Slashdot Mirror
Video Games Make People Fat and Mean
dblh3l1x writes "Reuters is reporting that a Swedish group finds 'Video games can make children fat and, in the case of violent games popular among teenage and younger boys, aggressive and even criminal.' These articles make me want to hurt someone. If I didn't get out of breath so easily, I'd go hurt someone right now, so instead I'm just going to go play the Unreal Tournament 2004 demo again."
It's all in good fun. My old nick was:
DidYourWife
The idea is, pissed off people have shitty aim.
Other good choices:
ChildMolester
WifeBeater
AOLuser
And naw, I'm not a tub of lard. I just enjoy a good FPS game after a long day at work for two reasons:
#1 If I win, I feel good.
#2 If I lose, I get humbled. Everyone should lose once in a while. It's good for ya.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
"...which concluded that scientific findings of the effects, if any, of violent video games were scant."
"But it has been proved beyond dispute that people who watch a lot of violence on television develop aggressive behavior," said Frank Lindblad
For some reason Swedish television companies (the violent swedish experts in the article) loves to make documentaries and take things out of proportion, and then make another program where celebrities (but not usually experts who, if present, don't get to say much) debate the program.
It is as if Rush Limbaugh made a documentary and then used his own documentary as proof in another program.
Some how I don't think this study is very well done (from the article). No where did they say who was specifically targeted, any reference to a controled situation, how many people where observed, how they where observed and the period of time. "Experts". Riiight. I think the generilization of this report is quite harmfull. Im a gamer. Im not fat or have abnormal violent tendicies. But having the label "Video Games Make Kids Fat, Violent" is quite misleading. My question to the "Experts" would be "Was the an actual expeperiment followed by a report? Or is this your opioin based on no actual research?" Come on guys. Get off our backs.
"But it has been proved beyond dispute that people who watch a lot of violence on television develop aggressive behavior," said Frank Lindblad, a child psychiatrist at Sweden's Karolinska Institute university hospital.
So is he or is he not part of the group? He could've just been an guest speaker or a commentor on the topic.
Why aren't there any reports stating that football/soccer/[insert sport here] gives players violent tendencies? Comparitively how many time have you seen a news bit on how a sports player was arrested for killing/raping/etc... and how many times a gamer did the same? Infact, how many times have you heard a news bit that anyone has committed a violent act? Are we to believe that life itself makes you violent?
Where someone -- either TV4 or they're simply tools -- is trying to create the news that 'video games make children violent'. It's been going on for two days now and will culminate tomorrow with some sort of 'documentary', which I'm going to _assume_ was produced by that former US Army guy who always seems to pop up when there's talk about video games and violence.
We have a word over here for this "moralpanik" ("Moral panic"). To pimp this documentary the TV4 news 'previewed' it for some [woman] politician or another known for her prowess at shouting "BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN". Oh, well.
Want to bet that this 'documentary' won't say a thing about violent games being an _outlet_ so you don't have to go hit someone IRL?
Somewhat ironically, todays news also included "Football fans get together to fight", which is just that. Apparently two opposing teams set a time and a place and number (they want even teams), then the fight it out. No weapons allowed.
Oddly enough, I haven't heard of any new studies being started to see if being a sportsfan leads to violence. Maybe we should restrict sports to people of age?
All in all it stinks. They're manufacturing "news", and bad "news" at that. I'm going to watch this 'documentary' and if it's too one sided I'll report it to "Granskningsnamnden for radio & TV" which is an institution whose job it is to study news and the like to make sure it's fair and impartial and not too loop sided. A "conviction " by GNR will require the channel to make a public retration of sorts, so there's not a lot of tooth there, but it's something.
Belief is the currency of delusion.