Beating The Bullies: Changing Real-World Behavior Through Virtual Experience

I came across this article today and stopped to read it because of its relevance to what we've been studying in class. The article talks about a new school program developed by a group of European teachers in 2006. The idea was to create a virtual world for children to run through scenarios of helping people who are the victims of bullying. Two programs came out of this idea, one known as FearNot! and the other called ORIENT. In FearNot! the characters actually adapt to the child using it so that if they tried a method once before their character in the game wouldn't allow them to try it again. While the long-term effects of the program are uncertain, tests have shown that it does help with short-term victimization. While FearNot! has a more cartoony/childish feel to it and was made to fight victimization caused through bullying, ORIENT was designed for older children to learn what it feels like to be a newcomer. In ORIENT three children are placed on a planet inhabited by an alien race with a completely different language that they players must figure out. The hope is that this will allow students to better empathize with new faces or people who come from a different cultural background.

I think this is a great way to help children become more empathetic. It also seems as though the creators of this program are fighting fire with fire, since violence and aggression in video games is a hot topic. I feel that by using video games like this children will be able to relate to their character and see the benefits of helping someone who has been bullied, or see why it is so important to understand how it feels to be new to an environment. While the two programs haven't been statistically proven to work wonders I think it is a good first step to solving the bullying problem in our schools.

ICT Results (2009, June 23). Beating The Bullies: Changing Real-world Behavior Through Virtual Experience. ScienceDaily. Retrieved December 7, 2009, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/06/090622194231.htm