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Another Study Decries Violent Games
FST writes "CNN.com is reporting on a study which found that those 'who play violent video games show increased activity in areas of the brain linked to emotional arousal and decreased responses in regions that govern self-control.' The Reuters article goes on to discuss the study's details, which is fairly typical for these types of inquiries. After playing games, young people were required to do tasks requiring 'processing of emotional stimuli', and concentration. Their brains were monitored for activity, and the findings were presented at a recent meeting of the Radiological Society of North America." The article then gets a little preachy. From the article: "The $13 billion U.S. video game industry, with revenue rivaling Hollywood box office sales, is at the center of a cultural battle over violent content. Lawmakers' various attempts to ban the sale of violent video games to children have been blocked by courts in Louisiana, Illinois, California, Michigan, and Minnesota... Numerous behavioral and cognitive studies have linked exposure to violent media and aggressive behavior." Numerous studies have said just the opposite, too.
I admit that after I play a racing game and then drive my Civic I'm tempted to drive a lot faster and, if I have a CD on, even have moments where I forget whether I'm driving a real car. Violent games like Half Life or Resident Evil never make me feel like that though.
All I have to say is at least this was scientific. They had them play two different games, and analyzed their brain activity. It doesn't necessarily tie it to acts of violence (not to say certain groups won't try it), but it's far more respectable than that study that said Pac-Man is 41% violent (or whatever % they gave it).
Those who played the violent video game showed more activation in the amygdala, which is involved in emotional arousal, and less activation in the prefrontal portions of the brain associated with control, focus and concentration than the teens who played the nonviolent game.
Kotaku echoes my thoughts on this one...
So the teens playing the emotionally rousing combat game were emotionally aroused, and the teens playing the precision racing game were more focused? Amazing. I'm no scientist, but this study seems like it was set up specifically with the goal of finding something wrong with violent games in mind.
The same has been said of sex.
Is it even worth asking on Slashdot if anyone has had sex and can verify this for me?
I don't want Karma, I just want to be a smart ass. All in favor, mod me up.
Playing cowboys and indians can lead to heightened states of arousal too. So can contact sports. In fact, football's many times more likely to weaken your aggression inhibitors than playing Quake. Never mind that sport of kings, invading Third World nations for fun and profit.
So if they want to ban things, why not start at the end of my list and work their way backward? Betcha that does a heck of a lot more to lower the general level of aggression than preventing me from owning my 'hood in GTA ever will. Far more children and psyches have been damaged by the real violence they experience in their homes and watch on the TV, violence set in motion by these very same protectors of morality, than have ever been or ever will be by a mere silly videogame.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Certainly things need to come in moderation, but I see both of those as positive to my life. Am I missing something?
There is an unfortunate set of problems that plague studies done in the social sciences that show up quite often in reports like this; in my opinion because there is little effort done to discredit people based on flawed methodology or conclusions in these fields.
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The main problem I always see is that even if the study can prove a link between two things "those who play violent video games show increased activity in areas of the brain linked to emotional arousal and decreased responses in regions that govern self-control." they can not demonstrate a cause-effect relationship. In this study in particular how do they know that people who are easily emotionally aroused aren't drawn to violent videogames? How do they know that people who have difficulty governing self-control are not likely to participate in an activity they enjoy in excess?
They don't
The fact is that if you kept hearing "Jane from Craptastic University was recently discredited by making an unsupported conclusions in her more recent study 'violent videogames cause baby eating'" on the news or in the journals which publish these studies.
Seems obvious that a game with personification of the player into playfield, simulating injury and death would trigger more emotional "fight or flight" activity in the brain.
Need For Speed is just driving, and vastly less interactive than a FPS. I'd like to see what the brain response was for a "virtual pet" type game, or a Black&White genre. When the player has an emotional connection to the game's results, I'm sure the brain activity is similar. In other words, I don't think the violence has much to do with it, but simply the emotional connection to success. Suspended disbelief to attach the gameplay to "death" is certainly going to be a strong correlation, but there are others.
Mom?
I don't want Karma, I just want to be a smart ass. All in favor, mod me up.
They play violent video games! Let's KILL them!
This content brought to you by people too self-righteous for words.
The games the subjects were playing were either "Medal of Honor: Frontline," (violent) or "Need for Speed: Underground" (non-violent). Could it be that Medal of Honor (being a first person game) was more immersive than Need for Speed? Although Need for Speed can be an exciting game, it doesn't attempt to engage your emotions like a story driven FPS does.
The article then gets a little preachy. From the article: [snip] Numerous behavioral and cognitive studies have linked exposure to violent media and aggressive behavior.
There isn't anything preachy about that, it's stating a fact. Apparently, numerous studies have reached that conclusion. The very next line says something important that probably shouldn't be overlooked..
Now, researchers are using advanced imaging technology to scan the brain for clues to whether violent video games cause increases in aggression.They aren't saying that violent video games cause increased aggression, they're just saying that there is a link. One shouldn't think that they are making the mistake of assuming that correlation implies causation, they're simply saying that they see a link, and now they're investigating it. Proving causation is no easy task, there are pleny of reasons why two variables may be related. For instance, perhaps people who have "increased activity in areas of the brain linked to emotional arousal" are more likely to play violent video games because that "increased activity" makes them more interested in such games.
From the wikipedia entry:
Homer: Not a bear in sight. The "Bear Patrol" is working like a charm!
Lisa: That's specious reasoning, Dad.
Homer: Thanks, honey.
Lisa: By your logic, I could claim that this rock keeps tigers away.
Homer: Hmm. How does it work?
Lisa: It doesn't work. It's just a stupid rock!
Homer: Uh-huh.
Lisa: But I don't see any tigers around, do you?
Homer: Lisa, I want to buy your rock.
How many studies show the percentage of slack-jawed irresponsible parents that:
a) Allow their children to play these games
b) Don't pay any attention to the behavior/attitude their children exhibit
c) Blame the media and games for the abhorrent misbehavior of their progeny
Seriously, I love how skewed all of this is. Heaven forbid any parent is responsible for what their child does anymore; no, it's clearly because of games. Parents, pay attention to what your child does/watches/plays and what they do with their friend when they're at their friend's house (and the friends' parents need to do the same), and studies like this can stop inciting uneducated prejudice against video games. I can understand that it can have psychological side effects on children, but guess what else has a psychological side effect on your children, GOOD PARENTING!
Self control makes one worse at video games because it causes hesitation. Sure, video games may alter the way we think while playing them, but that doesn't mean they perminately change our psyche. Any activity that one involves themself in will change the way the brain is currently functioning to best adapt to the situation. Gaming isn't a problem. Excessive gaming IS a problem, but excessive anything is a problem. I personally oppose giving Grand Theft Auto to children to play, but it's not because I think it will brainwash them into being killers. We really just don't know enough about the human consciousness to make claims about it, despite these "studies." After all, the majority of psychologists promote B.F. Skinner's behaviorism, which views humans as nothing more than idiotic animals (and is disproven easily - people do things which they know will result in their own demise whereas animals would never do such a thing). We're not animals. We have a conscience. If people don't use their conscience then they are to blame, not the video games they allowed themselves to be immersed in.
Shouldn't the influence of the parents not parenting their kids be taken into consideration? A radio announcer on Thanksgiving Day mentioned that parents can no longer rely on the school system to protect their children's health. Well, duh, aren't the parents responsible for their children's health, education and video game habits?
When I was younger, a lot of these studies were focused on domestic abuse as being a major influencer on how kids turned out. Since when did video games replaced daddy banging mommy on the kitchen floor and in the bedroom?
I'd be interested to know how they broke it up in terms of boys/girls. I know everytime I walk out of a kung-foo movie I think I can kick anyone's ass, but my girlfriend definitely doesn't respond that way. All this study is telling us is that good media leaves a short-term impression on people, who would've guessed?
Love is an emotion too.
I hate mom groups and their cultural influence. It's disgusting.
This falls under the category of studies that show that after your run a marathon, your heart beats faster.
What does this study tell us? It tells us that after someone gets worked up, and no one in the industry questions that an action game gets you worked up, you don't perform as well in tests that require you to be calm and controlled. And that is a surprise?
I think they need to repeat this study and do the same test for a non-violent driving game. I think they will find the same results, which mean absolutely nothing except that your brain becomes stimulated right after an exciting game.
I think twinkies to the same thing to you!
I'm betting on the Wii here. Those people complaining about sore shoulders and the wii exercise, will likely produce a study on the number of calories consumed while playing Zelda or some such thing. Stay Tuned.
www.jmagar.com
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...I used to believe the 'LOL VIDEO GAMES DON'T CAUSE TEH VIOLENCE!' line.
:p
Then I realized something.
I'm surrounded by morons. I'm going to wager that you're all surrounded by morons, as well.
The fact of the matter is, just because some of us have the brain capacity to realize that Grand Theft Auto isn't reality, the vast blight of humanity in general probably won't be able to.
Yes video games cause heightened aggression during and shortly after play. The thing is, almost noone acts upon those urges against other people unless that person *is already fucked in the head.*
If video games make people violent....what about
;) - kidding
Hunters
People that work in slaughter houses
(I think Ozzy worked in one so maybe this isn't as satirical as I think)
Ranchers
Soldiers
Police
Personally anything can make people more violent...it just depends on their breaking point.
I find it silly that people are surprised by this study though...it makes sense that our brains would be hardwired to process some signals as entertainment...take cats: They love the fluttery feathers. Scans of their brains have shown that they notice fluttery vertical movement. Hence I installed cat tv...a bird feeder to entertain my cats when I am not home.
"Only one thing, is impossible for god: to find any sense in any copyright law on the planet." Mark Twain
After I play alot of Halo, and I go driving I am tempted to drive towards pedestrians and powerslide into them. I also try to make sharper turns than I can make in a standard vehicle. What's worse is when I drive overs omething (like roadkill) and wonder why it didn't show up on my windshield (HUD) so that I could pick it up.
I don't understand why these studies are funded. I guess since video games have gotten a lot more successful "with revenues rivaling Hollywood" they're the new low-hanging fruit for the conservatives who want everyone to "think of the children." It would do society no good to just put a ban on violent video games. Violent video games sell because humans have violent tendencies. If they didn't, we'd just play the Sims and games like Gears of War would drop to obscurity.
Don't trust a bull's horn, a doberman's tooth, a runaway horse or me.
Pointing out that certain neurological centers are affected differently by sensory input based on its content (in this case video games that are violent) is a waste of our time. Giving it a weighted, biased, poorly cited spot on CNN is an outrage. Why aren't more people reporting on the therepeutic qualities of video games? Where is the study that shows there is a marked decrease in crime in areas where a highly anticipated violent movie is released? People are quick to draw cause and effect conclusions without looking at confounding evidence, but besides that, this study does not show a link between violent behavior and violent video games. It doesn't even give us the numbers from the studies. Why isn't CNN reporting responsibly?
Well, ok, so you play MoH:F (FPS) and your emotional arousal increase (amygdala), and your control, focus, and concentration decreases (prefrontal portions) MORE SO then if you play NfS:U (Racing)...
That says to me that both of them have these effects. It also does not state how long this effect LAST (does it stop right at the end, 1 min? 10 mins? an hr? a day?).
Now, can any bio/psych people tell us EXACTLY what those 2 portions controll?
Are we wimply seeing that it takes greater concentration to play a racing game then it does an FPS?
How does brain activity like this play out in real life? (what causes it?)
Do Or Do Not, There Is No Spoon, There Is Only Zuul. Everything in the above post is probably opinion.
What happens if, instead of playing video games, they read that fine piece of Shakespearian family literature Titus Andronicus?
I have yet to see a video game approach anywhere near that level of gore or otherwise objectionable material, but I don't see any scientific studies on the effects of the Bard on the minds of the young.
"I admit that after I play a racing game and then drive my Civic I'm tempted to drive a lot faster and, if I have a CD on, even have moments where I forget whether I'm driving a real car."
In a sleepy stupor, I once considered ctrl-z'ing out of a mistake in stacking boards in real life. Does that count for relevance?
I refuse to accept this study because it reaches a conclusion that upsets me. It must somehow be experimentally unsound.
>those who play violent video games show increased activity in areas of the brain linked to emotional arousal
I would be far more concerned about the sociopathic tendencies of people who did not show emotional arousal than I am by anything reported here.
Some mornings it's hardly worth chewing through the restraints to get out of bed.
MSNBC has a more detailed article with an interview with the study's lead researcher.
I wonder how people would react if government were to require a large portion (25%) of males from an age of 12 to participate in training for various violent crafts ranging from unarmed fighting, handling and using explosives and assault rifles to tanks and fighters... all with an intention to kill with maximal efficiency without reprecussions... several hours a day, every day, for a say 12 years... using visually realistic immersive and interactive simulation systems.
And in another recent study, teens aged 13-18 were found to think about sex more after watching porn, versus a different group of teens who watched only cooking shows. Film at 11.
The days of the digital watch are numbered.
Scientists have discovered that jazz causes brain damage. Seriously.
"While regular rhythms and simple tones produce a quieting effect on the brain... the effect of jazz on the normal brain produces an atrophied condition on the brain cells of conception."The ladies' home journal has the rest of the story here.
This is scary stuff. We need to protect our kids before it's too late.
in the same river twice.
Conslusion :
Stick ban.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
How about looking at the people who went berserk and see where they come from and why they went nuts. Without fail, you have school dropouts and people who we currently term "loosers". You have people without a positive outlook for life, because all they see is a "want fries with that" future looming for them. They know that you have to have money in today's world to be part of it and they also see that they will never have more money than what fits into their back pocket.
And that money will be for their mortgages, which they'll need more of because they can't keep up with payments.
What's worse is that in today's youth culture you need money to be "in". You need it for the movies, the bar thereafter, the weekend at the mall, pretty much ALL kind of youth activity costs money today. You have none, you're out. You have no friends. Because those that could be your friends are in the movies, at the mall, in that entertainment park or in all those other places where you need some greenbacks to trade them for fun.
Violent games don't change that. Whether you forbid violent games won't change a thing. Give those people some goal in life. Being stuck in a hopeless dead end job, or seeing that as your only option for you future, sure doesn't help with getting you on track.
I have been playing violent games since I was a child. I'm now 31. Unlike those people, though, I had good grades, I have a good job and I like my job. I spent a good deal of my youth killing people, virtually. From a helicopter in Gunship, as a sprite in Commandos, as the captain of a ship in Pirates. Thousands, if not millions of virtual lives are on my conscience.
But I have a good life and I have a job, I have money and I have friends. Since in those studies the problems I have presented above don't matter, I should be on a killing spree right now.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
This doesn't come out and say that Medal of Honor causes homicidal mania or anything, but these sorts of studies are what people that claim it does rely upon. I think there's a growing cottage industry in certain aspects of behavioral studies of producing tame results for activists to make outlandish claims for. The researchers can hide behind all of the indecisiveness of their papers' language, but they never go on to ever say anything definitive later and just produce more of the same. I doubt that this is by accident, but I digress.
...) you would expect some evidence of it (and not just single instances of violence by people that happen to have played video games, but rather an actual trend in social behavior).
Let us just assume that video game violence produces violent children, and then let us ask where these violent children are. If playing video games causes violent behavior, there should be an increase in the amount of violence in children since they are a phenomenon that is for our purposes three decades old. There have been depictions of violence within these games for the entire time, unless one solely wishes to grasp onto realistic depictions of violence (something that doesn't really exist in video games if we want to be pedantic, but let's not be) but even if we set the bar at Wolf 3D-level depictions of violence we are discussing about 14 years of warped children, many of which would be in their mid 20s or later at this point in time, and perfectly capable of bringing A Clockwork Orange to life. However violent crime has been on a downward trend for over two decades, and walking alone in NYC at night is not something someone would be so afraid of that it could be the basis of a Lifetime Evening Movie by itself.
These studies want to deal with violent impulses, but they don't really elaborate on what those violent impulses correspond to in terms of actions. I can tell you that I just got really angry because I didn't backup work I was doing in a repl when the toplevel decided to segfault (probably because I played violent video games as a teenager, no doubt) and dealt with violent impulses (I certainly wouldn't mind being able to reach back in time and slap myself up side the head a little) by having some green tea and reading Slashdot. I'm pretty sure you would record some intense emotional responses from my brain during that ordeal, but I have thus far not killed anyone or caused any property damage. If video games were going to turn us into killing machines (as opposed to joining the military, football team, hockey team,
What the activists want you to believe is that your farting is causing global warming, while there's a giant pile of burning coal sitting next to you. In our case the giant pile of burning coal is poverty, which probably causes most violent crime that isn't the result of various types of brain defects. Who wants to take bets on whether violent crime correlates more with poverty more than it does playing Medal of Honor?
legislate better parenting?
Sounds like a damn fine idea compared to trying to legislate away every possible thing that bad parents could possibly blame their obnoxious kneebiter's problems on.
What we need is somebody to do some germline genetic engineering, and make it so that people are infertile unless they take some special hormonal supplement. In order to get the supplement, you have to have a job, and demonstrate that you can raise a child, perhaps after demonstrating their competence by raising a puppy for 3-5 years.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Aggressive behavior in all its loosely defined glory is used, no, key to business and sports. We highly value business, sports, and competitiveness in general yet fear aggression. What a mixed message.
How 'bout we do a study that looks at the places children actually learn that violence is good/cool/acceptable-response-to-affrontry?
Namely, professional boxing and wrestling, which glorifies fighting and shows kids that it's cool and fun to beat on each other?
How about the daily/nightly news, which shows them constant streams of violent outbreaks around the world?
How about their own parents, authority-figures, government officials and other adult role-models, who routinely demonstrate--and reinforce--that the best, most appropriate response when you've been attacked (verbally or physically), or even simply insulted or slighted, no matter how insignificant it may be, is to retaliate, preferably violently?
As for the "study".. uh.. playing games stimulates the emotional centers of the brain, and suppresses the part that governs self-control of those emotions?
Well, duh. Interactive stimuli generally activate the emotional centers, and when you're playing a game, which you know isn't real, controlling those emotions kinda hinders enjoyment of the game, I'd think.
Video games do not turn children into mindless killers. (Well, "America's Army" might, but it must be safe for everyone to play, since it never seems to be in the headlines, with Jack Thompson calling for bans and sanctions on it... right?)
Come hear me sing!
Numerous behavioral and cognitive studies have linked exposure to violent media and aggressive behavior." Numerous studies have said just the opposite, too.
There are far more studies that link violent media to aggressive behavior (and I'm talking about true, scientific study, not something dones by Christian Science, etc) than there are of those that disprove it. I'm willing to admit that ever since I've gotten heavily into FPS games my temper for things has changed a bit to where I have to control myself so as not to get into deep s**t especially while driving and getting cut-off by an idiot.
The industry needs to control its content. Sex and violence sell but please, don't make it a normal thing. What I'm starting to see in friend's lil brothers/sisters is more apathy towards violence than before. This is not good for them in the future. Its not just games, its movies, music, etc. Humans learn by stimulus. When they are exposed to something over and over then they will retain that information and use it implicitly in their subconcious to make a real-world decision. Media needs to control itself before it is forced under control which I doubt it will do voluntarily. Oh well.
Previewing comments are for sissies!
The behavioural sciences is a fucking disaster, and I say this as someone who studied cognitive psychology as an undergrad. The kind of shit they publish would never fly in any other science except maybe environmental science. I am amazed at the number of studies that were designed to give the already arrived at conclusion.
With video games, or any technology for that matter, it's even worse since in general those doing the research don't understand it. They design bad tests not only because they want to get a certain answer but because they just don't understand what they are testing.
For example I remember back when I was in one of the classes they made us all go participate in research studies. That's how they get most volunteers, forcing undergrads to do it. Read a few modern studies, you'll be amazed how may say something along the lines of "The same group was students aged 18 to 22 at X university". At any rate it was about Internet usage and addiction. One of the first questions asked was how long you were logged on to the Internet for each day. I tried to explain to them that wasn't a meaningful question in my case. I had DSL at home and the campus connection at work, so when I was at a computer it was ALWAYS on. Hell it was on when I wasn't there. That concept just didn't register with the researcher. She thought the Internet had to be logged in to since that's what she did at home.
The study I'd like to see, that of course probably will never be done, is on a group using a highly controlled game environment. For example pick an engine and have one group play a violent mod like a Deathmatch, and have another play a mode like Freeze Tag. In both cases you have a team based, competitive, fast paced game that works the same, however one is violent, the other is non-violent. See if there's any difference between those groups (probably not). However it's never likely to be done in a large part because the researchers don't know enough about games to realise that you need to control for things like game type.
Isn't the point of playing video games (some video games anyways) to get the emotional arousal? Isn't that what it means to be having fun (ie being in that sweet spot between boredom and anxiety)?
So does a pretty girl. Their point????
mcgrew's razor: Never attribute to stupidity that which can be explained by greedy self-interest
... how my brain is running while I am playing a game, its how the playing the game affects my behavior afterwards.
While i'm playing an emotionally involving game in which the normal laws of society don't apply, I am both emotionally arroused, and I find myself letting go of self control (because it isn't necisary in said virtual enviroment).
In the real world, I do not let go of self control.
Playing games, by their nature, allow you to explore otherwise forbidden behaviors in a non-real enviroment. Weither or not I carry said behaviors over to the my real enviroment has less to do with the game, but more to do with my concecpts of reality and real world cause-consiquence.
Although, i will admit, some people who are otherwise quiet, do get rather angry WHILE playing a high paced intense FPS... but a little yelling isn't that bad. Typically, the ones who act out with physical violence, are already disturbed anyway, and shouldn't be playing in the first place.
"Infecting minds with my own memetic virus, one post at a time." Ultimape
I have a 15yr old son who plays FPS, driving, 1on1 combat games...and he has no trouble determining the difference beterr good and bad. He has no behavior problems, in fact, he's often used by teachers as an example of how students should behave. He doesn't like fighting, but will if he has to, and knows when to stop. Perhaps if parents were as active in their children's rearing, there would be no need to rate games as too violent for kids of any age. His favorite comment, "It's a video game, I'm not that dumb!"