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Kids 'Unaffected By Game Violence' Says Study
Via Game|Life, an article in the Syndey Morning Herald discusses a new study indicating most children are unaffected by videogame violence. Though the study did indicate that children already predisposed to violence or neurotic behavior were over-stimulated by these games, most children showed no difference in behavior as a result of game play. "The study monitored the behavior of children from 10 schools in eastern and southern metropolitan Melbourne before and after playing the violent video game Quake II for 20 minutes, Swinburne's Professor Grant Devilly said. Prof Devilly said only children predisposed to aggression and more reactive to their environments changed their behavior after playing and of those only some showed more aggression."
Stupid Parents - let TV do the work
Beat 'Em and Eat 'Em
...collective "No Shit" on this one? How many times have we seen this same claim? Enough already.
It's just like half of slashdot has been saying this whole time, games like GTA, violent movies like 300 and other media with similar content only increase aggression in those predisposed to it. While that is in and off itself a cause for concern, and parental monitoring, the games themselves are not the root of the problem.
Thunderclone: ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE! ONE MAN ENTERS! TWO MEN LEAVE!
TFA also says it was only a single 20-minute session of gaming. Unless there's something really serious in the game, 20 minutes really isn't enough to matter. Show me results after playing for at least an hour every day for a week or two.
(IANAL)
The only thing dumber than claiming that video games cause violence is claiming that only realistic video games cause violence.
This isn't the first research done on this subject. I wonder what the score is so far? The only thing I know is that no study so far has resulting in the "video game violence does affect children/people".
No effect: a couple
Inconclusive: also a few
Has effect: 0
Although, this is interesting, and there is some merit to the study, it only studies one part of the issue, natural tendancies as apposed to cultural ones. As someone else said, "Quake 2 is a far cry from today's GTA games", and I echo this. For its time Quake 2 was pretty violent, but culturally, it has become pretty much fully accepted and with no particular concern. What's probably more of a problem, however, is children who are constantly being asked to push the envilope of cultural acceptability of violence. I have no problem with going against cultural norms, as a whole, but children who are expected to accept violent entertainment at the edge of the cultural norm, may act very differently than ones that are expected to accept violent entertainment which has become culturally acceptable.
The bottom line is that eventually our culture comes to terms with some form of devient behavior. It's not that we morally condone it, but we become able to rationally assess it, without it becoming a sick fascination. The concern isn't so much that the violent imagery, itself, is a problem, so much as that our cravings for greater and greater violent imagery can pose a problem. We should look at this topic rationally and without reservation, there are no "duh's" or "no shit's" here. It's a valid concern. While I admit that most people, in their habbits, are healthy in their entertainment, I've also witnessed teenagers who play games specifically for the blood... which is sad, and a bit disconcerting. Violence can be used to portray strong messages, but in of itself (just like any type of stimuli) has no merrit.
I think this study is very good because it explore the natural disposition factor to violence in entertainment, and I'm sure that this is exactly WHY they chose Quake 2 to use, instead of the latest extremely violent games. That'll probably come next.
Multiplayer Gaming (defined): Sitting around, discussing single-player games with my friends, at the bar.
Personally, I agree. But this discussion has left the ground of common sense long ago. It's a "thinkofthechildren" issue.
And discussions in that area are hardly if ever rooted in the vicinity of common sense and logic.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Yeah, its unlikely that 20 minutes is going to do much. At the same time, any research that could possibly change the childs disposition towards the negative is also not going to get approved.
The fact of the matter is, it is a proven statistic that the vast majority of children playing violent video games or watching violent movies act out scenes from within them and become desensitized to the 'message'. Well, not the vast majority of children, but those that partake (which seems to be balanced out to males).
If these sorts of things did no shape children's minds, there would be far less advertising in the world. Advertising works, and its 30 seconds at a time. Of course, a single ad isn't going to do anything, but when you realize that on a half hour of television, you are LUCKY if you have 22 minutes of 'content' (one of the big reasons I miss my tivo...then again, I canceled my cable at the time I got rid of it...so it was a net gain).
So what does all this tell us? Tells us the research is bullshit, but its the best we can do without purposely screwing up kids for the mere idea that we want to see if we can screw them up. Research succeeds? Expect to be sued.
Personally, I like violent media. I'd be pissed if it were taken away (bitching at a friend the other day about the deleted scenes from the new grindhouse flick and think it should be MORE over the top and pissed I had to see these scenes online as opposed to in the theatre). At the same time, I find it wrong that parents don't police what their children watch / play, and the fact that the publishers care so little that they package it for younger and younger audiences stating its the parents fault. Both blame the others for the faults. Its great to be a part of an age of no culpability.