Remember when the Satanic Panic ended? Apparently, it’s not over for everyone.

In the 1980s and 1990s, a panic swept the nation. People became convinced that both adults and children had been conned into joining Satanic cults, where they were forced to do all manner of horrific things — and then repressed those memories because they were so traumatic. In other words, they forgot.

Do you buy that? A lot of other people didn’t, either.

The phenomenon, now thoroughly debunked, was known at the time as Satanic ritual abuse. Psychologists no longer believe in it. Well, most of them don’t.

Lisa Nasser, 41, is suing her former therapist, Mark Schwartz, and the Castlewood Treatment Center in St. Louis, Missouri. She was a patient at Castlewood for 15 months, undergoing treatment for anorexia.

In her lawsuit, Nasser alleges that Schwartz hypnotized her while she was under the influence of psychotropic medications used to treat depression. During those sessions, she says he brainwashed her into believing that she’d been part of a Satanic cult. Among the implanted memories were that:

she was involved in or perpetrated various criminal and horrific acts of abuse. One of those acts included participating “in a ritualistic eating of babies,” according to [Nasseff's lawyer Kenneth] Vuylsteke.

She’s apparently not the only patient of Schwartz’s to go through this, though none have officially come forward.

Let’s step away from Nasseff for a moment and look at Schwartz. Anyone old enough to be a practicing therapist at this point is likely to have a) lived through the “Satanic panic” brought on by the SRA/false memory phenomenon, or b) learned about it in the course of their psychological training. If indeed he did what Nasseff claims, you have to wonder a couple of things. One, why would he introduce these kinds of ideas, knowing they’d been debunked before? And two — the part I want to explore — what do these kinds of “memories” say about our cultural perceptions of Satanism?

Despite assurances, people still seem to believe widely that Satanists practice different forms of sacrifice, from animals to people. Apparently, some even believe they eat babies. All of this comes from longstanding public-relations problems, and popular fiction certainly hasn’t helped.

Nor has the media, which plays up the “Satanic” angle whenever it can. Satan’s the biggest bogeyman in the Western world, and he apparently sells a lot of newspapers and television airtime, because reporters love to use the term to describe just about anything people don’t like. It’s also a very imprecise term, as Satanism expert Diane Vera points out:

Newspapers too are more likely to refer to our criminal fringe as “Satanists” rather than “Devil worshipers,” if only because the word “Satanist” is shorter and can fit more easily into a headline. And there isn’t much that anyone can do to change this, because no one has a copyright or trademark on the word “Satanism.” The word “Satanism” was in dictionaries long before any of today’s public Satanists were born.

Fortunately, casses like Nasser’s are few and far between — unlike 20 years ago. But as long as they arise, they speak volumes about our cultural fears. Fears which wind up getting directed at people who legitimately practice Satanism peacefully.

Hopefully, nobody who reads about Nasser’s case will think her “memories” could be true. Unfortunately, to judge by <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/US/therapist-accused-implanting-satanic-memories/comments?type=story&id=15043529#.Tt0S0HNWFRQthe comments, some do.

Study: heavy metal makes you suicidal, after all

In 1990, Judas Priest was sued for allegedly inspiring the suicides of two teen fans. They were cleared of all charges. Was the judge wrong? Photo by Flickr user Fernando Catalina Landa.

By now, the old moral panic over heavy metal and suicidal behavior is so old-hat that it’s almost laughable, right? Bands like Judas Priest and Ozzy Osbourne were taken to court over allegations that their music had inspired suicide attempts among fans, but the judges in those cases found them innocent of all charges. Heavy-metal researchers like Jeffrey Jensen Arnett have gone deep into the subculture to find out why some kids love metal so much — and found that the music provides solace for all kinds of listeners. Sure, depression, suicide, and dark music sometimes go hand in hand, but it’s usually the depression that came first.

Not so fast, according to University of Melbourne researcher Katrina McFerran. She has just published a new study claiming heavy metal causes depression and suicidal feelings in listeners. (Editor’s note: the link to the news item about the study lists it as number 666! Coincidence?) Since the actual study appears to be unavailable, we’re going to just have to go on what it says in the press release:

“The mp3 revolution means that young people are accessing music more than ever before and it’s not uncommon for some to listen to music for seven or eight hours a day,” she said.

“Most young people listen to a range of music in positive ways; to block out crowds, to lift their mood or to give them energy when exercising, but young people at risk of depression are more likely to be listening to music, particularly heavy metal music, in a negative way.

“Examples of this are when someone listens to the same song or album of heavy metal music over and over again and doesn’t listen to anything else. They do this to isolate themselves or escape from reality.

“If this behavior continues over a period of time then it might indicate that this young person is suffering from depression or anxiety, and at worst, might suggest suicidal tendencies.”

Whenever I like a song — whether it’s a heavy metal song or not — I do tend to listen to it a lot. I think this is pretty normal among people who passionate about music (as opposed to folks who simply have a passing interest in it). I clearly remember listening to Duran Duran’s “Save A Prayer” and Cyndi Lauper’s “Time After Time” on endless loop. And, yes, I’ve done this with plenty of heavy-metal songs, too. It wasn’t to block anything out. It was because the song touched me.

Now, McFerran may have a point. Some kids who are already depressed may also listen to the same piece of music over and over, to find comfort in it. But she suggests that this behavior on its own is worrisome and might mean a kid is at risk of suicide. There are already well established warning signs of teen suicide, and “listening to heavy metal on endless loop” isn’t one of them. Generally, people listen to music to make them feel better. Even if it doesn’t seem on the surface that they feel better, it’s keeping them from feeling worse, and that’s an important distinction.

What I’m getting at is: there may be a correlation between depression, suicidal feelings, and love of heavy metal (although fans of any kind of music are certainly susceptible), but that correlation doesn’t suggest that heavy metal is causing those feelings — or that it’s making them worse. But McFerran is suggesting it does, and that’s like suggesting Bic Macs cause bank robberies simply because some bank robbers have eaten them every day for several weeks. (If anything could be said for such eating habits, you could say it causes you to make documentaries. Right?)

At any rate, I suspect McFerran is seeing things a bit backwards — and putting out information that might frighten, rather than assist, parents.

Video games: Saving lives, soothing depression, tickling brains and quieting the nag (since 1972)

Gamers behind the Mario Kart wheel. Photo by Flickr user RonaldWong.

In the arcade, being gay simply didn’t matter; it wasn’t a place of sex or relationships, so it didn’t matter that I was wanting to be romantically involved with guys as opposed to girls. All that mattered there were good matches and getting better.

So I did.

And that saved me from my desire to die. While I was improving myself in the arcade, either with Guilty Gear or at home with Smash (and my local train station had a gc with smash set up in front of it to attract customers to the game shop there). My time out of school was mostly dedicated to improving myself.

This may sound sad, spending so much time fixated on games. But at the time I was so depressed it was hard to hang around people. So what did this fixation do for me? It occupied my mind. During those days I started considering how to improve my ky or Bridget in GG, how to improve my use of Link’s Boomerang usage and so on. It stopped me thinking about death all the time. It saved me from going insane.

– Rowan Carmichael, How Games Saved My Life

Ashly Burch (blogger at Hey, Ash, Whatcha Playin’?) created How Games Saved My Life last month as a way to gather stories from gamers that show video games’ positive side. Already, she’s collected dozens of stories and she’s poised to attract many more, now that she’s gained attention from sites like Kotaku and Ars Technica.

I heard many similar stories while conducting interviews for Backward Messages. Perhaps not every gamer has such a story, but I suspect many, if not most, do. These aren’t stories that many kids share with their parents — these stories remain especially hidden when the parent/child relationship is most fractured, and this is when kids most need games as an outlet. Fellow gamers and parents can come to a site like this, browse around, and hear something similar to what their own child might be too shy or scared to talk about.

These stories are powerful. Beyond that, they reveal an incredible amount of self-awareness — a self-awareness many adults do not give kids credit for possessing. Those who would try to keep video games, including violent games, out of the hands of minors on the grounds that they are too violent make the assumption that kids who love these games are a blank slate, not considering what they’re playing. On the contrary, kids seek these games out like medicine. They know what they need, and know they are healed by it. And we need to listen to them.

Burch’s site comes at a time when the news wires have been jumping with reports about video games. For example, TodaysTHV.com, a news station in Arkansas, recently reported, “Study links teen depression risk to hours spent with online media.” Look at that, and then look at Rowan’s story. Then check out this quote from one of the study’s authors, Erick Messias:

“We need to do a better job of understanding how the Internet and video games, whether violent or not, affect young people. For many, the Internet and video games are the only form of social interaction they have; they are their primary source of communication,” says Messias. “We fully don’t understand the consequences of this kind of stimulation, but we hope this work will lead to improving the screening process in adolescents.”

Correlation is not causation. Teens turn to video games as a source of solace from problems, including depression. The video games aren’t the problem — they’re part of a coping strategy, even a recovery process. That’s what needs studying.

Over at Forbes, blogger David M. Ewalt posits, “Do Video Games Make You Smarter? Maybe Not.” In it, he analyzes a new study that questions prior research showing that video games improve mental acuity and performance. One problem with such studies, he says, is, “gamers perform better on cognitive tests because they’ve heard that gamers perform better on cognitive tests.” Well, true. This is a complicated issue, to be sure — and games have many benefits beyond what’s shown in scientific tests.

Amusingly, the Deseret News recently reported that “Negative, nagging parents cause kids to play video games more, not less.” No ironies there; of course kids who feel henpecked, particularly over their favorite pastimes, are going to turn to those pastimes as an escape. Actual dialogue about specific video games and their appeal to a child is always going to be more effective.

Readers, did a video game save your life, or the life of someone you know? Share stories in the comments.

New study links video-game “addiction,” depression

Photo by Flickr user Rebecca Pollard.

In a new study from the American Academy of Pediatrics, researchers say they’ve found a correlation between kids who are “addicted” to video games and other issues, such as being socially awkward and suffering from depression. A variety of news outlets have reported on the findings, including this piece from Reuters.

In the 2-year study of more than 3,000 school children in Singapore, researchers found nearly one in ten were video game “addicts,” and most were stuck with the problem.

While these kids were more likely to have behavioral problems to begin with, excessive gaming appeared to cause additional mental woes.

“When children became addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got worse, and their grades dropped,” said Douglas A. Gentile, who runs the Media Research Lab at Iowa State University in Ames and worked on the study.

“When they stopped being addicted, their depression, anxiety, and social phobias got better.”

According to the study itself, video-game addiction can be measured similarly to other kinds of addiction — in fact, researchers used the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual parameters for gambling addiction to measure behavior they considered addictive among gamers. Interestingly, it takes a certain amount of pre-existing psychological stuff to make someone more prone to video-game addiction: “Youths who are more impulsive, have lower social competence and empathy, and have poorer emotional regulation skills are more likely to become pathological gamers.” In other words, too much gaming doesn’t cause these problems. It’s the other way around.

Researchers also found that “although children who are depressed may retreat into gaming, the gaming increases the depression, and vice versa.” Actually, the study doesn’t show — for certain — that the gaming itself caused the increase in depression; it only shows that kids got more depressed during the same period they were also addicted to video games. Isn’t it possible that the trappings of addiction were the more likely culprit than the gaming itself? Maybe if these kids were baking cookies 5 hours a day, or doing homework 5 hours a day, or playing Candyland 5 hours a day, we’d see the same results. Has anyone studied those activities?

There’s no evidence here that the games themselves exacerbated these kids’ mental state. Given that they were already emotionally troubled before they came to video games, it’s entirely possible that these kids would have developed depression anyway. The fact that those who quit being addicted to video games felt better emotionally suggests that they were making overall psychological improvements, not just in the realm of gaming, and that seems like it would lift depression as well.

When journalists report on studies like these, they often play up the sexiest angle they can. They know, for example, parents are worried about their kids, so a study like this can catch parents’ eyes and get them reading. Reuters decided to top off its piece with the headline, “Do video games fuel mental health problems?” Instead of exploring the correlation between game addiction and depression, the headline implies that game addiction is causing it. These are not the same thing and it’s dangerous to mix them up.

Even Gentile, in a similar study he conducted in 2009, makes this danger abundantly clear in his “discussion” section:

The primary limitation of this study is its correlational nature. It does not provide evidence for the possible causal relations among the variables studied. It is certainly possible that pathological gaming causes poor school performance, and so forth, but it is equally likely that children who have trouble at school seek to play games to experience feelings of mastery, or that attention problems cause both poor school performance and an attraction to games. (Emphasis mine.)

In other words, the games may be providing a refuge for kids who are struggling in school, both socially and academically.

In college I heard this phrase repeatedly: correlation is not causation. More reporters, and more of their readers, need to keep this in mind.

There are a couple of other things worth noting about the Gentile/AAP study in the news this week. One is that Gentile is a researcher who focuses exclusively on media influences and children. Another is that, to date, not one of Gentile’s studies has found media to have a beneficial influence on kids, which implies a fairly strong bias in his work. A third is that the AAP, in 2000, issued a statement on violent media and youth claiming that such media desensitizes children to violence and “may lead to real-life violence,” claims which have since been disproven. It’s worth it to take their latest findings with a grain of salt, as well.

Gamers, did any of you get to a point where you felt like you were addicted to gaming? Were you able to cut back or even stop? While you were in your addictive phase, did you become depressed? Did you feel like gaming was the cause of your depression — and if not, what was the cause? Did cutting back on gaming improve your mood?

Parents, have you seen anything in your game-playing teens to suggest Gentile’s findings are accurate? Has your teen ever become addicted to video games? If so, how did you handle it?