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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."
I committed most of my murders before I got into gaming.
Trolling is a art,
"Whoa why the hostility?"
Probably from playing too many violent video games...just a guess.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
Hey, that's not funny. A grue killed my whole family.
I call BS...
I played a few MMO's, still play eve and what have you.
The worst is when I started playing WoW, fell in with chinese guys, started grinding and just massing large amounts of gold.
I hit rock bottom... nothing but grinding and gold collecting for weeks.
Now, I'm grinding away with this damned employment.
Just grinding and collecting cash.
Damn video games... I could have been a hippy!
"You should always go to other people's funerals; otherwise, they won't come to yours." -- Yogi Berra
Studies take a good bit of time to research, organize, fund, deploy and then do the analysis. For my "Masters" thesis in Communications I looked into a "small" portion of the connection between media, agression and violence in youth (I targeted 10 to 12 year old boys). The research that is already out there is staggering. It runs the gambit between both extremes and everything in between. It is not uncommon for someone to take research that was already done and redo the data to get different results to support their own position (you can make just about any stat say anything you want if you propose it the right way). After doing all the background work it took time to organize. In the U.S. you have to get a review board for a rubber stamp approval of the whole process before you can go any further, and that can take weeks/months depending on the "touchie/feelie" aspect of the study. Long gone are the days of having a test subject grade a paper and give an unknown/unseen (ie not real) person a shock based on how they did. Wathcing someone flip a switch or turn a dial thinking they are shocking someone speaks VOLUMES (about personality, society and receiving orders just to name a few).
From my initial concept to starting the study took a YEAR! It then took all of a semester to run the tests and another semester to field the data. When it was all said and done my study showed no reach change in behaviour from pre-recorded norms for the youth. I saw about as much agressive behaviour in 10 to 12 year old boys from watching a "yellow sponge" cartoon, watching "professional" (cough) wrestling, playing a shooter, or playing flag football (I had to get signed wavers for the football, flag football?!) for 30 minutes. I had my control group walk for 30 minutes (around a track -- I had to get waivers for this one too!?!). Now, that was only 30 minutes but I did have numerous sessions. College studies, by in large, just don't have the time or funding to do these indepth studies that take decades to pan out. My study looked about 150 youth (including control) with four 30 minutes sessions. Drop in scantron questionaires, watching video of the youth, scoring, etc, etc... it took a LONG time. I was told in no uncertain terms I would not be able to finish my research before my masters would be complete... and they were right. I passed my research onto another person who was a Junior when I started my Masters (she was in on it from the ground floor) and she finsihed the project when she received her Masters.
The BIG sticking point is what do you call aggression and how is it measured. It hitting a "BoBo Doll" aggressive? It blowing a whistle loudly aggressive? Is asking a youth to give their "frustration level" a number from 1 to 10 measuring aggression? Is asking a youth to ask a "pretty girl" out for pizza and then asking them what their "frustration level" a measure of aggression?! Is watching a youth's blood pressure or heart rate rise a measurement? Have them watch a "pretty girl" at the beach and take more measurement?! Pupil dilation? Skin temperature? The list goes on and on and on. You can't meausure "aggression" easily, period. What triggers a child's "agressive" response can be just as hard to pin down. Calling one youths mother something colorful will get responses from laughter, to name calling, to tit for tat, to a punch in the mouth. They could all be emotional responses or just learned behavior but only a few could be definately call "agression" every time. Perception.
Now that you have agression defined and measured (hah ha)... define violence? Define condoned violence? Uncondoned? Condonded violence in boys may not be so for girls and vice versa. We consider a youth charging down the field and knocking the $#@! out of another player in football condonded violence. When the other boy gets up and shurgs it off he is tough. One boy slugging another boy in the hall for "no apparent reason" maybe a bullie if the other boy does not fight back he is a "wimp or coward".