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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."
... but that last part sounded like they were saying "Our opinion matters more because we just don't give a fuck."
This article is preaching to the choir - it is a great interview - sounds like a the begin of a crushing blow to the likes of JackT - too bad the only the people who will pay any attention to this are those who don't have a preset agenda. As good as it is, I don't think this will fix anything. There is too much power & money at stake to FUD on games.
This book makes me so ANGRY!!! I just want to launch a plasma grenade at this 'doctor'!!!!!!
But seriously, folks, it's about damn time someone stepped up to the 'personal responsibility' plate and didn't get hit in the head by the ball (man, I pwn'd that metaphor). I grew up in the age of violent video games, as did most people here... come on, this website's name involves SLASHING people. My favorite movies growing up were Beverly Hills Cop and Aliens (I was all of six years old for those), and not once did I feel the urge to be more violent, or to shoot anyone. I thought "Wow, those movies are an awesome escape from boring reality. I'm gonna go read some Calvin & Hobbes now, maybe eat a cookie."
Yes, this is anecdotal, but if ten million people have (and apparently do) have similar anecdotal stories, that adds up, and this book is just the long-overdue sober second look at a popular, convenient myth.
PS: Jack Thompson needs to be clubbed with this book.
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
From TFA: "Our survey involved over 1200 kids in two states"
I am not versed in acceptable survey sampling standards, but given the 100's of 1000's (if not millions) of gamer-kids all across the country, this seems small to me. Just an uneducated observation....
I judt got a nre Kinesis keybiartf so please excusr ant egregiou typos.
People are always concerned about what the effects of playing violent video games might be, but nobody seems to question whether there are any undesirable effects of programming these games. I imagine that a programmer, stressing out to meet the game's shipping deadline in the face of a show-stopping heisenbug somewhere in the code, might be more inclined to do something violent during a particularly frustrating midnight debugging session, such as take the computer up to the roof of his company's 12-story office building and then drop it to the ground whilst yelling profanities at the top of his lungs.
I think there should be a law that people have to pass a background check before being allowed to program violent video games.
When it comes to self-selected behavior like what movies people see, what games they play, what drugs they partake of, etc., it is very difficult to determine cause and effect.
If people who watch R-rated games tend to be more violent than those who don't, are the movies making them more violent than they otherwise would have been? Maybe, but determining a "yes" or "no" answer is far from easy and far from certain.
Knowledge is how to play a game, intelligence is how to win, wisdom is knowing what game to play.
That gives lazy politicians something to do! Lets save our children from the violent video games! Instead of, oh, I dunno, managing tax reform, social problems, basically stuff you were elected to do.
Violent media has been around since the dawn of time, in the form of TV, books, sports etc etc etc. Its not going anywhere, kids, so don't worry about it. Wherever there is a market, the product will get served.
Hi, I Boris. Hear fix bear, yes?
"Trust me" says the Anonymous Coward pointing to hypothetical results of an unnamed study that may or may not even exist.
"Sure," says I, "When I get bacon delivered through my second-story window fresh off the flying pig."
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
When I got stabbed, I didn't stab back.
When I got dumped several times, I didn't lash out.
When I got fired because someone ELSE was stealing money, I didn't even raise my voice.
When I got hit by a car, I didn't get angry.
Tell me again what my 'emotional brain' is learning?
I like to place meaningful quotes in my sig, so people will know that I know what meaningful quotes are.
No mater how hard someone doing a study tries, there will be some bias and it may be completely unexpected.
That's OK. that's why studies are done open, done many times, and looked at.
Certainly who sponsored the study is something to look at, but it doesn't automatically mean the study is flawed. It's especially important when a study goes against previous studies.
So stop with the 'study is biased ' crap. Of course it is. Look at the result and see if it skewed the data, or id the study used bad techniques.
For the topic at hand, It is clear that violent games have a short term effect.
Adrenalin, acting out violent behaviors are all common to some degree.
It will go on for as long as the adrenalin is their system, and/or until it stops being funny.
I think there can be a point where the game can cause problems. We're not there it technologically, but it doesn't mean we won't cross the threshold.
If someone had a holodeck, could playing war games cause someone to be shell shock? desensitize someone to violence? I don't know and i hope not. That doesn't mean we shouldn't study it.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I object to your objection :)
Between space invaders and today's 3d there has been the time where blood could be drawn but mostly wasn't. Designers weren't using random color as soon as xevious, around '82. Drawing blood was technically possible and in topic in commando or green beret. And it would have impressed people, because we were impressed by VG graphics. We were impressed by marble madness fake 3d, or pole position fast sprites. Also, Video games were politically incorrect at least with leisure suit larry. It's not a matter of "we would have done it if we could".
Do VG mirror society or influence it? I guess it's kind of a feedback loop.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
Not quite. Big surprise to hear of a gross generalization on slashdot. Let me set you straight. As soon as we move the games to being life-like then people object. 3D and a bit of blood does not make a game life-like but those are properties of a life-like game. And maybe it's just my perception but we seem to have moved away from using aliens as targets and use humans more often in video games. All those different games based on war come to mind (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and Metal Gear series). Using humans as targets intead of non-existent aliens brings the experience of the game that much closer to real life.
Of course, most children know it isn't right to shoot humans in real life but not all seem to realize that. Those who do I think are just brought up that way to not care about human life and video games are just another way to lash out at society and serve to only practice their shooting spree plans. Banning video games isn't the answer to that situation just like banning cars isn't the solution for minority of the population who drink a lot and on occasion decide to drink and drive and kill people.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
This is going to be one of those really unpopular posts where I get modded to hell, so I'll just say what I need to and get out.
Maybe ten years ago, I read On Killing, written by a psych professor at Westpoint, the U.S. Army Academy. The book was not about video games: it was a study of how the U.S. Army had successfully changed its effective fire ratio from 10% in WWII to over 90% in the Vietnam war, and how those 80% who got psychologically "tricked" into killing people they weren't prepared to kill were the ones who got extremely ill after the war. These people were trained to easily go past the non-violence barrier that most people have.
There is, however, a short chapter near the end of the book where he warns that the elements FPS games are functionally equivalent to the training methods the Army used,teaching players to go across that barrier, too.
Whether you agree or disagree, he still knew a lot about war and psychology.
Put identity in the browser.
There are no tiger attacks in my area and it's all because this rock I'm holding keeps the tigers away.
Look, I love video games. I've been playing them for years. COD is currently my favorite addiction.
Today, video games look pretty much like video games. You can tell you are not watching something real, though single-player COD is getting pretty photo-realistic. Flying bodies, spurting blood. But it's still cartoonish. Cartoonish enough that you know it's a game.
What happens when the game becomes indistinguishable from reality? When it becomes photo-realistic? We know that people can become desensitized to stimuli by constant exposure.
If we had games that simulated warfare like, say, a "holodeck", would there be any debate as to the harmful effects it would have on the psyche of the players? Would we not see traumatic stress issues?
If you agree that we would see such problems with hyper-realistic games, then I think it is reasonable to debate and discuss what happens as we approach that level of realism. At what point does the game become realistic enough to start being harmful?
A work that expires before its copyright never enters the public domain and thus enjoys eternal copyright protection.
* Do you believe in the killing of unborn children?
* Do you believe you have the right to tell a women whos been raped that she has to carry to term the resulting fetus?
There are lots of unborn children who are not being carried by rape victims.
The whole problem with the 'abortion debate' is that the extreme participants argue under the assumption that if you are not universally pro-life, you must be pro-abortion, and if you are not universally pro-choice, you must be pro-government-control of bodies.
That's not the way reasonable people think.
I think abortion is bad *AND* I think the government telling a woman what to do with her body is bad.
On top of that, I realize that not all abortions are equally bad - aborting a one-cell fetus is not even in the same realm of bad as aborting a 38-week-old fetus. And telling a woman who is pregnant as a result of sex she agreed to have that she can't have an abortion is not as bad as telling a woman who never consented to the sex that led to pregnancy that she can't have an abortion.
Now, there is going to be a lot of variance in where most reasonable people decide the 'badness' of allowing women to choose to abort their pregnancies is less bad than forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. Most reasonable people are going to agree that the death of non-differentiated fetuses is a very small amount of bad. And most reasonable people are going to agree that the death of a fetus that is, but for a few inches of position, about to be a live birth as extremely bad. So most REASONABLE people support *BOTH* abortion *AND* limits on choice.
6 weeks pregnant because you were raped? Abort if you want.
38 weeks pregnant because you were raped? Sorry, too late.
A debate about whether abortion is OK or not is stupid. A debate about government intervention in a woman's choice is stupid. There is no debate - both are bad. The debate needs to be about at what point a woman's control of her body is outweighed by the interests of the fetus.
So back to your original questions:
#1) Sometimes.
#2) Sometimes.
paintball