New Book Cuts Through Violent Video Game Myths

Terry Bosky suggests a recent interview from Game Couch with one of the authors of an upcoming book which fights the "myths and hysteria" surrounding violent video games. Dr. Cheryl K. Olson explains how many of the studies linking aggression with video games were flawed or misguided, and she discusses some of her own findings. Quoting: "Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It's debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction. Also, the most-published researchers have built their careers around media violence. Their studies were designed under the assumption that violent video games are harmful, which dictated the questions they asked and how they framed their results. Media violence is just a small part of what we do, so we could look at the issue with fresh eyes and no agenda."

Comments

Re:WHAT - conscious vs emotional urges

[pg--az]

[[ not once did I feel the urge to be more violent ]] I was thinning my old books recently, and just could not throw out "The Anatomy of Motive" by John Douglas, one of the first FBI "profilers". A lot of the insights mention something like 'precipitating stressor'. The deep point is that we ALL have the ancient emotional brain in addition to our sophisticated fore-brains - the emotional brain functions much more primitively, and via the so-called "Amygdala Hijack" our brains are so architected that the ancient emotional brain is SUPPOSED to TAKE CONTROL when we *FEEL* threatened. So the question is not about your urges during normal everyday life. The question is, what will be your instinctive response should be in the case that whatever the foundations-of-your-security may be, they are THREATENED. Say by job loss or someone steals your sex partner. The idea is that your EMOTIONAL brain is learning, that the appropriate response is to just go out and shoot the threatening person.

Re:who cares?

[palegray.net]

It terrifies you that people recognize a fact? Being scared of the implications of facts is one thing; being afraid of the truth is quite another.