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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."
this article makes me so mad at the biased video game researchers. i need to go down to my local ammunation, get strapped, and start taking them fools out.
Yes, but that's a good thing--because if they don't have a stake in the results, they don't have a conflict of interest, and thus their results will be more trustworthy.
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
More trustworthy than results put forth by a group sponsored by a video game producer or one sponsored by an anti-video-game group.
So more trustworthy for you to consider.
It's one of the things you really want to look for when folks start flinging studies around: who do they work for? Would you trust as accurate a study funded my Microsoft that says that 5 of 6 dentists prefer to use Windows, or would you be more likely to trust as accurate a study funded by some independent group?
In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure dome decree
I object to saying that video games are getting more violent. Think of say, Space Invaders, the concept was simple: Shoot Aliens. However with better graphics such as Quake with the same objective the game suddenly becomes violent. Technology has evolved and what people mostly say is they don't object to bad graphics aliens being shot but as soon as we move it to 3-D and add a bit of blood rather then just random colors it now is violent.
There is no "disagree" moderation, and troll, flamebait and overrated are not valid substitutes
You really aren't versed in survey sampling standards, most surveys only involve a couple hundred people, if that. The way surveys work is you use a small number of people but you statistically balance the people involved based on catagories (they call these demographics). For example, if 40% of kids who play video games are between the ages of 6 and 10, white, and come from middle class families, then 40 out of 100 kids in the study need to be between the ages of 6 and 10, white, and come from middle class families. Depending on how accurate you wanted to go, if you have accurate demographics to start with you could get decent results using 100 kids in a single town, but that would be very very hard to do, and hard to verify your results. It's not 1200 that should worry you for accuracy, that's actually a pretty large number; it's the two states part. It seems to me they may not be taking region of the country into account for this, which might be a factor or might not.
Security is mostly a superstition... Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. - Helen Keller
"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
I had a friend who was running for a local political office.
He got various questionnaires from the various political parties.
This is the same question on both parties questionnaires, but notice the difference in how its worded -
* 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?
You don't think that the questions they ask about violence in video games might be just a little skewed?
"Personal responsibility" is a code-word for a refusal to look at contributory factors.
But how come it's only ever the "unpopular things" that are questionned as to whether they affect behaviour - fictional violence, video games, rock music, Marilyn Manson, porn?
No one questions the violence in religious texts when it turns out a murderer was obsessed with the Bible or killed someone because "God says so". Unless they're a pagan or satanist, in which case, it's back to the "unpopular things" which must be banned again.
I've nothing against providing parents with information, but note that people do use these claims to ban things, even for adults. I think "personal responsibility" is a valid response when the claim put forward is that media alone can turn people into violent criminals.
They don't have an agenda
Are you sure? Because when I googled for "Cheryl K. Olson," the first hit I got showed that she is on the payroll of Big Tobacco. She has also been a "strategic communications consultant" for Big Pharmaceutical and Big Media. I haven't found anything (yet) to indicate that she's on the gaming industry's payroll, but her history reads like that of a professional shill, not a dispassionate scientist.
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.
* 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