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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
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.
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".
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
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
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.
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).
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?
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...
What the fuck does that have to do with anything? Most of the victims of those genocides weren't helped by front and side airbags, either.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Freakonomics explained in perfectly using a mere three words:
Wade vs Roe
A slice of society that was parenting kids more of which grew into crime than of other slices was SUDDENLY given an out on unwanted pregnancies. 15-20 years later, crime SUDDENLY drops.
Less unprepared mothers went through with their pregnancies.
A good chunk of the next generation that was responsible for crime was never born.
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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'