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Violent Games Good for Kids
fjordboy writes "Scholars from MIT, the University of California in LA, and the University of London have worked together to oppose laws restricting children from playing violent video games. The battle is currently taking place in the US Court of Appeals and the case seems to hold a decent amount of merit. From Vnunet:"Experts on childhood and adolescence have long recognised the importance of violent fantasy play in overcoming anxieties, processing anger, and providing outlets for aggression." Similar article from Reuters as well."
Such general statements as "violent games" good/bad for people are absurd.
It depends on the person.
Some people will use it as a stress reliever. Its good for those people.
Others will get too into it and become hyper-competitive; it'll make them stressed, and they'll get up tight. Probably bad for those people.
Point is, it depends on the person.
One person derives please from that which causes pain in another. For example, while some people may love cottage cheese and it brings them pleasure, it makes me sick.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I would really like to know who these "experts" are. This notion of "playing out fantasies" or "venting of aggression" in the psychological literature is known as catharsis. Any first year psychology student SINCE the time of Freud is taught that the notion of catharsis is false.
Note: I am not saying that the group is wrong in what it is doing; only that the reporter is claiming results that have been demonstrated to be false for quite some time.
You mean like this?
o me tech.html
http://www.nielsenmedia.com/newsreleases/1999/h
I wont bother you with actually reading it, here's the opening paragraph.
NEW YORK, MAY 13, 1999 - Young teens are the biggest users of video game systems - right? Not according to a new survey of home technology from Nielsen Media Research which shows nearly 75% of the 63 million people using video game systems in the U.S. are 18 years old or older (18+). The most recent data show that 25% of video game system users - 15.6 million persons - are teens (persons 12-17), 40% of users - 25.2 million persons - are in the 18 - 34 age bracket, and 34% - 21.4 million persons - are 35+.
Of course NIELSEN wouldnt know anything about entertainment demographics, would they?
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The idea is that venting provides a sort of release so that people will not have to take out their rage on others. However, recent evidence by Bushman (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 28, No. 6, 2002; not available on-line for free) suggests that venting actually increases anger. He ran an experiment in which he angered subjects, then distracted them to think about something else or allowed them to hit a punching bag to "vent" their anger. The punching bag group became more, not less, angry.
Having them punch a bag may have kept the focus of their anger more fully in mind. It may have also raised their physical arousal level (a correlate of anger) allowing them to better maintain their anger level.