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Violent Games 'Almost' As Dangerous as Smoking
Via Voodoo Extreme, a Reuters report on some very 'interesting' research into violent games. A study out of the University of Michigan has apparently found that 'exposure to violent electronic media' is almost as dangerous to our society as smoking. "'The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively,' said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters. Although not every child exposed to violence in the media will become aggressive, he said it does not diminish the need for greater control on the part of parents and society of what children are exposed to in films, video games and television programs."
"Get that PSP away from me, I don't want any of your second-hand fragging to endanger my health!"
Yeah. I don't think I'll be hearing that one. Well, maybe from Jack Thompson, but not normal humans.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
Please society, protect my children. It takes a village, because I am the village idiot.
They have no right! I'LL KILL THEM ALL!
No, wait...
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
How does this work with the decline in violent crimes through the 90s? How come they don't address the issue that those who were going to commit violence anyway are going to gravitate towards violent games and media? This isn't even original research, just research into the research that's been done. This doesn't add up very well at all.
Environment affecting behavior
Crazy talk!
It is worth noting that the "research" here consists of basing new views on long-term effects on old research in short-term effects. In other words, no actual new data has come in, and the data cannot be used to support the conclusions. Besides, it comes from known anti-gamers, often shown to be greatly biased in their "research".
It's like how my brother, a pediatrician for almost ten years, was turned into a savage beast forever by all those violent cartoons the TV networks earned a fortune from back when he was a kid.
I'm sure that he's probably poisoning all those little children.
Must rise and save us from ourselves!
" it does not diminish the need for greater control on the part of parents and society of what children are exposed to in films, video games and television programs."
WTF does society have to do with this? if you dont want your kid watching scooby-doo because you think shaggys a bad role model, thats your idiotic problem. Please dont foist it on the rest of society, we have bigger fish to fry.
So tired of people trying to legislate good parenting.
The problem isn't the violent games, or the violent TV shows, or even the violent peer-groups.
The problem is, quite simply, absent and detached parents.
Actually, if you even bothered to look it up, people talk about it all the time.
follow my lead.
They basically came to a conclusion based on reviewing studies. There's no clear indication whether the studies were cherry-picked for one reason or another (like, say, anti-video game being a safe bandwagon to appeal for funding). There's also the question of whether the studies that they read were conducted scientifically.
"It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education." -Albert Einstein
...is that violent video games kill 440,000 Americans every year?
Because wow, I'd have quit playing video games long ago if I knew that they had a 1 in 2 chance of killing me.
I suppose the other (albeit less likely) possibility is that this respectable and unbiased researcher may have accidentally used hyperbole in an accidental attempt to drum up fear in support of his findings... And in all fairness, he technically says that smoking is a "slightly larger" danger, so maybe violent media only turns 45% of its viewers into murderers.
I guess 'passive' exposure to Second-hand Gaming just bores you to death.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
smokin' something?
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and believe they are real are more likely to be aggressive as adults (from the article, emphasis mine)
Oh, wait... So only the crazy people will become crazy.
I think a certain level of aggression is alright. How many successful CEO's are complete pushovers? Luckily [most] humans have the ability to make clear and rational decisions, i doubt that this will lead to some violence pandemic. So long as people are able to keep themselves in check, which i think most level headed person should be able to do, then perhaps there is a place for violence in society?
I'm calling shenanigans on this "research". Reading the article, it sounds like these researchers are not only full of shit, but have no idea what they're doing.
That is all.
Yes, I am a smart ass; it's better than the alternative.
Am I the only one who considers a certain level of aggression to be a good thing? I am not the kind of person to hit someone, but when they hit me first, it seems only reasonable to return the favor. Would that be violence? Yes. A danger to society? Hardly.
I bet Karate Kid counts as a 'violent' movie. Won't somebody think of the children?
There is nothing wrong with aggressive behavior... have we become so femanized?
violent behavior is what I would be concerned about.
they've not gone and completely blamed games only. Ol' boy Jack would have a field day with it then.
Si vis pacem, para bellum
There was this healthy guy I knew that started playing violent games and he got lung cancer!
Think of all those dangerous chemicals that are in games. They should be illegal!
Like the millions murdered under Stalin ... ... ...
The >.5 million in Darfur
The >.5 million in Rwanda
1 million Armenians under the Turks
Oh wait, they didn't have video games...
Are you adequate?
and smoking while exposing yourself to virtual violence boosts the effect and gets you into a evil-vortex-loop that makes you metamorphose into saddam hussein.. veridic, i have seen this on my friends!
.. is because it makes you cool. unlike videogames.
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
My Solution, by the way, is the Nintendo Wii (in part).
Right now, on the American Chart for November at VGChartz, the TOP THREE slots are occupied by family-friendly non-violent games: Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3 for the 360, and Wii Sports.
Manhunt 2, the media's punching bag for Hyper-Violent Video Game Paranoia, is only ranked *41st* (and that's just the sales for the top platform, PS2). For every one unit of Manhunt 2 sold for the PS2, approximately 9 units of XBox 360 Guitar Hero 3 are sold. For every one unit of Manhunt 2 sold for the Wii, approximately 20 units of Super Mario Galaxy are sold (think about it: Manhunt 2 Wii has been out for 4 weeks, SMG has only been out for 2 weeks).
If this trend continues, the entire argument against hyper-violent games will be moot, because they will be relegated to the niche market of 17+-year-old males. The younger kids don't seem to care any more. And that's the way it should be.
But, all that said, the most important thing is for parents to A) be more involved in their children's lives, and B) read the ****ing box before buying a game. It has the rating right on there!
Hmm. Smoking, attributable as a direct cause to around 500,000 deaths a year. Video games, attributable as a direct cause to around...none. Well, maybe a few, I'm sure somebody choked on one at some point or tripped over some cables.
So if smoking is #1 and video games are #2, what is #3? Terrorists?
~Sticky
/Ridiculous
If this in some way results in getting the 12 year olds off of my online games, I'm all for it.
These reports come out every couple of years and really piss me off to no end. I would like to kick that researchers ass, but instead i will have to settle for playing Resident Evil 4.
-- Hail Eris
How does this work with the decline in violent crimes through the 90s?
There is some research to indicate that the drop in crime was possibly due to lower lead levels through the usage of unleaded gasoline. Article here. Graphic here.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The person who wrote this report better shut up or I'll kill him and air hump over his corpse in front of all my friends!
/sarcasm
-Vendal Thornheart
I'd like to see the actual study to see how they can possibly do this comparison. Frankly, it makes no sense what so ever, unless smoking causes violence (along with video games) or video games cause lung cancer. These "news" articles say that video games are as great a threat as smoking. WTF does that mean? Threat to whom and why? Pure FUD. I don't see why this was even posted.
Might as well get rid of:
G.I. Joe
Army Men
Toy Guns
Sports (Football, Hockey, etc..)
and the list goes on...
Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
If not, the test is invalid.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
As soon as im done with assassins creed i will have the skills to shank him in his A$$...but then again Mass Effect is waiting
...for sufficiently broad values of 'almost'.
I'm sorry, but what society are we talking about here that's threatened by violent video games?
Is it the society that was built on a series of bloody wars? Is it the society that put the right to carry a gun in its constitution? Is it the society that has glorified war and violence in print, audio, and video media since its inception? In what way are violent video games a threat to a society that is engaged in two wars at once and gearing up for a third? Surely violent video games aren't a serious threat in a society where young men are shot in the street and then blamed by authorities for being "in the wrong place at the wrong time"? Such a society must have better things to spend time and money on.
How do you even begin to equate exposure to violent imagery with smoking cigarettes? Do violent images make it difficult for people to breathe? Do they clog your lungs? Do carcinogenic particles emitted by video games disrupt cellular activity? Do people wake up in the morning feeling sick because they haven't seen a violent image since the night before?
Exposure to violent movies, television shows and video games significantly increases the risk that the viewer or player will behave aggressively in both the long and short term, according to a new University of Michigan study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
A link is seen among children who were in the upper quartile on violence viewing in middle childhood, 15 years later:
- 11 percent of males had been convicted of a crime, compared with 3 percent for other males.
- 42 percent of males had "pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouse" in the past year, compared with 22 percent of other males.
- 39 percent of females had "thrown something at their spouse" in the past year, compared with 17 percent of other females.
- 17 percent of females had "punched, beaten, or choked" another adult when angry in the past year, compared with 4 percent of other females.
Source: "The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research," by University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann.
It's a topic that has been debated extensively, but this is one of the first studies that shows the relation between viewing media violence and real criminal behavior, according to the study's author, L. Rowell Huesmann, a senior research scientist at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
"This is the first study that shows a relation between childhood exposure to violent TV, playing violent video games, seeing violent movies, and behaving violently enough to be incarcerated as a delinquent," said Huesmann, a professor of communication studies and psychology.
Huesmann and his team followed a group of children for three years as they moved through middle childhood. They found increasing rates of aggression for both boys and girls who watched more television violence, even when taking into account initial aggressive tendencies and other background factors. A 15-year follow-up of those children showed that those who habitually watched violent media grew up to be more aggressive young adults.
Huesmann also cited many independent studies and experiments with similar results, stating that the majority of one-shot survey studies have shown that children who watch more media violence on a daily basis behave more aggressively on a daily basis.
In another experiment cited, both children and adults who watched a violent movie showed significantly more aggression than the children and adults who watched a nonviolent movie when playing a physical game immediately after watching the films.
Video games were also addressed in the study, although experiments involving exposure to violent games are not as extensive or long-term.
"Because players of violent video games are not just observers but also 'active' participants in violent actions and are generally reinforced for using violence to gain desired goals, the effects on stimulating long-term increases in violent behavior should be even greater for video games than for TV, movies or Internet displays of violence," Huesmann wrote in the study.
I would like to be the first citizen of your sexciety!
....as long as I am not living in sausagefest city....
Number of World Wars BEFORE video games: 2
Number of World Wars AFTER video games: 0
Fluff "findings" generating more "research" funding: Priceless.
FTFA:
You can chalk it up to semantics, but it sure sounds like these guys went into the study assuming that violent media was already a threat. They set out to measure the "how much," completely bypassing "if" as though it were a moot point.
Ars Technica has a great article on this here.
Everyone here seems to be strongly opposed to the idea that video game violence may be related to violent behavior.
However, it seems pretty clear to me that it must in some form. Play throughout the animal kingdom is basically simulation training. We play to unintentionally practice skills. Video games that involve explicit simulation of violence must be exercising something related to violent behavior. I'm not saying a video game "causes" a kid to do something violent or that parenting and personality don't interact, but it seems inconceivable to me that it has no effect.
How does this work with the decline in violent crimes through the 90s?
There is a common belief that the economic prosperity coincides with lower violent crime rates. Though regional influences tend to have more impact than national anything. Compare social/economic conditions in Detroit versus Silicon Valley in the 90's as an example.
those who were going to commit violence anyway
You've made up your mind on that one huh? If only social issues were so simple we could divide citizens into criminal and non-criminal pools at an early age and finally live in a utopia. Where do white collar criminals fit in your magic world? Kids who cheat at board games?
his isn't even original research, just research into the research that's been done.
Yes. It's called meta-study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-study
There is nothing interesting about the parent's post.
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
CONCEPT:
People are naturally violent and aggressive. It is built in.
or
People are naturally non-violent and non-aggressive. It is built in.
I credit evolutionary development as the REAL Cause and take notice that violent and aggressive creatures (humans) tend to live (to fight another day) AND REPRODUCE following an encounter with non-violent and non-aggressive creatures (humans) on a level playing field. Repeat this cycle for THOUSANDS OF YEARS and we have today the evolutionary results.
I do not believe humans are genetically, emotionally, instinctual, or otherwise evolved to be pacifists. Those poor creatures died out eons ago from all our ancestors killing them and taking their stuff. (land, food, resources, etc..)
Some believe that violence and aggression are LEARNED. These people are entitled to their opinions but they probably have not really looked the real history of human evolution. Warfare, violence, aggression, etc.. ARE Selected-For traits.
It is no surprise the human brain takes so much pleasure playing violent video games... Now back to playing my VIOLENT new FPS!
Seriously... if you look closely, nothing in the ever said that there was a link to -violent- behavior, although the slant certainly tries to get one to think that way. IMHO aggressive behavior != violent behavior and is not necessarily a bad thing, in and of itself. I suppose being a bunch of sheep that meekly go where we are herded is something to be applauded in today's society?
I found a few more details in the press release.
As others have pointed out, the causation may be that those with some predisposition to violence are more attracted to violent TV programs and games. Some evidence for that is actually in the press release itself:
Since those programs are not very violent by more recent standards it shows that the absolute level of violence in the viewed programs is not the crucial factor. Instead the relative level of violence is. Someone who only watched "Gunsmoke" today would not turn out to be very violent, while someone who watched it back when it was the most violent thing available would. That means that the content of Gunsmoke is not a cause of anything.
The explanation that fits these facts the most is that watching violence on TV is an indicator, not a cause.
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
Wii Sports. I have a smallish living room and my girlfriend cracked me in the head the other day during a heated match of tennis.
Conduct the same study in any developed country other than the USA (or it's mentality look-alike, Canada).
Try any European country, Australia or NZ, Japan or other Asian countries. Preferably, try several.
THEN Draw your game use vs violence correlations, and see if what's making US kids violent is games, or a mentality that doesn't equip them with the tools required to cope with mature content.
THEN we'll talk. How I love it when American lobbyist groups oversimplify an issue so an uninformed public can be made even more misinformed. Go America.
-
then no it is not. It is just plain stupid to even compare the two.
When did acedemia start being a bunch of attention whores?
The phrase "more better" is acceptable English. suck it grammar Nazis
I've killed more than a thousand virtual characters in PVP over the years (read: WoW and/or EVE) and I'm one of the most patient and non-hostile people I know. Hell, even in PVP I don't get all hyped up and psycho like some of those kids do... I just mute them and keep shooting them. ;-)
- I voted for Nintendo and against Bush
STFU! They didn't know about those yet!
Ugh.
He held his arm too stiffly, and so was thrown back repeatedly, until at last I seized his forearm and snapped it back against itself. His training suffered while the arm healed, of course, but I felt this was a lesson he must learn early, and well.
Before I start, no, I don't think that games turn people into criminals. So no need to explain to me that.
;)
That said, there have been a lot of changes since the 80's, and I've heard the correlation between crime decline and X argued, where X was:
- less lead ending up in kids' system (via banning lead-based additives in gasoline, etc.) We already know that lead damages the nervous system, so that correlation at least doesn't trip suspension of disbelief too hard.
- "3 strikes and you're out" kind of laws. Both via taking out the incorrigible recidivists (some people seem to be really that psychopathic and dumb), and by providing a scary escalation level to keep the ones in line who still have at least minimal logic capabilities
- stricter gun control laws
- the availability of porn on the internet. Don't laugh, it has argued that the kind who'd go out and mug or rape someone, is now busy stroking his own wookie in front of the computer.
- widespread availability of violent movies. Apparently the day a new splatter movie hits the cinemas, there's a sharp decline in people actually doing violent stuff. Just because they'll be seated there getting their jollies viewing violence on the screen, instead of out on the street actually doing it. (And I guess then in the same could then be argued about games. If it's the same kind of asshole in both, he can't be out mugging people at the same time as he's online ganking newbies.)
Etc, etc, etc.
Note that I'm not saying that all the above are true. Some probably _are_ bunk. Take your pick which.
I'm just saying that the waters are muddy enough. A _lot_ of things changed at the same time. So, well, how do you know which of them were the ones that actually lowered criminality.
It's easy to pick one factor, let's call it X, out of context, pretend that it's the only thing that changed, and present it as the one thing that's responsible for the whole effect. It's good for political agendas too, so each politician or lobbyist is picking the one which makes his group look good. But how do you know if X is really the one? Maybe X had nothing to do with lowering criminality.
Just as an example, watch me pull a similar maneuver and do the following correlation: use of Linux rose steadily in the late 90's and 2000's, criminality sunk during the same time, hence Linux is singlehandedly responsible for making the world safer. I guess the types which would go out and mug someone are now too busy recompiling all libraries to have any time left to do evil stuff. Or something. Does it sound ridiculous yet?
Or you know what else improved since the 80's? The quality of Japanese game translations. Nowadays you can get them actually translated and voiced by people who know English. As opposed to the traditional "All your base are belong to us" Engrish translations, and voice-overs by people who never actually spoke it and don't even know where the accent is supposed to go. Criminality declined in that time. Hmm, looks like a possible cause to me. I guess the former steady rise in criminality was caused by those Engrish translations driving people homicidal.
No, I don't believe those are the real culprits. It's just supposed to be random ridiculous examples.
To get back to the topic, we don't know if games have anything to do either way with that decline. We also can't use that to claim that games can't possibly cause violence.
For the sake of playing the devil's advocate, if factor X would actually increase criminality, but factors Y and Z lowered it more than X raised it, then you'd still see a decline. Just as a purely theoretical scenario, it _is_ possible that X = video games, while Y and Z are... well, take your pick from the list above.
Just because a function of a dozen variables declined on the whole, doesn't mean that none of a dozen factors would have the effect of rising the result if taken alone.
Just something to think about, if you're bored enough
A polar bear is a cartesian bear after a coordinate transform.
It's Goatse. You know I surfed at -1 for a while but now I think I am going blind. I did it in the name of free speech but now I know people at -1 really are trolls.
The number of members of the Plumbing profession has skyrocketed since 1985.
We didn't make it to the top of the food chain after millions of years of evolution by being non-violent. We are the result of millions of years worth of selectively breeding the best bad-asses of each generation. The only thing that fools people into thinking non-violence is good is that part of becoming the world's baddest-ass species was learning team violence (us vs. the prey, us vs. them). Seems to me that these games are just sensitizing us to behavior that is always there, just below the surface. Also seems to me that any aggressive team sports would have the same effect (football, basketball, hockey, politics).
It is true that the actions of others is a form of teaching - which is why parents should set an example by getting off their arses and out of the house with the kids, rather than parking the kids in front of the XBox while the parents drink alcohol while watching TV football; parents teach by example whether they mean to or not.
So when a kid/intellectually challenged teenager/idiot adult sees violent actions without consequence, or violent actions encouraged by peers, they learn that (1) violence is a worthy genre (2) violence has little or no consequence. Do not forget that many people in the 'developed' (commercialised) world now grow up without any significant threat to their wellbeing, or their quality of life, and have never seen a very ill person or a corpse. They are therefore unable to conceive of the consequences of genuine violence. [this may be why post-traumatic stress is more obvious now; past generations generally developed coping/repressing mechanisms during childhood because of the deaths of relatives and friends due to a variety of unwholesome accidents and ailments no longer prevalent]
The answer is, therefore, not to reduce exposure to the violent genre (as this would emasculate individuals to the detriment of competition or the ability of developed nations to wage war), but to put it in context and to make sure that people understand the difference between reality and fiction. The cop shows that show chases and shootouts then end the segment with the arrest must show the criminal further down the line: in hospital full of holes, or in prison having lost a few years of life: getting arrested is not a significant consequence in isolation, it's just 'getting caught', the consequences are imprisonment and loss of opportunity. Put timers in games; delay a respawn by 10 seconds. Put a timer in to stop play for 5 minutes every 1.5 hours. Make every school class visit an old peoples home when they're 10, a morgue when they're 13, and an abattoir when they're 16.
As a counter-example to the research, many people went to war 1939-1945, but the level of violence in society after the wars' end was no higher than before. So it is not exposure to violence that encourages aggression. Aggression is a product of a culture that encourages aggression - like college football clubs, or Republican party meetings, or the NRA/KKK.
The petition to ban DHMO from our homes and public schools! 100% of children exposed to this chemical die! *ahem* This article seems to imply that at least one of the friends I grew up with should be an axe murderer, child molester, or wife-beater. To my knowledge, none of them are any of those things, though a friend of a friend -did- turn out to be an axe murderer. I'm probably the most violent of the 'old group' though, and that comes from 5 years in the Marine Corps. Even if there's merit to the study's findings, it simply doesn't ring true with me - seems to be designed to create FUD.
-Epsilon
--------------
Play Towers of Jadri! Fun RP MUD - Telnet!
Want to know about it? http://www.jadri.com/
"In caelum, illuc est libertas."
One thing these "computer games cause violence" reports don't seem to take into account is that every hour spent playing a computer game is an hour you can't spend being violent in real life.
I have to admit I took up Thai boxing for real after playing around in the gyms in GTA San Andreas, but getting involved with martial arts as a way of keeping fit is quite different from beating someone up in the street.
'cause if they're pickin on Moe, I'm gonna brain you with a hammer!
I swear I'm gonna kill the next person I hear complaining about violence in the media!
If I don't put anything here, will anyone recognize me anymore?
Is the root cause really the violent video game or the poor parenting that includes letting your kid watch violent stuff all the time the root cause? I saw a funny quote not too long ago that said "With all the comedy on TV, why isn't there comedy rampant on the streets?". I fail to see this as a direct cause-effect scenario such as smoking and can't take this study seriously. Aggressiveness is a social and mental issue that certainly can be aggravated by other violence but caused? I don't think so.
A slip of the foot you may soon recover, but a slip of the tongue you may never get over. -Benjamin Franklin
without violent boys, how else will our glorious war machine purge the world of evil doers?
as minions of unprecedented evile, they bring us/our kids: smoking, junk 'food', life threatening prescription drugs, mindphuking video, massive unrepayable debt, murderous aggression worldwide, phoney 'weather' etc..., just to name a few of their whoreabull deeds.
they do it for.... just a few more billionerrors.
time to get real. see you there?
Hmmm, another example of this correlation vs causation confusion. Lead has, certainly, a strong correlation with violence, but does not cause it by itself. Otherwise, this place which was named after lead sulfide should be one of the most violent places in the world.
It's not due to video games, but instead we drew the ire of the Flying Spaghetti Monster. ...for getting rid of the sea pirates. And stuff. Amen!
This is just one more example of how we're not smart enough to make decisions on our own. Our government must make these complicated decisions for us. So what is the next step? Does the government try and ban violent content, or does it try and come up with a way to tax violent content? My vote is for the later. After all, it's for the children.
Hahahaha... wow. My brain was off. I am a moron. I think I parsed Death Rate as the rate of death for an individual which really is nonsensical (and even then I didn't do that right either). Please ignore the grandparent post!
Gravity Sucks
Okay, they say the results are "interesting" when dealing with video games and violence. And when you look back and do some research on prior "gaming related" catastrophes, (which not many may do) things like the Virginia Tech shootings and Columbine High School which were both gaming related actually had more to them. The guy from V-Tech went through over 4 (doesnt sound like many, but these are mental doctors...) psychologists who all declared him mentally ill from all of them but didn't give em any meds which they recommended. They didn't do anything and he blasted up the school then the media and sources initially blamed it on Counter Strike... The guys from Columbine who were known for playing DOOM a lot so thats where the blame went on that one, then, looking farther into it they were known for having a prior history of violence making the game theory irrational. It's proven that MORE studies show that video games in general enhance learning, critical thinkin and reflexes (yes, all you strategy, MMO and shooter freaks, you're actually LEARNING) as well as provide an ample ANGER MANAGEMENT tool that releases stress vs. making the player want to go out and shoot up a school or run some pedestrians over *cough* GtA *cough*. I myself have been playing games since I was 3 (NES for the win..) and have been playing violent games for the past 14 years and I haven't felt the need to run anyone over or go blast up anyone I didn't like and surprisingly enough, I haven't thought it a great idea to go and fight anyone either ;). Im more of the loving type, haha. I have done a lot of research into this, so I know I'm not just blowing smoke but it drives me insane that instead of blaming the flawed behavior of the person on them they resort to blaming games and the media instead. Before they do that, take a look at the persons past from ALL angles BEFORE blaming games, not just from the perspective that they've been playing CS since they were 10.
Payton
Basically what it works off of is that in a typical statistical analysis, your final conclusion is tied to a confidence interval, typically 95%. In other words, if you did the study 20 times, just by chance alone 1 of those would arrive at a different conclusion because of differences due to randomness. A metastudy attempts to weed out these random contradictory results by sampling multiple studies. In certain cases it can also look for trends which the individual studies missed because their sample size was insufficient (whereas several of them grouped together may have sufficient sample size).
Now to compare apples and oranges, incidents of smoking related illness to increased violent tendencies due to media is absurdist. Its positvely alarmist! More alarmist than the '!' in that last sentence.
So apparently:
Smoking > Video Games > Alcohol, Drugs, War, Poverty, STDs, Pollution
Did Jack Thompson have something to do with this research per chance?
Incidentally, since were all about poorly interpreted research; I thought you all should know that increased violent crime is directly linked with ice cream consumption.
In a more serious way, your joke points out the fundamental difference between the two and why it's a bad analogy.
- Smoke does it harm by the simple presence of dangerous chemicals. (Nicotine, free-radicals, and tons of others). Intention to smoke doesn't change the outcome. In fact second-hand smoke is dangerous for the health even in very low levels.
- Whereas games do their evil on people who feel attracted to violence and naturally get interested in enacting such things. They consume violent games, but also violent movies, etc. But there's no such thing as second-hand consumption or effects. You won't become a violent psychopath because someone else is watching TV in the next room. Psychopath don't happen more frequently among workers of those shop who happen to have a software & video games department.
The frequency of bad outcome is also different.
- In the case of smoking-induced* cancer, the danger is stochastic (except maybe for a few special genetic cases). It's like rolling dice. Each time one individual is exposed, there some amount of chance (or maybe "bad luck") that the cancer will start. One my get lucky and roll high scores several time in a row. Similarly some people may smoke for years without having any problem. But overall there's a probability that increases with the amount of exposure. You can make plot of duration of exposure and associated risk, and see some correlation.
In fact the correlation is so good, that you can use a clinical score (based on the duration in years x number of pack per day) to predict risks associated with smoking.
- In the case of violence, the danger mostly depends on a set of pre-determined characteristics. Because of a complex set of circumstance, mostly genetic factors, family history and other childhood experience, there are people who are predisposed to become psychopath and other who aren't. Some (like most
There's no such thing as a "amount of years spent playing" that will predict when someone will snap and start shooting random people.
* : As an example of stochastic risk. There are also other smoking-induced disease, mainly non-cancerous pulmonary disease which have a deterministic distribution. They're mostly linked to the amount of garbage that accumulate in someone's lungs. Past a certain year-packs score, you're mostly sure that the patient will have some form of bronchitis. But those diseases are easy to model.
Where tobacco company managed to stir controversy was about the stochastic risks because not everyone developed them. But in the end, after careful examination, you still can link an increase of risk to duration of exposure. Whereas violence mostly depend on having risk factors, the rest only plays a small role of trigger.
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
but i trot it out when i see these "studies", my 3 kids have been playing "violent" (CS/Quake/Doom/WarCraft/Etc) games since they were 5-6 yrs old and haven't had any agressive behavior problems in school or otherwise (at home, playing with friends), if anything they are grossed out by violence in movies and such. current ages 11-12-16.
(not to brag) In fact they are pretty highly regarded in their respective schools.. and my wife is a teacher's aide in their district so if one of them was getting out of line she would definitely hear about it..
And to think I was about to stop smoking! Ha, I'll just quit violent video games and call it even.
... if they are complete morons who think these things are cool. Unfortunately in this world we know there are loads of morons.
A female friend's b/f was kind of obsessed with violence and an arse at the same time. he stopped talking about how cool fight scenes in films were when instead of getting back up again, he got a broken jaw and had to eat soup for 3 months through wired teeth.
i kind of had the opposite in one respect. I played GTA SA for 2 days straight without leaving the house. when i next got in the car i assumed everybody was trying to pull out on me and drove very defencively....
""The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively," said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters."
I spent most of my youth watching violence on TV and playing violent video games and this is pure bullshit, in fact, if I ever see this guy in the street I WILL BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF HIM!!!!!!!!!!!! *smashes keyboard hulk style*
I often play video games right after sex, just like aftersex smoking. I see where they can draw this conclusion.
But then again, we must put an end to this! It will only make us start having smoke hungry, video game addicted, violent monster babies... from beyond the womb!
Wow, I wonder what it means if you play videogames while smoking!
They might as well lock you up, you'd be such a danger to yourself and others...
Violent people seen as a threat. It seems like every time a relatively new technology comes out first we praise it for its pending betterment of humanity then we blame it for our violence and demonize it.
Quack, quack.
Ask yourself, what is a "violent video game"? To many GTA is considered one that cross many borders, whether it be hiring prostitutes or out running cops, the game is without question "violent" to most. The more pressing concern is the ammount of video game players that will agree that it is not violent at all. This can easily be gaged by asking someone on a scale of 1-10 how violent they think the game is, the opinions of the player and the observer vary wildly. The gamer seems to always keep in mind the boundaries of reality. Nonetheless, someone brought up in an environment where video games are the babysitter or second parent, must me taken into account. These kids may have a problem drawing the line of reality, and here lies the problem. One could even consider the kid mentally unstable for society, but who is to blame; the video games, or the parents?
I had no idea smoking was so safe.
Or how about instead of controlling a child's exposure to potentially 'dangerous' material, try explaining the difference between fiction and reality? Or outline the real consequences of real or fictitious actions without relying on scare tactics? Using examples is also good. Worked for me.
Mostly.
when a 12 year old threatens to kill me with a Koopa shell =)
Too many people were getting killed by second-hand video game playing.
Spelling and grammar mistakes specifically left in to give the grammar and spelling nazis a meaning to their life.
Every second you spend with a video game pretending to kill other people is a second you didn't spend learning to be more socially sophisticated.
Excessive playing of any game is its own punishment.
This quote by Fletcher Knebel seems to keep proving true. In a way now that people all over the world are banned from smoking in social settings, some new leading cause of statistics has to be created.
After reviewing more than 50 years of research
50 years of research on violent video games? That's a neat trick. Did they have a time machine? Or did they simply incorrectly generalize from violent TV and movies to video games?
This article is a good example of one with mainly political/social content, rather than technical - only on the latter do I ever bother reading the user comments on slashdot, with exceptions such as this one which I usually regret.
Should an article such as this one come up which questions the slashdot cult of violent video game virtue, one shouldn't expect nuanced, objective, thoughtful responses from a variety of viewpoints.
It's always: shout down, ridicule, and debase the critic.
Use your heads. No matter how much you may like something personally, and no matter how much it may sometimes come under attack from people with agendas which you don't like (such as perhaps religious fundies), there can STILL BE valid criticisms of it from a societal perspective.
I'm 42. I still like video games, and used to play many of them. I'm very liberal politically, an atheist, and I didn't "turn into my dad" or into a fundie the older I got. I simply see that the huge obsession our society has with violence, in all the aspects we use it for entertainment, does of course have a broad effect on our psychological landscape, and thus can influence the thinking and behavior of individuals, and shapes the parameters of how we view the world. It surely influences our societal attitudes towards warfare - and here I particularly mean American attitudes.
Instead of rabidly defending the right to guiltlessly play whatever violent trash that game companies produce - targeted mainly at hormone-driven teens - I encourage people here to debate a bigger picture.
I'm so sick of seeing this shit. Lets look at this from a different angle... suppose violent video games really are causing a significant amount of increased aggressiveness in children/teens. Shouldn't violence statistics show a massive increase in reported cases of violence in youth? If violent video games are as bad as drugs then shouldn't we see a clear epidemic? Introduce a bunch of meth into a small town where there wasn't any and within months it will be no secret the town has gone to hell. Where the hell is the evidence other than these "studies" that say it is happening??? Do some research and look at violence statistics, they are almost universally going down in every category, dramatically since the early 90's. So if there really is a violent epidemic caused by video games then it would have to be offset by an even more enormous non-violent epidemic being caused by...? what? I dunno, video games?. I think the kids are too busy to kill their friend in real life because they're too busy doing it in virtual life.
PLEASE GOD WON'T SOMEBODY THINK OF THE CHILDREN
Since when is "aggressive behavior" a bad thing? When did America go from encouraging the sort of aggressiveness and "seize the day by the short and curlies" ballsiness that made America great to insisting that it's a bad thing and must be suppressed?
We need more aggression! In the business world, aggression is rewarded. In sports, aggression is rewarded. In life, aggression will take you far. Quit emasculating America's youth and let them learn to live!
Seems like everyone in the world that doesn't play video games wants to blame them for everything that's wrong with youth, the violence in society, etc.
They should stop bitching and start taking the violence out of TV, movies, and song lyrics first. They won't though because, since they watch movies and TV, they don't see its violence as being bad enough to make them get on soapbox. Yet, not playing video games, they're sure that video games are pure evil.
I don't even play any games really -- I use OS X and Linux, don't own any console. But I can sure see the double standard. How can people bitch about video games so much while not doing anything about violence in music, tv, and hollywood first?
That's a perfect example of what happens when you play violent video games: You become less socially skilled, even incoherent, at the same time becoming arrogant and unfeeling toward other people.
"Hey there sonny Jim, you love your violentastic video invigerations don'tcha?"
"Why yes I do Mr. Creepy sociologistpath!"
"Fantasmagorical. Here's a baseball bat. That child over there called you a 'wonderbat' what do you want to do to him?"
"I want to call him a 'double dumb wonderbat'."
"Dontcha wanna hit him with a baseball bat all video game violence like?"
"But I could go to jail, and also, I think he might hurt me."
"Oh, well don't worry about it. This is a sporting event type thing and you get points for beating him with the bat."
"So no jail... and he can't hit me back?"
"Sociopaths' honor"
"Weee! Smashy smashy!"
I remember playing Grand Theft Auto pretty seriously for a few days. As I drove around, I had this urge to drive over curbs and look for places to do cool jumps. Fortunately I'm not mentally deficient, so I have this other part of my brain that advised me it wasn't such a keen idea.
Every experience has an effect, but it's not always to emulate what you see. Have you seen two girls, one cup?
Buying easily purchased items in one town and hawking them the next town over for insane prices because only a fool would dare traverse the pirate infested road between them? Also, when I do need money I can just tool about in the frontier ganking asshole pirates for their cash before I upgrade my leet ride. That sounds awesome, I'll catch you homicidal jerkwads later (in my huge plasma cannon sights, lawls, noreally.)
I read the study. The author says, near the beginning, that in understanding the relationship between media violence and real violence, the "response should be to understand the dangers ... [and] to avoid exaggerating the dangers (which would destroy our credibility)." He should take his own advice! The smoking comparison is terribly misleading, as are the other comparisons to "public health problems"(hitting someone while playing hockey, for example, appears to be considered equally harmful to contracting HIV). If they looked at the effect of violent games or movies on murder rates, for example, you can bet it would be a much smaller effect.
More problems:
First, beware the word, "significantly." When a social scientist uses that word, you can bet they are talking statistical significance, which is not the same as a large magnitude of effect.
Also, he reports r values as if they are measures of the 'strength' of an effect, but I think that's debatable - if there isn't a lot of violent behavior in general, but a lot of video game playing, it doesn't make sense to call the effect of games on violence 'strong'. Furthermore, the correlations that he calls "strong" (such as r=.3) means that about 9% of the variation they find in violent behavior can be explained by watching violent TV. He ignores the fact that the vast majority of violent behavior (91% of variation!) is unexplained by violent media.
He tries to overstate the effectiveness of the results - he reports the greater tendency to shove one's spouse for individuals in the top quartile, etc. in the same paragraph where he says he 'controlled' for previous violence, but those appear to be raw numbers. The effects when controlling for background (which is difficult to do) are not reported.
Speaking of the longitudinal studies: in social science terms, long term studies have serious problems with endogeneity: in other words, violent people might choose to play violent games, and not the other way around. In other words, he may have discovered that really violent people tend to like violent entertainment!
The experimental results are a little more convincing, except that 1) it's a short-term effect and 2) the violent incidents in question are pretty trivial - the generally find rougher forms of play, typically, which isn't the same as spousal abuse, assault, or murder.
It's been my opinion that video game playing makes people more passive and sedentary (in general) rather than violent and active. Somebody should do a study!
If their argument was that games (violent or not) made kids fat or stupid then I'd buy that and point out that crappy TV does too, but games keep getting more violent and violence keeps going down.
I'm not saying it's good for kids but I'm not sold.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
and violent crime? I mean this thing about violent video games has been going on since 2D sprites battled each other in grainy death matches on 16 bit machines and probably before that. While I appreciate the power of violent ideas and concepts, they really aren't anywhere near the horror of modern warfare.
The way they are comparing it wouldn't be much different than me saying that the exposure to the back of my hand across your face increases the chance that you will go and shoot up a school...
For everyone who, when confronted with the video game violence argument, said "show me a decent study that shows that to be true", this is it.
*ducks*
I kid, I kid! I'm sorry!
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
While I was waiting for my case to come up on the docket I bought a computer, a commodore 64 and started playing Ultima. The long hours I spent playing that game kept me off the street at night and got me interested in computer programming. A friend of mine that was headed down the same self-destructive path started playing Ultima with me. We were still spent far to much time intoxicated, but atleast we were doing it while playing computer games in the crib and not while roaming around on the town armed to the teeth looking for a fight.
The other guys we had been hanging out with decided we were boring and went on with the usual business. They were all arrested and did varying amounts of time in the state system. One of them is dead; one appears to be turning his life around finally - 25 years later; I lost track of the others.
I have absolutely no doubt that my gamer friend and I would have ended up just like our old school buds if not for that commodore64 and Ultima. Instead of us being dangerous burdens on society, we now productive professionals paying lots of taxes. We both work in IT related fields, work we became interested in because of the time we spent hacking computer games.
Almost all violent crime is commited by young men. Ecomonics plays a part, but the primary reason is because young men are bored, have lots of excess energy and have nothing better to do.
The murder rate in this country peaked in the late 1980's and then declined rapidly and has stayed low compared to the 80s. I am convinced the reason that males in their teens and twenties don't roam the street shooting at each like they did back then is because game consoles and computers became widely available in the 1990s.
I would much rather some 19 year-old get his thrills playing Manhunt or GTA IV in his parents living room than to be out on the streets smoking ice and doing those simulated activities for real.
We should get back to the good old days when instead of fragging a guy in a video game, kids would go outside... and... physcially act out the act of cutting each others scalps from their heads. They would physically act out burning each other at the stake, and physically act out shooting each other with realistic guns that often had small powder caps to get a simulated gun sound. Obviously it is the games that kids are playing today that has turned every last one of them into a powder keg just waiting to go off.
IT departments are completely chock full of people who grew up almost exclusively playing violent video games.
I bet all the other departments are just shaking in their boots when their computer breaks and some violent psychopath from IT has to come down to fix it!
Sam "to lazy to register" Look
This whole Violent video games causes *problem of the day* is getting old real fast. When I was growing up, I watched ALL of the politically incorrect cartoons like Popeye, Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker (he said 'wood' heh heh heh) and of course all of the Looney Tunes. All of these had so called "violence" and from an early age, I was taught by strange persons called "parents" that it was not real and NEVER wanted to act out what I saw. Fast forward a decade, and I played DOOM when it came out in '93 and even then I viewed it like a cartoon- it can relieve stress without hurting anyone. A few generations back Rock n' Roll was teh EvIl satan and so on.
Activist Floridia Detective talking about something or other?
...would develop a sense of humor. Its the same logic. Lots of sit-coms, but people aren't any more funny. If anything, as a culture we're losing our sense of humor pretty quickly.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Intense radiation - not so bad
Make-believe violence - right up there
with one of the worst health threats of
modern society.
Yah
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
Video games can teach my child to kill. But I can teach my child why it's wrong.
Indoctrinate : to instruct especially in fundamentals or rudiments Educate : to develop mentally, morally, or aestheti
What we need to do is give away a carton of smokes with every violent video game thus balancing out the damage inflicted on society.
Aside the obvious thing that many pointed already (is it violent games that make people violent, or violent people who like violent games in the first place?), one has to consider the benefits first:
As far as I know, the thing that puts teens and young adults in trouble the most is boredom. With the freagin attitude in this day and age that if its not "hardcore", its not worth doing, young people quickly find themselves with nothing fun or productive to do. Then they end up in drugs, fights, and all around trouble: they have to do SOMETHING with their lives, be it positive or negative.
Come in videogames: now that they aren't considered as nerdy as they were 10 years ago, a lot of these bored teens shift their attention to so called "hardcore" videogames. While they're playing, they're not out doing stupid stuff. Take the games away from them, and they'll have to do something else. Part of em will turn to sports, TV, going out with friends... part will start getting high and doing street gang stuff.
I'm sure there are SOME people who turn bad -because- of videogames. But while this is all hypothical, I'm sure for each person who turns bad because of videogames, there's 10 "bad" folks who are too busy blowing virtual heads up on XBox Live to think about which store to rob.
"Everyone here seems to be strongly opposed to the idea that video game violence may be related to violent behavior."
Maybe because they fear that someone will come along and take their toys away from them? You see this with P2P and video games.
That violent crime has, in fact, been falling in the US during videogames' rise to prominence. Games started really taking off in the 90s. That was when they began the transition from something that was mainly for geeks and little kids to something that was widespread for most younger, and many older people. Not coincidentally it was when the leading edge of the video game kids, the ones who'd been playing them almost their whole lives, were hitting adulthood (and thus had more money to spend on games).
Well, when one looks at US violent crime stats, amazingly, they start dropping in the 90s and just keep going down.
Now that's a major problem. That is when we started seeing more violent games being produced. There was a growing market of older gamers who wanted games on more mature themes, Sony was overtaking Nintendo and didn't have the "family friendly" policy and so on. Gaming in general was on a huge rise and so were violent games. Yet crime was falling and continued to fall.
Hmm, well that's a real problem for the hypothesis that violent games make for violent actions. If more people are playing games, and more of those games are more violent, it follows logically that we should se an increase in violence if indeed games are the cause, yet we just don't.
So any theory of games causing violence must adequately account for this. They have to show why this trend happened despite widespread gaming. If you can't your theory is not adequate as it fails to deal with all available facts.
I have a hard time figuring out what the article is supposed to mean. OK, there might be a correlation with aggressive behaviour, but the implication is that's bad. So, we're supposed to (moral judgement) watch bland entertainment and be sheep?
I have two kids. I see them act out great battles. They're also just acting, in Real Life they're good, maybe even a little timid.
sig fault
They controlled for innate levels of aggression. Also Psychologist are well aware of leading questions and experimenter and participant bias.
The number of times I wanted to run someone off the road and jack their cars after a long gaming binge on GTA....
If I can do it, its probably not worth doing... probably
From TFA: "Earlier research ... showed that children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and believe they are real are more likely to be aggressive as adults."
Believing the characters are real indicates an inability to distinguish fantasy from reality when faced with other situations as well -- children who have this problem sound like they might be sociopathic or 'poorly socialized' or whatever the current buzzword is for a malignant lack of empathy.
These studies are subjective in too many ways. Besides 'leading the witness'-style surveys and the aggravating task of verbal polls of the subjects' state of mind, how many people are inclined to act normally when they're being scrutinized in a psychology experiment?
Just my two cents' worth. I played lots of violent video games, own many firearms, and I'm pretty well-adjusted. Could be that double-X chromosome, though.
-J
So I guess comic books and RPGs are off the hook now....whoohooo Breakout my 2000ADs ;o
Not exactly "when" but "how much likely". (For cancer, the risk is stochastic, not deterministic)
The score is called "Unité paquet x année" in French. I don't know about the English the name.
Recipe (pretty simple) :
- You take the amount of packs smoked per day.
- You multiply by the number of years spent smoking.
- All the years under 20 years old count double.
- You have obtained the score.
The risk of cancer increase as this score increases, it's never sure, but the likelihood is higher with higher scores (stochastic risk).
Also, above a certain treshold (I think it was 30. I don't remember exactly. I may look up if someone really wants) you're mostly sure the patient will have some form of chronic bronchitis (deterministic risk for a lot of non-cancerous pulmonary diseases).
So that's why score evaluating and other systems evaluating risk factors for most disease, are never based on 1 single value.
Most of them are a list of items like : number of cases in sibblings / close family, gender-associated risk, ethnic group associated-risk, add 2 points for smoking score above given treshold, add 1 point for occupation in the list of dangerous jobs, etc.
At the end it's an evaluation of the "score between 3 and 5 points : middle risk (less than X% occurence in Y years)" or "if more than 3 positive answers risk is increased by Z%"
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
I don't know about anyone else but after violent video games I am actually less aggressive. That is before I go to work and have to deal with those who break things and don't have the time to fix them. *Eye twitch*
Bullshit maybe if parents raised their children right instead of equating parenting with drugging them up with some chem-cocktail to ease their made up "medical/psychological" conditions while using it to cover theirinefficient parenting skills they wouldn't be as much of a problem. Yes there are some that are just fucked up to begin with but others aren't.
Or to put it another way it's douchebags raising another generation of douchebags.
To begin with, you can not compare smoking to video games. At best, they are completely different kinds of threats.
What about this?
"children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and believe they are real are more likely to be aggressive as adults"
Believe they are real? By the time I was five, I certainly knew that TV characters were not real.
And we all know that people were not violent before TV, right? At risk of invoking Goodwin's law - remember that guy with initials A.H.?
And what is violent? Spiderman? James Bond? Bugs Bunny?
I wish I had a Ph.D in sociology, so I could get big money for being a complete idiot.
1. Most violent games reward destruction of distinctly evil characters. Does this not foment desirable characteristics? Not just 'bad people' in general, but specific images of totalitarianism, world annihilation, etc.
2. It is worth noting that if such a great, simple link existed (as TFA suggests), then it should be far more noticeable. 3. Since videogames have been known to increase visual acuity and reflexes by a significant amount (30%+), the negatives are easily matched by the positives. Specifically, first person shooters were found to have the most beneficial effect. How's that for a spin? (Source: The New Scientist)
4. It is the greatest test of freedom of speech if one is able to tolerate what he cannot bear. The choice is what counts. I wouldn't play some games, but why deprive someone else of that right?
5. Information overload is already here. 'Parental control' programs do not work. Free games are becoming more common. Most of my friends restricted by such device have used some sort of circumvention device (Proxies, SSH, and a variety of cunning software workarounds) to download material they aren't supposed to. None of them could be considered aggressive in any sense of the word. AKA 'You can't stop it'.
6. If it isn't broken, don't fix it. To any politician who thinks about regulating video games, I say this: "Prove to me that depriving people of freedom and entertainment is worth it. Prove that it would save a life."
Depriving many because of a few. Where have I head this before...? The restrictions on public broadcasts are enough.
Sure, the vast majority of people who watch violent TV or play violent video games are not a threat to society. The claim that violent media are as dangerous as smoking is foolish, and not what the article actually said. But overwhelmingly research does support the contention that people can learn behaviour from watching programs and playing games, and that can make people more violent than they would have been if they'd spent their time some other way. What's remarkable is how people can dismiss all the research, much of which is painstakingly performed by experts in the field, just because they dislike the results. (Or maybe that's not remarkable, depending on how cynical you are about people's rationality.)
An article I read earlier this year really changed my opinion on this subject. From issue 2600 of New Scientist magazine, 19 April 2007, page 33-37:
If anyone is thinking of replying to this, let me save you some time by preparing some responses.
Can somebody post a link to the actual study mentioned in the Reuters article. I can't find it anywhere. There's mention of a 2003 study, but can't find anything from recent 2007.
what a crock of shit.
we are getting less violent on a whole.
how many men beat their wives 30 years ago? there were no violent video games when they were kids.
no, they acted out their fantasies with toy guns and got into fist fights.
we, as a society are becoming less violent. Our sensitivity to violence is what raises red flags about stuff like video games.
The university of Michigan should reveal the source of their grant for that study.
They're using their grammar skills there.
My Cigarette Game will be twice as dangerous as either of them. Bwaaa haaa haa ha! I'm releasing Monica, Bill, and a Cigar 3.0 next week, little kiddies!
Table-ized A.I.
Nowhere in the article or the study does it say that violent games are almost as dangerous to society/public health as smoking. It only compares the correlation between violent games and violence to the correlation between active smoking and lung cancer. I have no idea what that is meant to say because it's comparing apples to oranges. You certainly cannot go from there to an assessment of their relative "dangerousness", and the study doesn't. Smoking is a choice, and the ones who are most affected are the ones who make that choice. Becoming a victim of violence isn't a choice in most cases, so I'd say something that leads to violence is much more dangerous.
Kids are like sponges, they soak up everything around them, including the endless marketing and advertising that is constantly being thrown at them. And when they get to be teenagers, at the time when they're in the most emotional turmoil, the pressure to conform and to not stand out from the crowd is immense.
The counterbalance to all of that pressure is a strong, loving family around kids with attentive, caring parents who are constantly reassuring their kids that all the other stuff around them is the "outside" world. However, broken marriages are at an all time high, houses are so expensive in the Western World that most parents need to go and work full time, and when the parents get home from work they're naturally too tired to bother spending quality time with the kids. Consequently, the kids are thrown in front of their Playstations or left to do as they please.
So whilst I accept that violence amongst teenagers is rising (certainly here in the UK where knife crime is on the increase), so are thefts and muggings for iPods and mobile phones - and you can attribute marketing and advertising as the cause of that in forcing kids to believe these items are "must haves".
And whether kids are robbing from each other, bullying each other or killing each other, whenever it happens you can always ask yourself the same question - "Where were the parents?"
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Well fuck me running!
You mean to tell me that over the last 30 years, with MILLIONS of kids and adults playing violent video games, with the number of deaths truly attributable back to influence of video games (not just violent video games, ALL video games) countable in two digits and they're as dangerous as cancer?
And how long have these figures been cooked? They're a bit overdone.
Lies.
Damn lies.
Statistics.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
I almost went to school there. Good thing I chose MSU instead. Go Spartans ;)
Support a great indie game: http://www.abaddon360.com
I smoke. I play video games. From first-hand experience I can say that smoking is 1000 times worse than playing video games. I have to go outside every hour to have a smoke. I don't have to go outside every hour to play Zelda. And, Zelda won't give you cancer.
I do beleive that if someone beleives a game is real then they would use things out of the game in real life.
Look at movies, how many people change the way they act due to a movie? MILLIONS.
It is like a research into where the most accidents happen in the home- the kitchen, with sharp knives, slippy floors and jaggered work benches.
Yes, games cause violence, but so do books, magazines, movies, TV shows, cartoons, music videos, etc etc etc.
The people who lack the common sense to leave violence in a game are the ones who are the problems, (no offence - can apply to me to), not the games. The games are better ways to release anger and stress rather than going out, kitting up with guns and mowing people down in real life. In a game, you do it and get points, in real life you do it and your shot.
Come on people. Start a poll, is it the games, or is it the people who take it too far?
Hybrid
The reason for this article is clear folks, the University of Michigan had their ass handed to them this year in college football by The Ohio State University. What other possible reason would normally sane people use for spreading this kind of FUD...
a level of tactical training that they really don't. Don't get me wrong there are some games out there that have extremely detailed acts of violence (or so I'm told I've never bothered to pay money for something selling ONLY on violence like manhunt) but most of the violence in violent video games if fantastical at best and excessively gory at worst. Honestly if you took out the copious amounts of blood from some games they would seem a little more violent than an episode of Friends with nerf guns. Look at the most popular violent video games and you are either playing the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Saving Private Ryan, or the equivilant of watching endless reruns of Star Wars (the crappier trilogy sadly). Just because it is slightly less boring because you are actively PRESSING BUTTONS as opposed to just sitting on your arse seems to be a rather moot point.
If I sound offended or defensive on the issue it is because I am both offended by it and defensive of video games because I really do think it is the same as trying to treat the symptom and not the disease. Is your child playing a violent video game with a devotion that borders on the religious? Then I would say you should ween them off of that. At the vary least try installing a sun-lamp in their room to help combat the lack of vitamin D. I suppose you could argue that modern controllers have controllers with trigger buttons but where does that factor in with the physical violence? Has Remmington come out with a "lil slugger" baseball bat-shotgun combo? Was there a lot of violent media during the civil war? Obviously I'm being facetious with that question but seriously at what point did people suddenly think violence came from video games rather than people being assholes? Playing devils advocate is all well and good but playing paranoid yuppy's advocate just makes society more paranoid and yuppy like.
Since when are white collar crimes & cheating at board games considered violence?
An admittedly ham-fisted attempt to highlight the slippery slope about the ridiculous generalizations.
a bunch of scientists can't do some basic tests to find out if an adult or child has pre-existing violent tendancies?
You mean like in-eutero testing? There is no such thing as pre-existing violent conditions except in children with permanent developmental problems.
Maybe you are proposing establishing a baseline for violence and then letting them play a bunch of FPS games? Let's just say experimenting on children by exposing them to violence wouldn't go over very well pretty much anywhere...
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
that you say "Sparta failed too in the end" like they weren't over taken by another military force. Why don't you mention that the violent psychotics of Sparta lasted for over 300 years as their martial state? It isn't that I disagree with you but given any context of what Sparta was it's a completely and utterly retarded thing to say. If I wanted to make a simillarly retarded statement I would have to look at something like drinking water and imply that if you drink water you'll only live to maybe at most a 110 years (I suppose the human record is obve 120 but I also think that is disputed). Next time before you say something that sounds scholarly because it references history, or some popular movie, you comprehend the full meaning of it.
sensationalism. I am sorry, but even if 100% of the murder crime were committed by stranger (which th4ey are not, there is a good reason the husband/wife/family is suspected first), and even if 100% were committed with gun (which they are NOT), I don't think calling a 900 murder rate for a population of 55.000.000 could be called PREYING in any kind.
The fact is, as it was already discussed in Slashdot , some type of weapon LOWER the barrier to usage. For the same reason police are more readily using a taser than a baton, joe-anybody in a situation where rage/violence escalate will have a lower barrier to violence using a firearm than say, a knive or a blunt object. Any discussion ignoring that fact is doomed to be propaganda. Allowing the population at large to get firearms, don't mean that people will be able to defend themselves better, it means that John & Jane Doe which would normally not have committed a crime because knifing would have been too much for their stomach, would readily take the firearm and fire a bullet from a safe distance.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Another example of the unending stream of intelligently-designed "research" whose real purpose is social engineering.
Lemmee tell ya about Michigan.
It would seem that most people commenting here are claiming that either violent media does not generally affect people negatively, or that if it does, so what, violence is an inescapable part of nature. The argument that human beings are somehow violent by nature is just crap. Dogs will be violent hunters in the wild, or a sweet, loving companions if domesticated. Capacity is not a justification for action. Under the right circumstances we are all capable of extreme violence or saintly behavior, and, unlike any of our animal peers, we also have a conscience with which we weigh our decisions abstractly. Free will undermines any argument that violence is simply a part of us, and especially as an excusable part of male behavior. The amount of sexist bullshit that got modded up here is disgusting, and shows how little supposedly educated people have progressed. You always have the opportunity to think before you act, and no amount of rhetorical posturing can strip people of their responsibility to be decent human beings. Besides, if you really thought that violence was simply an inherent part of human nature, you should be the ones most opposed to violent images in the media! What would be worse that some inescapable part of our psyche constantly being primed to action?
Why isn't anyone referring to evidence, as opposed to boisterous claims about being tough, etc.? I understand that the jury is still out concerning direct correlations, but it would seem that if you're going to make a strong claim that violent media does not affect people adversely, you should have some evidence to back that claim up. Meanwhile, I think the billions spent each year on advertising serve as pretty good evidence that media can influence behavior. But if consumer economics isn't your cup of tea, just take a look at your favorite state sponsored propaganda campaign to see how effectively media can manipulate people. Do you really think that massive media displays did not help the Nazis start WWII, and organize the Holocaust? Or get us into Iraq right now? I don't understand how people can so easily connect the dots between these obvious causes and effects, but somehow become dumbfoundingly obtuse otherwise.
We don't know the extent to which violent media affects people, and we keep looking for direct, Columbine style, correlations between violent media and behavior. However, these are not the only factors to look for, because people forget the extend to which violence saturates our normal lives. For example, violent media could make us more passive concerning other real world violence. If you accept that the world is saturated in violence, you may find yourself less offended when your friend beats his wife, your president bombs some remote village, or your neighbor down the street gets shot. Also, how many people become so accustomed to the idea of violence that they find themselves easily gravitating towards the more violent ends of our society, such as the military or police forces? There are plenty of problems that could arise from having people nursed on video games and action movies behind the scopes of real deadly weapons in real situations. How many soldiers suffering from PTSD do you think had a legitimate understanding of violence prior to their enlistment? Furthermore, violent media tends to help legitimize these agencies existence as primary methods of solving certain problems, even when atrocities are committed. Why else would the military help fund certain action movies (the ones with the right propaganda message), and why else would police and military personnel find themselves far less likely to be prosecuted for things that would put us behind bars/in the grave? These are more dangerous consequences than generating the occasional serial killer/s, in my opinion.
I'm not sure what kind of inferences you make thinking about this but... a) How many slashdotters play video games? b) How many of them are violent? If you take a highly video-game orientet sample, should that sample not show an increased tendency to be violent?
I don't know. My experience of statistics and anything that has to do with induction is that you can never make any
conclusions about anything, ever, from it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violent_Pornography No grand price for you
http://greenobyl.com/ please.... think of the children!!
I don't know why you'd even question it. It should be fairly obvious to any reasonable human being that seeing other humans depicted doing something, and other humans participating in a game where they play out something, is going to influence you to think similarly. We do it, chimps do it, and (arguably, but again, probably not by reasonable people) every other mammal does it.
that violent games were good for my asthma. The extra adrenaline rush I get from cold-bloodedly slaying thousands of imaginary characters helps open up my airways.
Come to think of it, about 30 years ago he told my dad to smoke more cigarettes for his asthma.
Clever doc!
Do it yourself, because no one else will do it yourself. [beta blockade 10-17 Feb]
How about for once trying to approach this subject in a more mature way? It is so easy and so common to simply misinterpret something you don't like in way that makes sound like it is obviously crap, so you can just dismiss it, but that doesn't do justice to the subject, the people who have don'e actual, serious research into it, or to yourself and your own intelligence. Listening and understanding is not going to hurt, really.
This research is not saying that this or that individual will necessarily be more violent after having played a video game; but it says that there is a measurable effect on average. The article doesn't detail what research method was used, but it could be something like comparing a group of people, who play violent games with a group who don't. And of course, one might question whether the interpretation of the results is correct; but jeering stupidly is not the way, I think.
I think the reasoning behind is quite sensible: You can train your responses to situations in a simulator - this is used in many places, not least the military. So in a violent game you learn to respond with violence to certain situations; also, when you do something often enough, it becomes routine, and you feel less emotional impact from what you do. Wouldn't it be reasonable to suspect that playing violent video games might harden people against the consequences of violences to others? To most this will not be an issue, but there is a frighteningly large proportion of the normal population whose grasp on reality is not very strong - they are not very far away from a mild form of actual psychosis, one might say, and those people will be less able to distinguish between what happens in a game and what happens in reality. I don't know actual numbers, but there are more than most think. On that backkground, isn't it reasonable to research the subject of violence in the media question whether we, as a society, would not be better off there was less of it?
NOOB!
Seriously, play a game like Call of Duty and check the casualties, you wipe out more people then took part in the actuall battles.
As for WoW, I think WW2's 50 million might just get you "we won't kill you on sight" faction standing.
BUT I think there is a difference, fighting/killing by itself ain't bad. Martial art sports, even boxing can be great character builders, the "thing" is to respect your opponent and to know that you should never abuse your strength.
In games, well it all depends what you are doing it for. Carmageddon was a fun game, but for me the most fun came from the insane stunts you could pull rather then driving over people, in many ways that just got in the way.
GTA has always had a bad rep, not entirely undeserved I think, the GTA were you play a black guy had you playing a petty minded hoodlum with absolutly no redeeming qualities. One mission you killed a music producer and his girlfriend because he didn't give your friend a contract. Oh yeah, fight the good fight!
I think that might be the key, why do you play a violent game. Compare it to hunting, some people hunt for food, some people hunt because they believe it allows them to be close to nature remind themselves meat comes from animals and not the supermarket, and some hunt because they like making small animals suffer or feel the power they have from holding a big gun to shoot a duck.
The first kind I can life with, the second kind should just visit a butchershop but the third kind should not be allowed to hold a gun or even a stick.
I know plenty of regular players, but the thing is, these people also play non-violent games at times. They enjoy gaming and sometimes that game is violent. There is another group of players who seem to be unable to enjoy anything else but play violent games.
Playing manhunt doesn't worry me, if you can ONLY play manhunt and when given a copy of the sims can do nothing but set your sims on fire, perhaps you got issues.
Then again, so far there is little evidence that actuall killers are gamers. Lets face it, sitting in front of a PC/console isn't exactly building up the muscles is it. I could go out there and enact my violent tendencies and become a brutal serial rapist, but I fear that those 15yr olds would kick my ass all over town, teengirls are so mean these days.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Has anyone ever considered that some people are naturally 'bad' and others are 'good'? I know, simple question and hardly scientific, but seriously. Has anyone ever considered that people are pricks because they are pricks and the people are good because they are good people?
Who is to say that violence (not to say people can not learn to do something, just that they may be inclined)? Using a very simplistic example: In pre-school there are different types of kids, there are kids who play with the blocks by themselves and there are kids who knock those same blocks down for no particular reason. There are people who form groups and talk amongst themselves and others who prefer to be alone.
Why must we assign all behavioural actions to a singular cause??
Wow, that's just awful. This confusion of different levels of abstraction, this mixing and comparing of entirely different things.
Smoking causes actual, constant, immediate damage.
Violent games might increase the risk of violence.
That is two layers of probability inbetween. If we weren't all hyped up with potential dangers (terrorism! look! terrorists everywhere!), we'd probably notice...
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
A civilized state never threatens with violence their citizenry.
Manhandling somebody that needs to be summoned to a court of law is not violent if handled properly.
In the UK for example police do not use weapons in general, and I am pretty sure would never dream to do so to drag a tax dodger to a court. Even in some cases when a criminal is armed, violence is not the defacto response.
I think you guys have lots to learn about how violence is used or misused (I could drag Iraq into the conversation here, but I wont).
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
That is the case in the completely dysfunctional, racist, US jails.
In other countries convicted criminals still have rights and can sue the government if they are not accorded the protection they deserve while incarcerated.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Females are not attracted to violent individuals. They are attracted to powerful ones.
I will let you as homework to figure out the difference.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Most gun crime in the UK is between criminal gangs and circumscribed to well know problem areas in some towns (Mostly Manchester, Liverpool, Glasgow and London). They don't go around randomly robing and executing unsuspecting passers by.
As for your definition of growing up rapidly, well, from 0.000001% to 0.000002% is a 100% increase, which you could sensationalize it to high heavens, so go on, show us your numbers.
Anybody coming from a really violent place (US, Mexico, Southafrica, Colombia) knows that the UK is a very safe place to live.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Today, major home entertainment companies such as Microsoft, SONY, Ninetendo annouced the termination of their popular gaming consoles. These giant severely criticised by many health professionals regarding the dangerous nature of popular gaming consoles like XBOX, PS, Wii.
Over the years, many gaming fans died mainly due to the extreme stunts they engaged in possessing these consoles on the released day (i.e. Camping outside stores, not peeing to win a console).
All three giants openly disclosed their intention in focusing and investing money on the Tobacco business. They find it 'less dangerous' for the end user, which helps gamers to live a long life with good health.
That's all for today. Good Night!!!
I'm surprised to see an article that actually says exactly what the problem is. "The need for greater control on the part of parents and society." Parents need to stop being so lax with disciplining their children. A lot of the "problem people" in society right and in the near future will most likely be a result of this. Parent just not doing their job in the upbringing of their children.
Haven't anyone noticed that people who go out to kill other people after playing a video game actually have some sort of, I don't know... Mental issues? If violent games make people violent, I would be locked up some time ago.
This is actually some of the most idiotic things I have ever heard. After Microsoft claimed that Vista was 'WOW' that is...
most people on this forum are criticizing it for all the right reasons and not because it necessarily disagrees with their particular anecdotal experience killing legions of fiction people (though I'd point out that again this should provide a hint about the validity of any such study given that your average die-hard-finger-twitching-nerd has played more violent video games for more years than your average poverty-level or below-poverty level violent offender has actually been alive).
This research is not saying that this or that individual will necessarily be more violent after having played a video game; but it says that there is a measurable effect on average.
So basically you are saying that it will not necessarily be this way but on the average it is? Well fantabulous, next time you want to make it sound like you have a noncommittal adherence to a theory just shove your foot in your mouth without pressing 'submit.' In case you missed what he was actually saying, it was something a little more extreme than your interpretation;
"Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer," he said in a statement.
I'm sorry but a social scientist who says that is looking for one thing; recognition.
"The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively," said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters.
Mind you I'm not arguing that children should be force fed psychotic images and I think there's a certain level where developers should wonder if they are doing something because it is a good game or if it is just going to be the game males want to buy so they can show their friends they have this holy grail of obscenity (though I'd point out that children aren't exactly earning the kind of money that buys these games which even a little parental screening could determine are a little mature). Still this kind of polemic will only do two things: discredit social scientists doing sound case studies or causing hysteria among parents who are overly paranoid and think their child will try to knife them if they see an advertisement for the Wii.
Your argument games are violence simulators is sound on paper, given that on paper one can describe things and people can further imagine a real world example of the action, which is far removed from a square screen third person shitty graphical interpretation of a fake world that video games actually have been for the better part of this controversy. I remember Columbine and the fact that the kids played Doom was mentioned as a cause and the huge bloody arsenal of weapons was apparently just the symptom. Why? Because very few kids in America have an arsenal of weapons, but they do have their video games which were then and are now advanced violence simulators compared to the benign every day goings on of public school. Remember kids if a bully beats the crap outta but doesn't play video games he's just traditional, but if you play video games and aren't violent you're time bomb. Have you ever seen a kid try a mortal kombat move? I haven't, but I have seen kids emulate steroid pumping "wrestlers" and they seem to make it by as family entertainment (which is so beyond fucked up it borders on cancerous).
I find it funny that GTA is the poster child of violence effecting kids because if it's aping of gang culture but that vehicular manslaughter isn't in the news unless a disgruntled spouse gets a wild hair behind the wheel. Seriously you argue that a large percentage, or I'm sorry a significantly underestimated, portion of soci
That has to be the stupidest thing I have EVER heard. Ever.
You feel sleepy. Close your eyes. The opinions stated above are yours. You cannot imagine why you ever felt otherwise.
where else such a story would be tagged "correlationisnotcausation". sane people, even on teh intarwebs.
On second thought, let's not go to Camelot. It is a silly place.
The Bible and the Koran are MORE dangerous than smoking.
The whole focus on violent behavior is quite bullshit. Sure, a video game might cause or motivate some kids to behave violently. But given how widespread video games are used, this really only seems to be a very tiny minority, who would likely get their fix from something else when video games wouldn't be at hand anyway. I would like to have a little more widespread discussion on the topic. For example how do video games change the perception of war for example? After hundreds of hours with Call of Duty and similar games can a kid still tell the difference between that and real war footage? At which points does the fiction blend into the historic facts? This of course doesn't only include video games, but war movies, Fox News and all that other stuff as well, which far to often claim to be "based on historic facts", but have a very lose definition of 'based on'. Other questions could be: How do car games change your driving habits? Do unrealistic physic engine change the prediction of real world physics and stuff like that.
We really shouldn't ask "Do video games cause violence?", but approach this whole thing with an open mind and simply ask "How do video games change society, how do they change the individual?". Since no matter how you twist it, they do have some influence and it would be nice to approach and identify these influences with an open mind and not turn it into a "Lets prove video games are evil"-thing.
Fantastic, another thing you won't be able to do in a Maryland bar...
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
Research does not agree with common opinion on /. Researchers are tagged idiots. Obviously, there can't be anything wrong with violent video games as most of /. plays them and look how well adjusted a group we have here.
Studies like these are always popular because people like having something tangible to blame for their kids acting up that's not their own parenting. This study in no way demonstrates causality, (virtually no statistical study can, believe it or not) it merely demonstrates that violent videogames and violent people are attracted to each other, a correlation that could have several causes.
Actually, people who are into DBSM scenes, not just watching the stuff, tend to be less aggressive in real life. Real BDSM involves a lot of negotiation and sensitivity, because it's only fun until you cross a line that the other person doesn't want crossed. It's also a safe outlet for feelings of aggression. As a top, if I thought what I was doing to a bottom was turning them off, really hurting them, or scaring them in a way they don't like, that would be an instant turn off for me. It's only fun as long as they actually want you to pull their hair, slap them or call them a slutty little whore.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
This was not new research, it was a 'meta-study'. It looked at other research, and then says that they all agree. They do agree. There is clear correlation between real violence and media violence. The problem is they make moronic claims of CAUSATION, which NO study has EVER proven.
Yes, people that watch/play violent video TV/games are more violent.
This is because people that are more violent like to watch/play violence.
No, watching/playing does not cause the violence. It is the other way around.
Get it through your thick heads, people. correlation is not causation, and the arguement is about causation, not correlation.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
For once a post that argues insightfully and sticks to the facts. I stand corrected on many details. Good job AC!
http://www.maxineudall.com/2010/02/should-economists-be-sued-for-malpractice.html
probably the journalist do that, or pr's ....just to make their statements more sensational.
the word they always carefully leave out is.... OVEREXPOSURE
playing violent games for too long will have negative effects
just like it's true with everything
too much exercise will kill you
too much food will kill you
I am sure that if games were all colorful and full of love, they would be just as dangerous, because people would perfer them to reality. Violent games are no less or more dangerous then any other game genre. Have someone play 50 hours of tetris and you will see what will happen. Based on my research, solitaire is dangerous as well. I have found out that 95% of serial killers had solitaire installed on their computer.
I'm not a violent person, but if anyone tries to take my games away, I'll blow their M*****F****n heads off!!!
If experimenting on children by exposing them to violence is bad and wouldn't be go over very well then how did they do the original study?
I grew up when no everyone had video games, typically the bully at school never had a video game, I would say he had a predisposition towards violence before he started playing video games. He may have had a chemical imbalance or a bad home life. In the case I'm thinking of I'm pretty sure it was the second one. He would have loved to play grand theft auto when he was in school but it wasn't there. So what the original poster I believe was trying to ask is how did the study eliminate those types of children who either had some chemical imbalance, had another reason to be angry and violent, or other reasons. Was there any group of children that say live in an area where there was no video games(another country) that you could sample and see what the violence rate was in children with no video games.
I do believe if you have a problem as a child you will probably take playing video games too far. I've played cops and robbers when I was a child, that was alot more involved then a game of quake 3 arena. No parent ever thought that it was leading their children to more violence. Maybe they were wrong. But I don't understand their ethics, their methodology their sample group.
The article doesn't give any direct numbers besides how many people have consoles and TVs. The article makes a substantial claim that smoking is the only thing worse in society but at the same time doesn't give the numbers effected by violent media or smoking, or other things like cancer, which is probably worse than smoking. It says that people who tend to be exposed to violent media are more likely to be aggressive. What is their definition of aggressive? How much more aggressive did they become. This article fails to tell us any of these things.
I do believe that violent media will intensify aggressive behaviors, but I don't think it's epidemic. I would really like to read their study and see how all of my questions are answered. I'm sure almost all of them are, but articles can be misleading and half informative. Seeing the workings of a lab or a group you can see how the media thinks they understand and makes assumptions that can be half truths that are completely incorrect.
So pre-existing violent conditions they exist with chemical imbalances(excess testosterone for example which is known to cause aggression) or with other causes that create violence like abusive parents guardians or siblings.
The truth is obvious. I've been around many sets of kids and ALL of them have been influenced by their entertainment. One group of two boys and a girl watched dragon ball z. They spend 40% of their time thereafter engaging in "mock" fights. My nephew watches naruto. He spent 60% of his time trying to punch me in my back and stomoch ...
Do we change that much over the course of 20 years that entertainment has NO effect on adults. It just takes longer with us..
See, people who seem to be 'suffering' in pornography is not particularly offensive to me. People who are suffering, however, is. The problem with pornography and, more importantly, the porn industry is not that some of the depictions are dark, but that there are a lot of people (mostly young, uneducated women) who are driven to it out of a maladjustment of some sort; so called exploitative pornography. And that's not something you can sniff out just by looking at the people involved.
[Ego]out
But I donated them to charity.
Garbage in, garbage out. If you actually look at the primary literature relating videogames to violence, it is pretty much all crap. To begin with, most studies report some measure of "aggression" (and often proxy measures, at that) rather than actual violence. They are two very different things--it is good for a football player to be aggressive, not so good for him to be violent. Then there is almost never an appropriate control that produces similar levels of excitement and overall arousal--some other entertainment, such as a football game, for example, with equivalence evaluated by measurements of heart rate and blood catecholamines. So the studies tend to confound the specific effects of videogames with overall arousal. I cannot imagine that any person who did not approach the issue with a bias against video games would take this stuff seriously.
Moreover, as videogames have gotten more popular and more realistically violent, crime rates have fallen, and fallen most dramatically in the very age group that most plays videogames. That doesn't prove that videogames don't contribute to social violence, but it does prove that any pro-violence effect is insignificant compared to other social and demographic factors impacting violence.
In contrast, the statistical correlation between smoking rates and deaths from heart and lung disease is clear and obvious.
Perhaps they should have compared violent video games to alcohol abuse rather then smoking.
Every cigarette is bad for you, but that can't be right for video games. Zelda is violent, but hardly a thread to yourself or the people sitting next to you. Video games also hardly suffer from a 'second hand look' syndrome.
Alcohol is addictive. Long term use can have negative effects on your body and can lead to issues in society. Seems like those qualities have more potential as a comparison.
Education, education, education.
Given the increasing rates of obesity, I'd say the connection between sitting around playing games more and becoming more overweight is at least as important as the supposed link between games and violence.
I know this professor. I've read his research. I also have too much experience looking into his "correlations." Most of his research shows a correlation so small and minute that it can be written off entirely as coincidence- NOT causation. He uses bar graphs to show a .10 percent difference at a maginification of 1000x so the difference between 1.10 and 1.20 looks HUGE! Is this guy biased?
Please- he's spent his life's work following around the same kids from 30 years ago looking at the social causes of violence and has focused in on violent media as the one and only culprit. Now he is in the media today for doing a study on past studies from the "un-biased" researchers like Bushman, Freedman and Grossman. Huesman, like many college professors looks out entirely for #1 and media hits justifies his "research."
Everything from these researchers of media and video game violence needs to be taken with a huge grain of salt- every last paper can be ripped down by merely looking at who funded them in the first place. Video game violence is a buzz word and it is sure to get you the headlines- which is all the egotistical Huesman wants (we watched at least one interview that Huesman has granted with major news networks, or his favorite when he testified in front of the government, at least once a week in his class.)
Like my friends and I did in college, write this joke researcher off entirely and encourage others to do the same.
A) It's Roe v. Wade. The order you list people in a case is meaningful.
B) Unfortunately, when you examine countries other than the USA, that alleged cause & effect vanishes. You should know that a sample size of one is utterly meaningless, especially when it's a single example cherry-picked from a wider set of examples, most of which do not support that hypothesis at all. On the whole, the evidence is very clear: there is no meaningful link between legalized abortion and drops in the crime rate.
"Just WoW" indeed - WoW is almost as dangerous as smoking. :p
I know a couple kids who dropped out of college primarily because of WoW...
I am really late in getting to this article and not many will see this, but I found one thing REALLY interesting... Quoted from the article, "The findings, which are reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health, support earlier research which showed that children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and ****believe they are real**** are more likely to be aggressive as adults." I added the **** to highlight. This research is done around people who believe the television characters are real. I have a 7 year old, and I know for a fact he knows the difference between reality and tv shows. I suspect but don't know for 100% certain because we haven't talked about it, that my younger children understand as well. People older than age 8 who watch tv shows and think the characters on tv are real people have extreme problems of their own. At a very early age, children realize that tv shows are shows and no longer think the characters are real. Those who do not have other problems and will more than likely be part of the society who insists that the WWF is real and not staged and that part of the population has it's own problems and shouldn't be used to study and make assumptions about the affect of something on society.
Keep those Sonic the Hedgehog players away from the jewelry stores. I hear that bad things can happen.
"The findings, which are reported in the Journal of Adolescent Health, support earlier research which showed that children who watch violent television shows and who identify with the characters and believe they are real are more likely to be aggressive as adults." ^That is the key to this article. The study, in my opinion, hasn't said anything new at all. But the comparison that smoking is the only other greater danger, I don't see how they came up with that.
From what I've read previously-- consumption of violent media does not lead to violent behavior, it leads to the desire to consume more violent media-- and people who are violent tend, for the most part, not to consume violent media for one reason or another. To date, I have not read anything that suggests otherwise and that leaves me skeptical of the article.
There seems to be stigma that "well, they must be related, it's common sense, both involve 'violence'"-- no, this untrue, both being subsets of violence does not constitute cross-correlation. Somehow, people just make bad assumptions (probably because the human brain is designed to group and categorize as part of its functioning), but it leads to "it's common sense" type statements.
When it comes to video games, they are really nothing more than mental exercise, violent or no. Games are how animals in the wild learn to be adults-- same here with humans. What seems to get lost in these "harmful to us" discussion are limits and moderation. When it comes to physical exercise, you shouldn't let a child start at heavy lifting and you shouldn't let them run around all day-- limits should be set and expanded as they grow and children shouldn't be allowed to focus on any single activity for too long lest they will have trouble coping with the simplest of things when they reach adulthood. In similar fashion, you shouldn't let a child start with "inappropriate" games and shouldn't let them excessively play any game-- again, limits and moderation-- it's probably a parent's most important job in raising their children.
I will remain skeptical of the article until I begin seeing more of a volume of evidence-- as it is now, the evidence debunking the article appears strong to me and makes more sense to me as well. My daughter at age 2 knew the difference between fantasy and reality, which I've notice is quite normal-- I've also noticed that children that cannot tell the difference tend to have deep lying problems that can lead to violent behavior, but in of themselves have nothing to do with violent media. The fact that this article suggests "greater control on the part of [...] society" bothers me greatly. It suggests that society should take part in the raising of my children-- I cannot disagree more. Parents should raise their children. Society's role should be confined to holding parents responsible for their children within the normal capacity of parenting and reassigning parenting in the cases of abuse or great negligence.
I could rant on for a long time on the subject. Any, here is some interesting reading...
"Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked" by Henry Jenkins, MIT Professor: http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html
My two cents.
--Dave Romig, Jr.
It's important to carefully understand what it is we're talking about here.
1) This article is old. The study was published in 2006.
2) This is NOT a study but a META-study that compiles results from lots of previous studies. This is very important. Long experience has taught me that META-studies tend to heavily reflect selection bias in the experimenter because they only select the studies that reach the conclusions they want. Experimenters also often present a false sense of accuracy about the studies because they only report their conclusions, not the methodology or it's flaws. Of course they're referenced, but journalists rarely bother to check the references (or even read the study).
3) Huesmann and Bushman have based their entire careers on the study of aggression. They have shown very consistent results in their studies that clash (very consistently) with the results of other researchers.
4) Their methodology is based on a very subjective definition of "aggression". For example, they consider an argument (ANY argument) with a spouse as "aggression". Everything is self-reported, so the subjects can easily inject their own bias. There is selection bias by the experimenters as to what counts as "violent media". By their criteria, essentially ALL media is "violent media". If you define all media as "violent" and all behavior as "aggression", it's pretty easy to draw a correlation between "violent media" and "aggression.
5) Studies that are based on more objective criteria, like violent crime convictions, show that there is NO correlation between media exposure and violence. They ALWAYS show that violence is closely associated with the family environment, NOT media. This is why researchers like Huesman and Bushman shy away from more objective criteria.
In other news, not all relationships are male/female, not every woman wants children, there are chicks who play Halo (or even read Slashdot), and I'm engaged to a man who loves Beautiful Katamari. If humans ever had an instinct as powerful and universal as what you're describing (i.e., that it dictates all of our actions despite our ability to make conscious decisions), we evolved out of it centuries ago.
Unfortunately, when people believe that they are supported by "instinct" or some other biological process, it's a lot easier for them to justify weird ideas about human behavior, like attempting to draw a causal relationship between violent video games and violent actions. Or promoting the idea that all women must act a certain way because it is programmed in their genes to do so.
...that numbers are like PoWs: beat them up enough and they'll tell you anything you want to hear. Kinda like the research on "global warming." Or how they're changing the basis by which they name tropical storms and then trying to insert extrapolations based on the new data into charts combined with old data. /sigh
Whatever happened to Ye Olde Scientific Method?