Video Racing Games May Spur Risky Driving 428
kiwimate writes "A study concludes that people who play car racing games may be more likely to take risks and drive aggressively when driving in real life.
According to the article, "The study appeared in the Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, published by the American Psychological Association"." Just because after I play Grand Theft Auto I want to ram other cars does not mean I'm a worse driver. Honest.
My sorta story (Score:4, Funny)
I never did.
Now I broke the ice, everyone else can post there coming-out story.
Re:My sorta story (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My sorta story (Score:5, Funny)
If people thought playing computer games would affect your actions in real life, then all those hours of PacMan would have had us running around in darkened rooms listening to repetitive music munching on pills.
Oh wait....
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Heck, in the old days...we had to live with dropping anvils onto people's heads...or aim them towards the edge of a high cliff with a large ACME rocket on their back while on roller skates.
Yup...we had it tough before PacMan had its nefarious influence on us. Looney Tunes was bad enough.....
Marcus Brigstocke (Score:5, Informative)
And what about Katamari Damacy ? (Score:3, Funny)
Space Invaders players more likely to become Fighter Jet pilots !
PacMan players more likely to develop eating disorders !
Politicians to start paying to develop games where the player has to vote for them !
Click on my website to download my new creation : a game called "Give me all your money, and pay me hookers"
Re:My sorta story (Score:5, Funny)
It's all about GTA (Score:5, Insightful)
When I first played (and when my wife first played), we tried to obey the traffic laws and stay in the proper lane. After realizing how pointless that was, we were driving on sidewalks, ignoring pedestrians, and laughing with glee when running red lights.
Your brain is very good at unlearning old skills and relearning new ones. The catch is that when doing very similar things, it's easy for one set of skills to bleed into another. Switching from throwing a whiffle ball to a softball requires a period of adjustment. Driving like an insane maniac to a law abiding citizen requires a degree of concentration.
The vast majority of people will likely use caution, focus, and not have any problem at all. Some folks, however, may have difficulty making the switch. Ban all driving games? That seems a bit silly. Banning cell phones or music in cars would likely have a more concrete effect.
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I can see how playing GTA plants the 'what if...?' seed in my mind...'this traffic is bad, if only I drive on the curb?
Re:It's all about GTA (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, seriously: there was a moment for me when, after playing a whole lot of GTA3, I was driving around and found myself thinking, "I'm tired of this car. I should go get that guy's car." Not very consciously, I mean. I didn't literally think those words I just typed, but I was driving, saw a nicer car than the one I was driving, and for a split second it went through my head that I should pull him over, yank him the driver out of his car, and drive away leaving my own car behind.
Of course, I didn't actually *do* anything. I just laughed a little to myself, thought, "that's awesome" and kept driving.
I'm not in favor of censoring video games or anything. You don't really know what activities are going to do for people. Maybe playing football would make one guy feel accustomed to violence and more likely to hit someone, while it might give another guy some sort of an outlet which prevents him from being violent. The government shouldn't take over responsibility for deciding which experiences are appropriate for people to have.
On the other hand, let's not pretend that this stuff has no effect. If I play solitaire enough, my mind starts sorting visual information differently. After playing Zelda for a long time, I look at the world differently. It's all having an effect, and you know, maybe sometimes some games have a bad effect on a person's psyche. So, if you're a parent of a teenager who you think can't handle driving safely after playing GTA, don't let them play GTA. Better yet, just don't let them drive at all. I'll tell you something, we are far too insistent that people drive everywhere, even when they're bad drivers, and it's bad all around.
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And that, of course, is the key issue. Jack Thompson, et al, want to regulate
Arrg! (Score:4, Insightful)
Wouldn't the people most likely to enjoy this genre be predisposed to this behaviour?
Why don't these "researchers" understand the importance of self-selection?!?
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Silly consumer. The purpose of studies is to support your hypothesis, not find facts!
Re:Arrg! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Arrg! (Score:5, Insightful)
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The problem is, in essence you're suggesting that the only experimental result you'd trust is if someone actually conducted an experiment intended to get guys hyped on adrenaline and subsequently injuring / killing people in real life driving! Apart from the clear ethical problems with an experiment that requires risks for non-participants, you can also be practical and take on board the fact that experiments in simulated environments can bring useful and indeed valid results.
For example, even a risk taki
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The researchers took a group of people, split them up at random. One group was shown racing game footage. Another group was shown non-racing game footage. Then the people were put into what amounted to driving simulators and response time to hazardous situations was assessed.
The group that had been watching racing games drove further "into" hazardous situations before acting to avoid, and other behaviors associated with taking more
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However,
I had the opportunity to do some karting from time to time with colleagues and after 2 hours of karting when you take back your car you really have to think twice while driving.
More than one time I was close to naturally 'push' a slower car before me, or was driving more nervously than usual,
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They conducted three experiments. The first showed a correlation between risky driving and playing racing games. They explicitly acknowledged that correlation does not establish causality, hence the subsequent experiments.
Until you understand the importance of reading, hold off on criticising others working on the more advanced topics.
Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Insightful)
Next study! People who date teenage girls are risky drivers!
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One part I don't miss about being a stupid teenager is the insurance premiums.
Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Funny)
>Next study! People who date teenage girls are risky drivers!
"Damn! There go my insurance rates!" -- Moe, age 40.
Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Insightful)
I still find myself wanting to take turns faster and change lanes as if no one was really there (no signaling, etc) after playing a few games of Gran Turismo and I'm 28.
Generally I have more control over this impulse than a 16 to 19 year old might have but still the impulse is there. As the numbers of individuals that still play video games continues to increase into the 20/30 age range it *could* have an effect on the driving styles of those individuals past the "teenage boy risky group" you mention.
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After playing SOE's PlanetSide [sony.com] for a while, I was driving through a parking lot one day and reflexively swerved to avoid driving over an oil stain (a dark spot on an otherwise mostly clean parking lot).
In Planetside, mines are not visible until you are close to them. If you are driving at full speed, you usually cannot stop fast enough
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Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Interesting)
I was judged "not at fault" in the accident, and praised for paying attention in driver's ed...
Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Funny)
Fixed.
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Thanks for sorting that out.
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Hey now! I'll have you know that I've had my driver's license for close to 30 years and I'm not a hazard. Not to other drivers at least...
have you watched how girls drive these days? (Score:2)
and insurance companies are catching on quickly.
of note, in my area on the news when a boy crashes a car or dies behind the wheel it is usually just him or at most one other but girls seem to fill the car which makes their fatal crashes even more so troubling.
as for video games leading to it, if theres money to be had a lawyer will find it
Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Who plays racing games? Teenage boys? (Score:4, Insightful)
Alternate equally cogent headline (Score:5, Insightful)
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Problem is they were seagulls before they were Video Game addicts.
Makes me careful (Score:5, Insightful)
Crashing constantly in GTA actually makes me more careful by fear of having as many accidents as in GTA
Re:Makes me careful (Score:4, Funny)
blah blah correlation blah (Score:2)
In related news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Any time i see the 'video games made me do it' excuse, I think that the appropriate sentence should be forced to watch 'Barney' for an entire month. Since the person is so easily influenced, this should work perfectly for rehabilitation.
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Or... (Score:4, Insightful)
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I for one... (Score:2)
Hehehehe..
Most of my driving mistakes (no collisions
Tom
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You don't think those two statements are slightly contradictory? :-)
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Though I don't make a habit of it, most of the time I'm a "proper" driver. My point was that the goofs I do make while driving have nothing to do with what I'd do while playing GTA.
Tom
I wish! (Score:2)
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Not just games (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course one could still bring up the cause->effect arguement, as it's unclear as to whether or not people drive like idiots due to game/movie influence, or people who drive like idiots like those types of games/movies.
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ha ha ha. Guess what? Police package cars haven't been enhanced like that for something like twenty years. The police package basically includes heavier sway bars (SOMETIMES, not always) and the biggest alternator that has the same case as the stock alternator. That's it. The cops add pusher bars and various additional electronics. This makes the car heavier, but no p
Dunno about driving, but after playing Duke Nukem (Score:3, Funny)
Not that I ever actually did it.
Of course, if I could've gotten my hands on that shrink ray gun thing...
This study is correct (Score:2, Funny)
My grandmother never played GTA, and she only drives in the city, always in 1st or 2nd gear at most. She never had any serious accident.
Is it like herbalism in WoW? (Score:2)
No real plants were harvested for the making of this post.
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Your Freudian slip is showing.
This sounds vaugely familiar.... (Score:2)
I don't see hordes of psycho people running around with anti-social behavior that can directly be traced back to video games. If there are people out there who do have anti-social behavior, maybe it's due to the fact
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In related news... (Score:2, Insightful)
This is unusual, but plausible (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm a keen driver, and a strong advocate of road safety, so I've looked at a fair bit of the research that's available. Most variables that have been found to affect driver attitude are based on something that is happening while they're actually in the car: things like tiredness, drink and drugs obviously have an effect, but so do things like the type (actually, speed) of music you're listening to. (Some groups of drivers also generally exercise better judgement regardless of the immediate circumstances: to find out who, take a look at what counts for/against you when your insurance premium is worked out!)
Then again, perception of speed is also affected by recent experience: think how slow it feels when you come off a high speed road into a town, even if you're doing the limit around town, and compare that with how that limit feels when you're just starting driving and already in town. That's perception rather than attitude and judgement, though.
So while the conclusions here seem plausible, they're also a bit unusual. I saw a story very similar to this a few days ago in the UK media. Anyone know if these are all the same thing, or there's a recent research trend generating several sets of results in quick succession?
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I listen to NPR and drive 10 mph below the speed limit in the left lane. With my left blinker on. I'm not bothered by the honking from other drivers because Robert Siegel has a very soothing voice.
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I always have to make a mental adjustment after playing driving games. Of course, I also have to make a mental adjustment after playing Katamari Darmacy. For a couple hours after playing I always have this urge to run into the other cars so I can roll them up. Strangely I have thus far been able to
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I concur. I believe there is an effect. Just after Gran Turismo was big on the PS1, I was driving home in the rain, quite possibly driving a little too fast. On a corner I got the car into a four-wheel skid and instantly "fixed it" and got things under control.
It was 30 seconds later that I realized what I'd just subconsciously done. Granted in this case the game proved to be a positive experience, but to me it shows that they do have an affect on your habits, good or bad.
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I can certainly vouch for this one. I typically listen to my music at ~140% of normal speed (personal preference - it turns trance into dance, and dance into, well, really fast dance). I can't do this while driving, as it screws with my sense of time (and therefore speed). I find myself driving faster, without realizing I'm doing it.
It's True (Score:2)
The bland world we could live in ,,, (Score:4, Insightful)
We could live in a world without excitement. A world in which we are not stimulated or thrilled. A world in which we could only watch movies or play games approved by the Flanders family of the Simpsons. There will be unbalanced people who will be inspired by what they watch. So instead of collecting cat skulls, they pretend they're the hero of GTA. Or Manhunt. Or Barbie Horse Adventures.
Note that they found a correlation between driving fast and people who play racing games. Maybe people who like to drive fast can't drive as fast as they want, so they pop in a racing game simulater. As far as the shooter game comment, most young men are aggressive to one extent or another. If someone blows off some steam by playing Halo 3, I would prefer that to them blowing off someone's head in real life.
Lies. (Score:2, Insightful)
Duh. (Score:2)
5 year old and car racing game (Score:2)
True (Score:2)
Drive a diesel car now. With no turbo. And a bit of a misfire.
Not to troll... (Score:2)
FTFA: Gamers take risks in games! Shocking! (Score:3, Insightful)
Oh man - you mean, after playing a game where you're rewarded for driving recklessly, the same gamers drove a little recklessly IN ANOTHER GAME?
SHOCKING.
The end conclusion is totally nonsensical.
"The question of age restrictions, legally or voluntary, should be discussed not only for "shooter" games but also for [racing] games, which have an impact on traffic safety," Kubitzki said.
The research didn't prove that. Correlation != Causality. Why do so many researchers have a problem with this?
total BS (Score:2)
Bad drivers make for bad drivers, not videogames. You might be a little desensitized if you play racing sims or games that reward reckles
What constitutes good driving? (Score:3, Interesting)
Nearly everyone thinks they are a better than average driver. They aren't.
Bad drivers have certainly been around long before video games. Hell, I'm sure there were Roman charioteers who yelled at other charioteers, "Learn to drive, ya moron!" That does not
The key word is "may" (Score:2)
"A study concludes that people who play car racing games may be more likely to take risks and drive aggressively when driving in real life."
Well yeah, people who play tennis MAY be more likely to molest small children but that's a pretty big may. Research that needs to resort to "may" often suggests that it's actually rather inconclusive but would like to make itself sound important anyway so that sites like Slashdot post it.
Just to emphasise this, FTA:
"The researchers then studied 68 men and found
That's all? (Score:2)
And I can't even drive.
Gran Turismo? (Score:2)
I can drive faster, but also much better, and I'm much more aware of what my car is and is not capable of.
Of course, I recognize that my car and the roads are more variable and probably less ideal than most of the simulations, and the ramifications of mistakes are much higher. So I leave bigger margins. I guess other people maybe don't have that viewpoint. Maybe they would have been reckless drivers anyway.
Or conversely ... (Score:2)
Did they rule that out?
Why not RTFA and find out? (Score:4, Informative)
Sorry, I know you wanted to feel like you were smarter than these scientists and had, like, totally thought of something they hadn't. Maybe next time.
NFSHP (Score:2)
Video game saved me! (Score:4, Insightful)
True story, as it just happened a couple of months ago: For the first time in my life my car severely fishtailed on me and without ever having experienced it before in real life, I knew what to do in that I had slammed enough rally cars into the snow in various games like GT4 to know "oh, when the car goes like this, I should do that..." and I translated my controller movements into real turns of the wheel. And it worked! I got out of it and kept going.
In this case I feel like my time with GT4 made me a better driver because I recognized a situation I had never experienced in real life but had so many times in the game that I was able to "figure it out". I'm not even going to pretend I'm ready to take an Aston-Martin Vanquish out on the Nurenburg, but I get the difference between "real" driving and "fantasy ha-ha no big deal if I crash a $600k car into the wall at 200mph" type.
Frankly, if I really had a Vanquish, I'd be too nervous about getting it into an accident that I doubt I'd ever leave the garage.
Let me see... (Score:3)
They then put them in another driving simulator where they were also perfectly safe and they drove worse than those who hadn't played the video game.
At not time did they put them in a situation where their driving may have had actual consequences to themselves or others, but they taught them it was fun and safe to drive recklessly in a video game and then put them in front of another video game? Why am I not suprised...?
In a Related Story... (Score:2)
Interestingly, no actual performance gains are realized from such modifications.
I had a friend laughing when I was earning Kudos (Score:2)
I have great friends!
Finally Vindicated (Score:2)
I feel MUCH better now, knowing it WAS the video game's fault.
Who Cares... (Score:2)
Research from psychologists is like research from creationists - Technically, we shouldn't discount their research based on who they are, but in reality it is almost always flawed. As a person who lives in a world wher
in the early 1990s (Score:2, Insightful)
and, i am an avid gun control advocate. for example, i think the line "guns don't kill people, people kill people" is a hilarious example of propaganda, because it conveniently forgets that a gun is not neutral technology: it is designed with a specific purpose in mind, that enables people to easily express murderous will in a way that without easy access to guns, they would not be able
good point (Score:3, Interesting)
Snowboarders, Skiers, Mountain bikers.... (Score:2)
After a day flying down the slopes or railing through twisty, rocky singletrack, I think I'd be much more prone to 'risky driving' than after playing some video game that does nothing to put you in the element. After a day of *actually* dealing with speed and dangerous conditions on much less stable 'vehicles' you tend to be a bit more confident on a relatively tame road.
And the WRX really does need to be properly driven every now and then
In other news... (Score:2)
It seems kind of silly to deny ... (Score:3, Interesting)
How and how much it will affect us are debatable, but the standard Slashdot denials seem a bit naive.
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I think that this is quite plausible; however, it's not the law. I actually drive SLOWER than I did before I became a Gran Turismo junkie, but it really taught me to follow a line, to preload, etc etc. I think a lot more about what the suspension is doing, for example, when I make a turn than I did before.
Perhaps it's the other way around. Perhaps people who are dangerous drivers are attracted to games that allow one to be a dangerous driver? It seems pretty obvious to me. I love how people fail to see the fact that it COULD work the other way around when trying to link video game behavior to real life behavior. Why can't it be that, if you like a certain thing in life, you might seek that thing out in a game instead of the game affecting your life?
Ridge Racer (Score:2)
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I think you meant "spawned" instead of "spurned".
I'm cognizant of how I feel after playing hours of Burnout 3, but I haven't felt compelled to cause major pileups, run people off the road, or drift around corners. I've never found myself racing under an Interstate overpass thinking, "Checkpoint!"
However, I have felt the urge to jockey for the most favored position at
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Hell...I've been driving that way WAY before they ever came out with racing video games....that's the fun of having a 2 seat sports car, or muscle cars with powerful engines.
I'd dare say the radar detector is more of a driving force than the video game. I don't even look at the speedometer till I hear the Valentine One [valentine1.com] go off....
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I felt like I was an astronaut after playing Lunar Lander.
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The article didn't just study if gamers were more likely to agressively drive. They also used individuals who were not games and had them play either a race car game or a control game. Those playing the race car game had more risky behavior in a more formal driving simulator than those who played the control game.
Granted not a perfect study, but there is some causation.
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Arrrgggh! Please stop saying that! (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it does!
What it doesn't do is prove causation. Of course it implies causation. Then you investigate that implication.