Supernanny takes on Video Games…and fails miserably
by SynRaptor on Mar.02, 2011, under Games vs "Science"
Jo Frost: completely out of her depth and making bollocks experiments
Just by the title, you know this is going to be complete shite. The odious blimp with Victorian views of discipline who usually just shunts little shits onto a naughty step has attempted to cross over into science by taking on the video games industry. As usual the TV bosses try to denegrade video games as soon as their channel shows anything controversial, so that they can deflect the attention away from their programs. And what better way to wrongly influence people than use the stuck up cow, who barricades children in under stairs cupboards, yet parents nationwide think she encapsulates some kind of wisdom. The reason I’m sounding rather harsh is mainly because of the bullshit “experiment” she conducted.
On 9th February 2010, Channel 4 aired a show whereby she took 40 boys split them into two groups, made one play a football lgame and the other a first person shooter. Apparently her findings were “conclusive” as the boys who played the FPS had a lower heart rate, which obviously means they were desensitised in the 20 minutes they played. They also had a Dr Gentile assessing the kids afterwards but conducting an experiment involving knocking over a pot of pencils. Anyone could see that the kids were taking cues from Doctor Genitals anyhow so again it was ridiculous to draw any kind of conclusion from this “experiment”.
If you look in the bottom left corner of both Modern Warfare games, am I imagining this rating or it actually there? Totally not suitable for an 8 year old.
However this approach is completely flawed and proved absolutely nothing and it’s a shame that lots of parents nationwide are too stupid to distinguish the fact that this investigation is complete bollocks. Firstly 40 people is too small a sample size to deduce an accurate conclusion to a stupid hypothesis. Secondly, how do we know that Jo Frost hasn’t hand picked a load of crazy kids for the FPS test? We don’t know their background and for all we know they could all have a history of domestic strife which again skews the sample and relinquishes any integrity of the test. Thirdly, and probably most importantly, why is she getting a group of MINORS playing a game like Call of Duty when the game is clearly an 17/18 certificate. I mean come on, if you’re going to attempt to condemn something, at least have a basic understanding about your chosen subject. The fact that Supernanny has exposed these young children to something like Call of Duty is grossly irresponsible on her part. Her choice of games is crap too as personally I have seen a whole host of rage quits on FIFA games, and saying that football games are the epitomy of halcyon calm is far from the mark.
No Jo, we're not all criminals. Get off your high horse and go back to making toddlers sit at the bottom of the stairs when they're naughty
Personally I have grown up playing 15 and 18 rated games when I was under said age and it can be argued that I myself have become desensitised too but that isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as I’m not exactly a criminal, certainly not of the ilk of Jo Frost’s inference. It’s all too easy to blame games for shit parenting and we’ve had so many investigative journalism with objective bullshit attack games, like Panorama did, without actually understanding the subject, let alone providing incorrect and frankly fraudulent information to their target demographic. Jo Frost here has shown complete and utter incompetency in covering a subject which she clearly has no actual comprehension of and conveyed a ridiculous hypothesis based on an extremely flawed experiment.
So no Jo Frost, us gamers are not all destined to become killers, and providing an experiment whereby you have got children under the legal age of playing something like Call of Duty, Battlefield: Bad Company or even Gears of War, you have shown irresponsibility and immediately undermined your own “research”. Supernanny should take a time out on the fail step instead of make kids sit on the naughty step, and get signal while you’re at it. It was just more objective nonsense jumping on the games make you violent bandwagon. I can guarantee that more people had homocidal tendecies after watching that objective nonsense rather than actually playing Modern Warfare. Young kids shouldn’t play CoD I agree, but don’t tar all of us with the same brush.
March 3rd, 2011 on 1:10 am
I come from a ‘scientific’ background, as it were, and one thing that really winds me up is people claiming to prove correct hypothesis using methods that are clearly unsound.
The police recorded around 4.7 million crimes in 2008. ‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2’ sold well over 1 million copies in the same period. So if everyone that played the game is a criminal, we make up for a little under 1 in 4 of the crimes that occurred throughout the whole of the UK that year. That’s assuming we only committed one crime each, of course.
Ridiculous! I come back to a point that Bear made on a similar themed post a while back, which was (I paraphrase):
“There have been more deaths and crimes through all the wars over the past centuries, most of them originating from religion.”
So what about religion? What about films? What about TV programs? What about books, magazines, or the internet? What about a Friday night out in Brixton? What about the news?
There are plenty of things out there more disturbing or violent than video games. And to be honest, if a video game alone is going to convert you to crime, or turn you into a psychopath then you were most likely severely unstable in the first place.
March 4th, 2011 on 7:45 am
BOTH games were rated 11!!! Watch the show again. So get your facts right!
She was making a point about VIOLENT video games.
March 4th, 2011 on 8:06 am
So a football game is rated as an 11 is it? What football games have you been playing? Millwall vs West Ham: The Director’s Cut? All football games are rated at 3+ not 11+ unless it’s so realistic they filmed the fans after Aston Villa vs Birmingham City earlier this season. And how can a game be violent and only rated as an 11? It is incredulous that a football game containing Manchester United is only a 3+ as that probably inspires more widespread violence than burning a certain religious book. But honestly I would love to see a 11+ football game because that would stop me playing prepubescent inviduals on Xbox Live from time to time.
Even Grand Theft Auto on the Playstation 1 was rated as an 18 and that was crap graphics with a top down view, so it looked more like Micro Machines running havoc in a cartoon city. The only games I’ve grabbed to hand in the last two minutes which fall into an 11+ rating are Transformers and Earth Defence Force 2017, which aren’t really VIOLENT games per se. In fact I’m pretty sure the target demographic for Transformers are kids and nostalgic 30 year olds. I seem to recall playing Street Fighter II as an impressionable 8 year old and that’s probably classified as a violent game but the closest thing we did in the playground was run about shouting Sonic Boom and Hadooooken! And doing the actions of course.
Personally I don’t condone young kids playing war games at all, but I disagree with ancillary subterfuge created by this program.
March 4th, 2011 on 3:53 pm
Right, the Bear stretches his paws, extends his claws and prepares to savage Super Nanny and her ‘scientific experiement’.
Firstly, her assertation that a lower heart rate somehow showed that the kids have been desensitised. I’m sorry but this is about as scientific as the scene from Monty Python’s Search for the Holy Grail where they deduce that if a woman weighs the same as a duck, then it means she’s made of wood and therefore a witch! What a load of crap.
So if a low heart rate means you are desensitised, then surely exercise makes you peaceful? Sleep brings about an acceptance of violence. Or maybe the reduced heart rate means FUCK ALL.
Secondly: I watched Robocop at age 6 and continued to view violent films from a young age including the Predator, Commando, Nightmare on Elm Street and countless others. I played Doom, Wolfenstein 3D Doom 2, Street Fighter II and Mortal Kombat. Still haven’t killed anyone!
Thirdly: What FPS game did Hitler play? What about Ghengis Khan? What aout every loody thirsty tyrant in history? Is Super Nanny going to blame Gaddafi or the uprisings against him on computer games? No! Why? Because that’s a stupid idea, about as stupid as her assertations.
Finally: Think of how violent the Bible is or the Koran. People have declared war over those books and millions of lives have een lost. And yet no one calls to ban them. Far from it, copies of the Bible can be found in just about every UK hotel room. And what about Shakespeare? Full of murder, torture, bloodshed, treachery, incest and God only know what else. Calls to ban it? Never, it’s required reading in schools.
Super Nanny should get her arse to the naughty step and stay there for a long time.
March 5th, 2011 on 3:15 am
“Apparently her findings were “conclusive” as the boys who played the FPS had a lower heart rate”
…lower heart rate, surely thats a good thing?
You cannot scientifically prove that kind of shit. My 13 year old brother plays CoD, the kid down the road who is 11 years old plays CoD, and as far as I know, they’ve not been running into the streets shouting “Baambi!” and shooting chickens with MP5s (akimbo, naturally).
Somebody told me not so long ago that some mother banned her kid from playing Little Big Planet 2 because it was TOO VIOLENT. WTF – Explain that one to me!
March 5th, 2011 on 3:20 am
Katie says “BOTH games were rated 11!!! Watch the show again. So get your facts right!
She was making a point about VIOLENT video games.”
Have I just fallen through some kind of mystical portal that magically changed the ratings on all CoD games? The CoD games (if they were the ones the kids were being tested on) have always been rated at least 15+, in some cases, BBFC rating of 18.
Next you’ll be telling me that Resident Evil has always been a PG.
March 5th, 2011 on 3:52 am
Sorry, I’ve got a bit more to say about this.
I’ve been a keen gamer all my life, Dad was never fond of me playing Command and Conquer, but I still played it anyway. I am now a stepdad and soon to be father of my own and I will say one thing – I am more worried about what kids get to watch on TV, than what they play on a console. If the kids know what is reality and what isn’t then fine. One thing – I would never let my 13 year old brother play the “No Russian” level on MW2, or let my stepson watch me play it. I don’t even want to play it does step over boundaries! But then, whats stopping them watch TV where innocent civilians are always getting killed? Have you watched the BBC news in the past 11 years?
I think Jo should be more worried about playing games online with the american youth. I’m sure even adults have nervous breakdowns after that experience!
Its a totally pointless exercise. Parents, do what you think is the right thing for your kids.