DRIVING-based computer games like and may be encouraging adolescents to drive recklessly when they take to the roads for real, a study of teenagers鈥� attitudes to road risks suggests.
at the Catholic University of Leuven (KUL) in Belgium wanted to find out if simple racing games and more reckless 鈥渄rive-鈥檈m up鈥� games might encourage real-world speeding and risk-taking. She suspected it might: 鈥淪ome drive-鈥檈m-ups give you points for driving into cars or even pedestrians.鈥� Drink-driving generally does not feature in games, so she expected gaming would not inspire this behaviour.
Beullens sent questionnaires to 2000 Belgian 16-year-olds, both male and female, asking them how often they played racing and drive-鈥檈m-up games. Two years later, she questioned those who had gained driving licences on how often they took risks in traffic, and their attitudes to speeding and drink-driving. There was no statistically significant link between drink-driving at 18 and exposure to games at 16, but reckless attitudes to both speeding and risky driving were significantly linked with gaming at 16 ().
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鈥淎dmissions of speeding and risky driving were significantly linked with gaming at age 16鈥�
A spokeswoman for the UK-based , representing games firms, notes the study has not demonstrated a causal link between driving games and risk-taking on the roads, and suggests other influences may be at work. 鈥淲e need to explore how adolescents are influenced by a range of media,鈥� she says.
Beullens is already doing just that, studying the link between action movies and teenagers鈥� driving behaviour.
