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Violent Games As Great Teachers
Gamepolitics and the site Physorg have an in-depth look at a study (pdf) done on the educational nature of violent games. While the implications of the study reinforce the old 'games lead to violent kids' saw, the authors of the research stress that they're more interested in talking up the benefits of games in education. "When considered in the light of what is known to be the "best practices" of education, violent video games appear to be exemplary teachers of aggression ... It should therefore be no surprise that video games are excellent teachers, both of educational content and of violent content... The fact that learning occurs regardless of whether the effects are intentional or unintentional is irrelevant, and should make us more thoughtful about designing games and choosing games for children and adolescents to play."
Yes, I might learn how to clear a room in an fps, or how to manage my various spells in a fantasy RPG or how to drive fast in a driving sim but that doesn't mean that I will then somehow be a more violent person. Also, the same games that teach violent skills may also teach problem solving skills. The Tomb Raider and Half Life series of games both teach problem solving/puzzles.
I think there must be some effect; goes without saying that if you spend hours/weeks/years of your life doing something, it must have an effect, right? On the other hand, if your mind is so weak to be converted by Veggie Tales, you've got problems (as an aside, I think raising a kid with no religious experience is a good way to get a born again kid in later life...they won't have any background to reject it).
I go to church with my wife and kid, because it's important to her, and hell, I was raised religious and the only thing it did for me was make me less patient with the whole nonsense. Sit through the sermons every Sunday, and what does it do for me? Nothing. I have no more desire to do the religious thing now than I did on day 1.
So I'm not saying there is no effect, I just don't think the effect is what they think it is. I learned aggression from video games...Because just sitting around will get you shot. That doesn't make me go out and shoot people, but it does make me more forward, and more conscious of opportunity.
A game may refine what's already there, or give you an idea your mind was already receptive to, but I don't think it creates anything out of whole cloth. Humanity is a violent species...Seeing an increase in some types of aggression when they're doing aggressive things with a large portion of their time seems normal...The fact that it doesn't really translate to anything other than a blip on a survey suggests to me that the new aggression is significantly weaker than their social conditioning, and therefore, not much to worry about.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Either way it's all about Correlation != Causation.
My argument against games making people more violent would be more historical. Lot's of things have, historically, been said to make people more violent, and this tends not to bear out in the real world. Marijuana was once thought to induce psychosis and violent behavior, and while we may or may not agree on whether or not marijuana ought to be legal, most people do acknowledge that it doesn't exactly make you violent. The same arguments were applied to movies, rock music, sports events, and comic books...Anything that might make the kids into ravening monsters. It just tends not to happen.
On top of that, there has been no increase in violence since the advent of truly violent gaming. It's pretty widespread now, so you'd think that any actual upswing in violence would stand out against the preceding decades, but there isn't anything like that in the data.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
I would totally buy that bumper sticker, and I don't even have kids.
Abaddon: An Xbox 360 Indie game
Psychologists beat this dead horse because it grabs headlines. Professors at research institutions, unless they are very lucky, are under constant pressure to publish, and sexy research gets more grants and publication deals than boring research. Seriously, if you were one of these publishers, what would you rather publish: a paper which tells Middle America that their children are little shits because of an across the board decrease in hope, parental involvement, social mobility, and community strength along with an increase in consumerism, political cynicism, chemical mood intervention and isolation - or a paper which tells them to grab their pitchforks and march on game developers?
For the record, I'm aware that this is an ad hominem argument, but I just cannot see this as anything but reactionary fearmongering. Every time society changes in any way and someone happens to perish in relation to it, people want to hear about how that change definitely and directly precipitated that death, ignoring completely the presence of far more onerous factors such as mental illness. It's just easier to look for easy scapegoats such as rock music, heavy metal, dungeons and dragons, e-mail, usenet, cartoons, movies, anime, video games, MySpace. You could practical make a book of madlibs out of it.