"...It's in the game."

I have read many books which discuss the psychological and sociological implications of our plugged-in-world. None have been as intriguing as Richard DeGrandpre’s Digitopia, a collection of essays published in 2001. I like it because he constantly reminds his readers what he is not arguing.

In one particular essay he cites David Grossman (a retired L. Col. Army Ranger and WestPoint professor) who wrote a book on the psychology of learning to kill another human being. Grossman discusses how during WWII there was a failure by many soldiers to fire their weapons during combat situations. Interestingly, by the time of the Vietnam War the rate of fire jumped up from 15-20% to 90-95%.

This begs the question—what changed? Grossman demonstrates this change was the result of various desensitization techniques. I have no military experience, but what I gathered was that soldiers are put through various simulated acts of killing in order to replace a voluntary response with an involuntary reflex.

DeGrandpre, following this line of thought, applies it to our plugged-in-world when he writes, “the context of simulation in which desensitization takes place have been replicated within a large variety of action-oriented media, especially interactive video games” (37).

Now, it is important to note that DeGrandpre points out he is not arguing for a one-to-one cause-and-effect relationship; nor is he trying to oversimplify things. Rather, he is talking about a context of simulation that causes desensitization. In this regard he quotes Grossman again, who gives a great analogy.

Grossman points out that this conditioning media is like AIDS. The AIDS virus does not kill someone; rather, it attacks one’s immune system such that they become vulnerable to death by some other illness. Similarly, conditioning media creates an acquired deficiency in the violence immune system.

Is the rise in violence among teenagers, for instance, a direct result of playing video games? I think if one says yes they are arguing fallaciously. However, if one simply points out that the rise in violence among teenagers is because of desensitization due to various forms of conditioning media, then I think one would be making a valid argument—and they would be in good company too.

Thoughts?

DeGrandpre

Grossman