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Games Lead To Violence and Drugs?
A joint University of California, SFO/University of Pittsburgh study has been released which finds "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol", Gamasutra reports. Reuters is also carrying the story, with some information about methodology available in that piece. From the article: "Brady and Matthews had a group of 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 play either Grand Theft Auto III or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. In the Simpsons game, players took the role of Homer Simpson and their task was to deliver daughter Lisa's science project to school before it could be marked late. In Grand Theft Auto III, players took the role of a criminal, and were instructed by the Mafia to beat up a drug dealer with a baseball bat."
and play Kirbys Avalanche. OH NOES, puzzle games lead to selling yourself for smack. Totally.
"Something's wrong with you...and I hope we never do meet again." - Deftones When Girls Telephone Boys
Someone please mod this article +5 flamebait.
How many "studies" are we going to read on this? How often are we getting told "games make you violent"? How often are we going to say "bullshit"?
It doesn't accumulate more truth by saying it more often. Games make you as violent as D&D did in the 80s, TV did in the 60s, radio did in the 30s and books did before that. It's the same "old generation who don't know jack about X blames it for the problems created by the way people are" shit we've been seeing for centuries now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
If you bothered to read the article at all, you would know that this was not an observational study, but a scientific study in which the subjects were required to play a randomly selected game. GTA resulted in the worse-off outcome. That's it, that is all there is.
Wonder what the public key field is for?
If you read the link about their methodology, it becomes clear that the study is crap. According to Reuters:
"Regardless of whether they grew up in a violent environment, the researchers found, young men who had played the violent game were less cooperative and more competitive in completing an assigned task with another person, compared to those who played the Simpsons game. They were also more likely to have permissive attitudes toward alcohol and marijuana use."
How exactly does one get from "have a more permissive attitude" to "more likely to use drugs/drink"? Fucks sake, I've got a completely permissive attitude to other people's bad habits, but that doesn't mean I'd like to share them. If you spun this study the other way, it'd be saying "gamers more permissive, less likely to force their views on other people".
Either the study itself is politically funded crap, or the spin being put on it is.
Erotic is when you use a feather. Exotic is when you use the whole chicken.
Adventure turned me into the depraved shell of a man that I am today. But the colors...
I started with nothing and have most of it left.
...comic books, the Waltz (no kidding, look it up!) and Rock & Roll.
Left 4 Dead Gaming Group - http://www.l4dgg.com
"playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol"
If this also works on older men, I'd be willing to give my copy of GTA3 to a Senator or Representative in the hopes that it would change their minds about smoking marijuana and drinking alcohol, to make it legally acceptable.
correlation != causation
A valuable thing to remember, but completely irrelevant here.
The "correlation != causation" caution applies when it is possible for there to a third, unexplained phenomenon which causes both the supposed cause and the supposed effect. For instance, ice cream consumption and heart attacks both increase in the summer -- but the actual cause of both increases is the summer heat.
That sort of relationship isn't possible here. The "cause" in this case is whether or not the students were assigned to the experimental group -- students in the experimental group had a different experience than students in the control group. Given that the students were (presumably) properly randomly assigned, no factor can possibly have influenced whether or not they were in the control group, and therefore the only possible causes for the differences in the experimental group are the experiment itself or randomness. The latter can be largely controlled by increasing the size of the trial to increase our confidence that we are seeing a real effect.
Think about it this way: imagine the experiment were to decide the effects of gunshot wounds to the head. You divide the students into two groups, and shoot all of the experimental group students in the head. They all die. None of the control group students die. Now, say "but correlation doesn't equal causation!" and realize that it doesn't make any sense. There just isn't any way for some unexplained effect to have altered both which group the students were assigned to and whether or not they died.
ZFS: because love is never having to say fsck
I would bet my next paycheck that a good, solid study could find a correlation that watching daytime soaps and prime-time drama leads people in their 20's and 30's to getting the idea that infidelity is normal and then proceeding to emulate their TV drama stars and be unfaithful themselves. Gee -- there's a shocker.
Yet, do you see the Family Values people lobbying daytime television producers to clean up their shows? It probably would help imrpove the state of the American family if we weren't bombarded by perfectly beautiful, young, cheating couples on 95% of the programs being shown. But mo, they'd never attack an entrenched mainstream form of entertainmens. Ditto movies (except if it's wildly successful and has gay cowboys, then they'll attack it). Or how about the violence of professional sports? Isn't Superbowl Sunday reportedly one of the worst days of the year when it comes to wife abuse?
Such double standards.
I think regulation of expression is a last-resort option. People are free to take their own actions, for better or for worse. I however think that we should address all forms of entertainment with a similar statndard. Well, except for porn -- that's a slightly different can of worms.
Method of processing duck feet
So, they say "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol."
Let me rewrite this: "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe that the government does not have the right to forbid you from consuming mild mind-altering substances, as long as your actions do not harm others' lives."
Sounds pretty good to me.
Circumcision is child abuse.