Second Skin coming to select theaters, DVD

Liberation Entertainment and Pure West bring the first feature length documentary about virtual worlds and the gamers who live in them, Second Skin, to DVD August 25  and select theaters around the U.S. Second Skin takes an in-depth look at how virtual worlds such as World of Warcraft, EverQuest and Second Life have affected a group of gamers - for better or worse. The subjects of the film include a couple whose lives have changed since meeting online, a player whose life spins out of control due to his addiction and disabled players who find a voice and mobility in the virtual world.

The film also looks at the controversial world of Chinese gold farming and presents astonishing facts about online gaming related to what many consider sweatshops dedicated to this exploitation of people and virtual currencies.

A DVD release is planned for shortly after a limited theatrical run in select cities. Second Skin will be screening in NYC, LA, Austin and Boston in mid-August, then coming to DVDs on August 25th. You can check out a clip right here.

1 in 10 Young Gamers Addicted, Says New Study

While Douglas A. Gentile’s latest research on the affects of violent video games on children may help him sell more books (Media Violence and Children: A Complete Guide for Parents and Professionals, Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy and Media Violence and Children: A Complete Guide for Parents and Professionals), it’s tough to believe the data when experts in the field around the country disagree with the findings. The latest research, based on a nationwide survey 0f 1,178 U.S. children and teens (aged 8 to 18) found that 1 in 10 of respondents were addicted to video games.

Here’s the data from the sample: The surveys were conducted in January 2007 by Harris Interactive and involved around 100 children at each age ( 8 years old to 18 years old) represented in the sample. Using an online questionnaire, the survey asked questions about video game usage, lying about video game usage to friends and family, a decline in grades and studying, anti-social behavior like fighting at school, etc. The survey also diagnosed which percentage of children had been diagnosed with attention deficit disorder or ADD, though how it gleaned this information is not explained at length. Gentile adapted this criteria used to diagnose pathological gambling in adults. Gamers were classified as “pathological” if they exhibited a minimum of six out of 11 criteria.

Those that were identified as “pathological gamers” apparently played more frequently and for more time, received worse grades in school and were more likely to report having trouble paying attention in school versus those non-pathological players. More health problems like hand and wrist pain was reported within the group as well. Pathological gamers were also twice as like to have been diagnosed with ADD - 25 percent versus non-pathological gamers.

The survey results and Gentile’s conclusions appear in the May edition of Psychological Science.

Other psychologists around the country see this study as flawed for a number of reasons: Cheryl K. Olson, co-director and co-founder of the Center for Mental Health and Media at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston thinks that adapting an adult survey about gambling for use with children is problematic:

“It’s one thing for a child to fib to his mom about how long he’s played a video game,” Olson said. “It’s another thing to lie to your wife about gambling.”

She also questioned whether kids as young as 8 can accurately complete a self-administered questionnaire.

Dr. Michael Brody, a psychiatrist in private practice in Potomac, Md., and chairman of the media committee of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, thinks an addiction to anything in children is usually a sign or symptom of other issues:

“What you usually find with these kids is this is just the tip of the iceberg,” said Dr. Michael Brody. “Underneath you usually find a lot of depression and anxiety. To put a label like ‘video game addiction’ is too superficial.”

But my biggest problem with this research is simple: Gentile is going into this research with his mind already made up and he’s entrenched in an organization that believes something that has yet to be proven. I don’t want to say that this is his bread and butter, but it’s true: he runs a media research lab at Iowa State that focuses almost exclusively on how various types of media are bad for children; he’s written several books on the topic - including some that may be used to teach future psychologists that media is bad (without any solid evidence) and is director of research for the National Institute on Media and the Family in Minneapolis.

You can certainly do research with preconceived notions about the end result, but you cannot shape those results based on those notions when the data is inconclusive. For example, if 25 percent of respondents are diagnosed with ADD, wouldn’t problems with paying attention in class, falling grades and an infatuation with video games be symptoms of that, as opposed to an addiction?

I am all for an honest study that provides conclusive evidence either way, conducted by someone who is doing actual research instead of cherry picking results to prove something.