Violence in Video Games Debate Continues to Rage

ubermiester writes "The Washington Post is reporting on a newly released study by the American Psychological Association, claiming that 'exposure to violence in video games increases aggressive thoughts, aggressive behavior and angry feelings among youth.' This partly contradicts another study released a week before by a University of Illinois Professor claiming that 'game violence does not prompt players to project violent tendencies into real life.'"

Comments

GTA and driving.

[neo]

I remember vividly the first time I played a marathon session of GTA and then got behind the wheel of a real car. I had to force myself to acknowledge red lights when there were no other cars around. This was after training myself NOT to stop for them in GTA because the cops didn't care.

Now this is a small example of how you can train or untrain yourself to certain stimulus, but I never beat anyone with a bat, or rigged a bomb to anyone's car. Perhaps because no one was offering me the jobs.

We are obviously affected by what we see and hear. We learn from our environment and observations what is acceptable and what isn't.

Movies, books, conversations, music and games are all ways that ideas get past from person to person. The message can sometimes get confused by the messenger. How many people have refused to read Lolita because they think other people would think they were pedophile?

As a parent, it's your job to isolate your children from input that might alter their psyche. You don't show 3 year olds Faces of Death.

Should the industry have some part in that? Yes. They should certainly give a relatively detailed list of the content. But should games be MORE responsible than other industries, like Movie Makers and the Book Industry? No.

There are far too many busybodies in this world...

[Space cowboy]

There's a line from Latin Quarter's "America for beginners" that's more in reference to right-wing politics, but it fits pretty well here -

The vigilantes are on their way back, with prime-time fight the good fight

I've been playing role-playing games since I was 11 (D&D, AD&D, Runequest, MERP, Traveller, etc..). I can't say I've ever tried to translate those fantasies into reality. Because these are social games, I know a *lot* of other people who play them. Not any one of those people has turned out to be a non-productive member of society... Some now work for the M.O.D, some for NASA, some in government, some in companies, some are lawyers, the list goes on... I would say I know (personally) well over 70 people who role-play. All of them are model citizens.

Perhaps the vigilantes ought to choose a different fight... For every perceived problem ("violence in games"), there is a solution ("ban them") that is simple, obvious and wrong. (With apologies to whomever's quote I've just mangled).

Simon

Sports=Death?

[spineboy]

Well, then what about sports - i.e. football, lacrosse, hockey. They all involve hitting people, fairly hard too. I can think of many more high school/college jocks that beat up people, than other people who were playing vid games. Let's ban football - oh wait, that would be "unAmerican".

Re:Sports=Death?

[cowscows]

Just as an interesting aside that your comment reminded me of, I was watching Real TV, or at least a similar show, basically video clips of crazy stuff happening. Anyways, there's one of a teenage ice hockey game going on where a fight breaks out. Big brawl, involving a number of players from both sides. One kid out there thinks that the fighting is stupid and a waste of time, so to protest and stop the fight, he takes his shirt off, and drops his pants, while skating around the rink.

That probably wouldn't have been my first idea had I been in his case, but people started cheering for him, and everyone stopped fighting to see what was going on. So his plan worked. What made it more interesting, however, was that someone in the stands didn't approve, and called the cops. And the cops arrested him for indecent exposure, and took him to jail.

I'm not anti-sport, or even anti-violent sports like hockey and football, but I think that it's amazing that in the midst of all that fighting, the guy that goes to jail is the pacifist who felt like taking his clothes off. It wasn't really lewd or sexual(unlike the infamous superbowl incident). He caused a fight to stop. He stopped people from trying to hurt each other. And someone found that offensive enough to call the cops. That just, to me, says something very strange about our culture.

More Post Hoc BS

[Temsi]

Post hoc ergo propter hoc. Comes after therefore caused by.

A common fallacy in many, many arenas, not just this one.

Studies such as these forget to examine other factors, such as "are violent kids more likely to play violent games?", and "are there violent kids who get their aggressions out through video games?", and "what in the kids upbringing or social situation could contribute to their violent behaviour?", and "do calm and non violent kids get violent or aggressive after playing the games?", and most importantly "what is the responsibility of the parents in each situation?"

I grew up watching violent movies. Did it make me a violent person? No, quite the opposite. I detest violence. Why? Because I had a mother who actually gave a shit. She cared about what I was watching, and always made a point to tell me that it wasn't real, that it was make-believe, and that there was always someone behind the camera. She also made a point of telling me that violence didn't solve any problems, and she even made me watch movies that showed the effect of war and violence on people, such as In Cold Blood and The Deer Hunter.

If violence in video games and movies was the real cause, we should be able to compare the amount of violence in the US with that of another country and see a direct correlation with the rate of violent crimes. In Japan, movies and games are far more violent than they are here in the US. Yet the rate of violent crime is dramatically lower, and gun violence is only a tiny fraction of what it is here.

Anyone who points to video games and movies and says 'this is the cause' has not only failed to do their homework, they've completely lost sight of the issue and are just looking for an easy scape-goat.

Re:"Save our Children"

[MosesJones]

It is fairly obvious that exposure to sexually explicit material, violant video games, horror movies and some of the kind of lyrics in rock music will affect people, especially young people who are still developing their brains and the bits that help them control this stuff.

Of course the stats are WAY down on the victorian era where child prostitution was common and violence against children and by children was an everyday occurence.

You might as well say that all this new information is leading to less world wars.

Re:BLAME CANADA!!!!

[Shaper_pmp]

"What's Next on the calender? Meth? Rock Music, Dancing? Pool Halls? Bowling?"

Meth? That's "Drugs" - already done that. Rock Music? Never stopped (Elvis, 80s Metal, gangsta rap, Marilyn Manson, Eminem). Dancing? That's so 50s.

Pool Halls and Bowling? Nope, because parents are used to them - they aren't new, and hence scary.

Seriously - every new technology is the focus of loudmouth moralist hysteria. Seriously - the board of Eton college wouldn't let the first robber-baron train magnates lay railway tracks across any Eton-owned property. Not because they didn't want a station near the school, but because they feared (and I quote) "the railway may corrupt the morals of the boys" in some undefinable way. Just worried about those well-known 1800s "Ale 'n' Whores" trains, I guess.

Look at any new technology - popular music, radio, television, the internet, the web - the one thing they all have in common is that they were once new, and they (or the pace of change they implied) scared the shit out of luddites.

And in our molly-coddling society anything that frightens people without real justification has but one battle-cry - "think of t3h kids!!!!11!!1!one".

Notice how worries about the real concerns (war, famine, genetic engineering, the DMCA, economic collapse, the ongoing "difficulties" of the US democratic system) are never framed in terms of children. War is obviously bad - no-one needs to start invoking "the kids" to push buttons and get everyone on-side.

As Bill Hicks famously said, just wave a foetus at people and you can lead them on whatever crusade you like.

In fact, it's getting to the stage where the second a new technology sparks fears which involve kids, I come down bang in favour of it. If it had a real danger the irrational luddites would publicising that - the fact they're relying on ill-supported, zero-evidence emotive bullshit like imagined, potential effects on "the kids" is just evidence there's nothing, in fact, to be worried about.

When did we have that one about the parents?

[ianscot]

A debate on whether or not parents should take some responsibility turns into a rant about video games and music and violent movies. Whats up with that?

Your ironic turnaround would make so much more sense if that initial debate about "whether or not parents should take some responsibility" was really taking place.

And I mean a real debate about, for example, the effects of an economy that essentially requires two working parents on our children. I'm no "social conservative" and it seems to me the only people who're bringing that up just now are the fundies, who obviously have their own ideological axes to grind and who are more interested in manipulating people's anxieties than in allaying them.

If Americans are especially conscious of how parenting has changed in just my lifetime, I think they're trying not to admit it to themselves. If anything they're pushing their anxieties about the changes into red herrings like "video games are responsible for all our problems."