that after testing a group of frequent video game players, the science guys noticed that the gamers would sometimes carry video game elements out of the virtual video game world and into their real lives.
The resulting report—which was published in the International Journal of Cyber Behaviour, Psychology and Learning—was instantly latched onto and used as fodder to prove that video games are creating zombies of us all. Headlines started popping up claiming, “Gamers can’t tell real-world from fantasy” and “Science finds people can’t tell the video game world from the real world.” The United Kingdom’s Daily Mail even went so far as to say, “How video games blur real life boundaries and prompt thoughts of ‘violent solutions’ to players’ problems.”
In reaction, Angelica Ortiz de Gortari, one of the study’s authors, responded with this:
Some of what I'm reading in the papers goes way beyond what we're saying. This idea that players can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy is nonsense, it's not what our paper is saying at all.
So what is it saying? What is this GTP stuff? Some of the examples researchers mentioned were automatic responses in the real world of, say, momentarily reaching for a non-existent controller when they drop a pen or maybe instantly looking for a heads-up display when facing a problem. And then there were some other loose connections: a woman who couldn’t get a game tune out of her head, for instance, or someone who joked about “leveling up” when they learned a new skill. Not exactly ominous stuff.
Personally I can attest to carrying a certain aggressive mindset into the real world after playing a racing game, which could potentially be problematic. But, trust me, I was never tempted to try any Evil Knievel bus jumps to avoid a traffic slowdown. Nor have I ever seriously contemplated riding a rocket sled through the local mall just to gain a few extra experience points. So if you’re worried about seriously problematic, en masse game transfer phenomena, well, I don’t think you’ll need to gather any emergency survivor supplies for that crisis.
On the other hand, if outer space invaders do someday land at the local park, the gamer next door will probably have some good suggestions—even without an in-game menu.
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