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Video Games Linked To Child Aggression
the4thdimension writes "CNN is running a story this morning that explains new research showing a correlation between video games and aggression in children. The study monitored groups of US and Japanese children, asking them to rate their violent behavior over a period of several months while they played video games in their free time. The study concludes that it has 'pretty good evidence' that there is a link between video games and childhood aggression." Stories like this make me want to smash things.
What's wrong with parents these days?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I don't get why they keep beating this horse...
I played violent games all my life, I haven't killed or hurt anyone.
I will agree that sure if that's all kids see and they don't get any parental direction, then sure.
Kids do copy what they see, but a 6 year old kid shouldn't be playing GTA 3. Then again it depends on the kid.
It's just not something you can put to statistics.
Der Tod ist der einzige Weg hier raus!
But all video games can bring out the worst in me.. even playing monopoly online :). When someone routinely lands on the luxury tax square instead of my hotels on Boardwalk and Park Place.. I start dropping F-bombs like they are going out of style! I've been known to throw a pen accross the room also...
;)
Maybe I should seek help
"Action without philosophy is a lethal weapon; philosophy without action is worthless."
...so that I don't have to be violet
I'm more a fan of the blues myself.
So the only aggression I have is this unexplainable urge to jump on people's heads and punch bricks.
As a parent of a five year-old and a nearly ten year-old, I find that a lack of activity and too-quick transitions tend to lead to aggression. When my son has been playing video games for longer than normal and we immediately yank him off, it causes frustration and acting out. If he's been active that day and we give him warnings that his time is coming to an end, things seem to go more smoothly.
Good parenting is more than a series of yes/no decisions.
Video games are violent, per the majority. For most, the point of a game is to kill other people. I'm an avid game player of Xbox and Wii, and my four year old has his games that he plays (Simpsons, The Bee Movie game, Kung Fu Panda). Last year we noticed that when I was playing Zelda on the Wii, he loved to mimic my actions. He started collecting "swords" and "shields" out of anything at hand and would play fight. Every now and then we watched me play Lost Odyssey, where the characters run up to the mob, attack, and run back (and that's how he named the game - "the one where you run up and hit the bad guy and run back"). When I fought, he would orchestrate himself fighting our chair with a sword.
Even when the game is over and unplayed for months, he would still act out those movements. Is he aggressive? He's a child, and he does have aggressive tendencies like all other boys. The point of this article: can it be pinned on the games? I doubt it. Just as young boys are attracted to guns, army guys, and fighting, he is attracted to games that have him fighting people - even if it's just jumping on their heads.
Correlation doesn't imply causation, IMO.
Then again, I think there are many parents out there who expect their kids to be little adults. They want them to shut up, sit down, be quiet, and follow strict rules. And, when the kids act like kids, the parents stretch for something to blame for them being "unruly". When ritalin isn't helping, let's blame the video games. IMO
The results are consistent with my own experience. When my older son was younger, I provided him with access to an NES emulator so that he could play the old Nintendo games I had sitting in the closet. (I was missing cabling and didn't find them until later.) What we noticed is that if he was allowed to play video games for too long, he became a) lazy about doing anything else and b) very temperamental and difficult to deal with.
About that time my wife instituted a time-limit for games each day that my son could spend at any time during the day. when he wasn't playing games, he was required to find some other activity to do. (e.g. play with Duplos, ask to go to the park, etc.) This change was very effective in smoothing out his behavior.
The problem does not appear to be the violence in video games as Mr. Thompson, no longer esquire, would have you believe. The problem appears to be that playing games for a long period of time results in a lot of pent-up energy. That energy is tempered by a reduced desire to perform any task besides play video games. In result, the energy ends up expended via a behavior route.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
First, correlation is not causation.
Second, aggression is not violence.
Third, this applies to all violent media exposure, not just video games.
Fourth, we have known about these links for more than a decade.
They're using their grammar skills there.
I've always believed that violent games cause agression in children. No doubt about it. Hell, I can tell that I'm more agressive after a marathon of gaming violence.
The problem is that these kids aren't taught what to do with that agression, and so they bring it out into the real world. Kids need to be taught that, in real life, hurting someone and looting their stuff isn't okay.
And parents and teachers are, more and more, not doing that.
Having a couple of young boys myself, I have observed that, for instance, watching a fast moving exciting film can make them over-excited quite easily. It's not really aggression, it's just that kids have much greater and more readily available energy than adults. Unfortunately these days adults often mistake this for a defect in their child.
The correct response is of course to fight back! There is nothing little boys like better than pretend fighting, and they tire very quickly.
But that does not mean there is not a problem here.
My mom has taught 1st graders for ~20 years. Back when Power Rangers used to be the shit, she would talk about how these kids would get all riled up playing Power Rangers during recess. When they got back into class, they were still all keyed up from their "fighting" between each other and would always get in trouble.
Does this mean Power Rangers causes violence in children? Of course not. But it does remind us that children can be excitable and impressionable, get caught up in the games they play, and sometimes don't realize when it's time to stop, or take the game too far. What they are doing before they exhibit this behavior is really immaterial: they might do this with a video game, a movie they see, a cartoon, or a couple of sticks they find in the gutter and play "sword fighting" with.
You have to set limits for children. Limit their diet of video games, TV, and other media, and let them know when their behavior related to this media consumption becomes unacceptable. Parenting 101.
Next door there are two teenage boys with a younger sister, she is mad for High School Musical and they like rock. So far we've had raised shouting, a TV being ripped for the wall and one son actually throwing himself out of a window (no injuries) to get away from the music.
Now you could say that they are just being older brothers and mocking their sister's taste, but I say its proof that High School Musical causes violence in teens and so should therefore be banned.
Some would further say that this is evidence of "appropriate" for groups and how the horror movies that the boys watch aren't appropriate for their younger sister while HSM is not appropriate for the boys. You'd almost think some sort of certification should be placed on movies and games to give an idea of what is appropriate (Harry Potter - both sexes and aged 7 to adult, HSM - girls between the ages of 7 and 11).
An Eye for an Eye will make the whole world blind - Gandhi
I thought Jack Thompson was disbarred? Why are we still hearing about this crap?
Could you clarify this distinction you make between the passive aggression of listening to pantera and active aggression that video games 'are'?
Does this mean passively watching violent movies is also passive aggression? And killing a mosquito is active aggression?
It sounds more like personal preference to me, clad in nice sounding terms.
It's been shown in many sound social psychological studies over decades that in children there is a strong correlation between watching violent tv and aggressive behavior, between playing violent video-games and aggressive behavior and between listening to aggressive music and aggressive behavior.
Go google (google scolar) yourself or look it up on wikipedia.
--There has never been any study proving a causal relationship between these (with behavior being the dependent factor) where the effect lasts for more than a few minutes. --
The catharsis theory ("I go to martial arts school so I don't have to be violent at home", "I listen to pantera once I'm at home so I can be more calm when I'm at work") is a Freudian theory disproved ages ago as well. I'm sure people can peruse the relevant social and personality psychology literature themselves on this. (journal of personality and social psychology, etc. )
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That I feel like punching children.
I have three kids. Boys.
Yes, violent cartoons and video games cause aggression.
Let your kids watch He Man, Popeye, Halo, etc. Games or videos. Children mimic what they see. Bottom line.
It's like, DUH. If a child grows up watching his Daddy beat his Mommy because she talks to much, said child will grow up to beat his wife for talking too much, as well.
Little common sense here. Children are a product of their environment. Give them a loving environment, and they grow up loving (in general, and the facts are there to back this up, and any parent worth a shit can attest to this)... Let them grow up with parents that hate, don't give a shit, or whatever, and that's the way the kids will grow up.
I let my 3 and 4 yr old watch Kung Foo Panda a couple months ago. THAT was a great movie. And my kids, for about a week, thought Kung Foo on each other was A-OK.
--Toll_Free
First is imitation; children who watch violence in the media can internalize the message that the world is a hostile place, he explains, and that acting aggressively is an OK way to deal with it.
That's because the world is a hostile place.
When I was about 10 years old the first gulf war was going on and even though I was a NES addict, the war(especially the fact that we were the "good guys") inspired my violent thoughts. I remember drawing pictures of shit blowing up under titles like "Kill Saddam Hussein" etc.
I'm fortunate in that I could have grown up with seeing 9/11 and living in fear of imaginary terrorist bogeymen without having the experience and the maturity to see through it. The fear tactics of public service commercials during the Reagan era were bad enough.
Games for me were a method to blow off steam, not store it until my head 'sploded!
Think about hit, pop little Susie on the butt for mouthing off to you at home and she tells her teacher. Well the law requires the teacher to report any hints of abuse and next thing you know child services is at your door.
take my friend's day care experience, no more time out, no more quiet area, and no more telling kids they are "bad", anymore as that hurts their self-esteem. So what happens? They call the parents EVERY TIME the kid acts up. Now it is suddenly the parent's problem if the kid acts up as the care center will no longer discipline. So when the kid won't behave the parents are told to not bring them back etc yet the center doesn't put any bounds on the kids and wonder why.
The problem is that we are a knee jerk reaction society. People cannot yell, spank, or otherwise discipline their children in public places because some do gooder will freak out and claim its abuse. They lose the ability at home because what many may perceive as mild punishment is child abuse to some fanatic with the backing of government. The news is replete with stories of the government agency overreacts, fails to protect children it places, and more, yet parents don't stand a chance against a group who can use police powers to take your children let alone put you in jail.
When people started relying on others to discipline kids and took the rights of their parents and even schools to set bounds it removed any inhibition. There is a natural reaction to being punishment when it comes to children, they learn where the threshold and correct the behavior to stay on the nice side.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
because before video games existed, mankind was pastoral and peaceful. in fact, if you go back to the days of the romans, when violent media meant crude stick figure drawings on a wall, everyone was loving and logical and reasonable and bountiful with good intent and no desire to to be aggressive
(rolls eyes)
humanity is in its essence violent and sexual. don't believe me? go look at a bunch of 3 year olds for 5 minutes. you tell me that they are acting the way they do because of media with a straight face. humans are not some pure vessels who are corrupted by outside forces. humans are born corrupt (where corrupt=possessing violent and sexual tendencies that are not socially appropiate). violent and sexual media, for psychologically well-adjusted people, is simply a way to jettison bad tendencies we all possess in asocial and harmless and therefore appropriate ways. where do these tendencies get jettisoned if that "bad" media did not exist?
if someone acts violent, it is because of that person's own failures, or their parents, not some media somewhere. if you, dear social conservatives, want to refute this notion, then kindly relinquish any intellectual honesty you might think you have when talking about the concept of personal responsibility. because the position of blame the individual, not the media, is the essence of personal responsibility: if i do something bad, i am accountable for it, no one else. meanwhile, attempts to blame outside influences, "bad" media, is simply a lame attempt to avoid responsibility
so dear social conservatives:
1. blame the media,
2. or continue talking about personal responsibility with a straight face
but you can't do both at the same time
in fact, the truth is, modern civilization's advances in media: movies, video games, etc., has served as a way to harmlessly express violent and sexual nature inherent in us, not amplify or create that which wasn't already there. that which is released harmlessly on a computer keyboard is that which is not expressed in a real world situation. the modern world we live in, while still containing violent and inappropriate sexual behavior (and always will, as long as you are talking about human beings) is far more peaceful than the days of the romans, or the middle ages, or even 100 years ago. you can't get rid of our tendencies, but you can minimize them, by providing avenues for harmless catharsis, with violent and sexual media
all studies to the contrary are pure propaganda or are fundamentally flawed
want a more peaceful world with less rape? more porn, more violent media. i absolutely believe that
there is no such thing as a psychologically balanced individual who can't tell the difference between violent/hypersexual media and the real world. actually, there ARE in fact individuals who can't tell the difference. such individuals are alrerady organically psychologically damaged or raised horribly wrong by awful parents. and if they had never encountered any violent or sexual media, they would still commit trangressions. they just wouldn't have anything to blame and they wouldn't have a ready audience in social conservatives who don't want to accept violent and sexual essential human nature out of some cotton candy idealism, and who willingly embrace the ridiculous attempt by criminals to avoid responsibility and blame the devil, the media
bullshit
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't understand why people waste money and time doing these kinds of studies. Invariably they depend upon untested, questionable assumptions, such as equating "aggressive" play with violence. And it is all directed toward solving a problem that doesn't exist, because the violence statistics have consistently shown that as games have gotten more realistic and more violent, real-world violence has steadily decreased. In fact, it has decreased most precipitously in the very demographic that is the biggest consumers of videogames. Now of course, this doesn't prove that games don't make people aggressive, or even violent. What it does prove is that the violence-inducing effect of video games, if any, is so small that it is swamped by other social and demographic factors that influence violence.
Where are you from? I'd love to see streets with full-length railings as opposed to the present system here in the Chicago area, which is to install speed bumps so that anyone who dares to drive anything close to the speed limit is guaranteed to destroy the underside of their car. Sure, I could drive in more main travel routes but, then again, horrible traffic congestion if the reason I'm driving on the back-roads in the first place. Of course, speed bumps aren't uncommon in other parts of the country, but around here they don't like those pesky large yellow diamond signs or the yellow stripes on the bump itself (I'm assuming that they're scared it'll drop property values). Instead they don't bother with the sign and use white paint to draw the stripes on the bump. So, when you're driving down a residential street with the light streaming between the leaves, the white lines on the speed bumps turns into a pseudo-camouflage and, again, you end up driving over the speed bump at (heaven forbid) the speed limit.
Basically, parents are, almost by definition, selfish. They think that everyone else around them should make concessions because they decided to procreate and don't want to have to be responsible for parenting or, in the case of parents taking screaming babies to movies, restaurants, etc., miss out on things they got to do when they didn't have kids. Heaven forbid you tell them that roads exist for cars to drive on and, if they want a place for little Jimmy and Janey to play then they need to get off their asses and take them to a park (in a city, in the suburbs/country they have larger lawns). We're dealing with people who, because of choices they made are likely to be suffering from lack of sleep and exhaustion so they are, by the nature of their position, less likely to be competent to make decisions regarding public policy.
This attitude flows into the world of retail as well. Not only don't parents want to be responsible for controlling their children's' access to money (then they'd have to listen to the kids whine and, right now, they can use the money to shut them up for a bit), but they don't even want to be bothered researching what kinds of items they directly buy for their kids. If parents were, in any way, reasonable about this issue, then there wouldn't be a problem anymore as we already have a clearly designed labeling system for the maturity of content in games.
The problem is, as far as everything I've ever seen, there is no evidence that strongly supports this. Everything is hearsay and garbage studies. Why does it "probably have an effect"? I think that almost everyone who thinks that way does so because society tells him or her so. It's a self-serving cycle with no, actual, evidence to support it. We've been fed this false premise for decades or longer and most people believe it, to some extent, because it is a form of group-think. Before we do anything that impedes the rights of the game developers or retailers we should require hard evidence. Anything less from people like lazy parents, politicians, or conservative activists should be met with a healthy STFU.
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Wow, that's insightful on slashdot? When we see a study that gabs a small number of children and shows demonstrative effects, we point as the pool or sample size and cry foul but when one individual somehow analyzes his own actions against what he thinks they would have been if he hadn't taken a certain action, well that settles it.
Where to begin?
One does not make a valid sample.
How do you know what you would have been like if you hadn't been listening to said violent music?
What makes you think this is short term reaction thing only? In other words, might you me more violent all the time as a result of your listening habits?
How do we know you self diagnosis is accurate?
How do we know you are telling the truth?
As usual it isn't the quality of the argument on slashdot that gets the mod-ups, it's hearing what we want. I wonder if we vote that way too.
Oh, this isn't a criticism of the original poster. I think I have made these arguments to when I was younger but I have come to realize that the world is a much bigger place made up of people very different from me. I have also come to realize my actions are not viewed by others as I view them myself.
Slavery has been successful for thousands of years, doesn't mean it's the right thing to do.
As for comparing your child to a puppy, if it's a pet you wanted maybe a child was not the best choice.
Even before I read the story I suspected that Anderson was involved.
Anderson has never done a study where he didn't find that something caused aggression. He sees aggression everywhere.
The problem with this? At least in the papers of his that I have read (and it is hard to read them all because his name gets put on a lot of papers as co-researcher) he has never defined what he means by "aggression." The closest I have ever seen him define the term is in a table in one article where he gives examples of aggression. One of those examples was, "raising one's voice."
Now I'm no psychologist but I think that there is a big difference between yelling and physically hurting someone.
http://www.popularculturegaming.com -- my blog about the culture of videogame players
>Violet is ok, it's that ultra-violet music you want to keep away from your eyes and skin.
All things in moderation. Micheal Jackson would have benefited from some exposure to ultra-violet music.
In the words of Hank Venture, "I defy you to make less sense."
Let's parse this, Kurt Vonnegut isn't Anthony Burgess, the person who actually wrote A Clockwork Orange.
The plot of A Clockwork Orange has nothing to do with the idea that you've expressed here, "an overdose of violence makes non-aggressive." That's just completely wrong. I have to believe that you are completely ignorant of the subject matter here.
As to the rest of the post, my reaction is "Huh?"
"MIT betrayed all of its basic principles."
I grew up playing the Atari 2400. Lots of the games we played contained violence and I have to say that I have been personally scarred by that. To this day, my anger flares and I have to try very hard not to go into a berserker rage whenever a brightly colored blob shoots a colored square at me. Luckily, I haven't had too many run-ins with such blobs, but as I get older and my eyesight worsens (from hours spent in front of a TV playing these games) I'm afraid that the world is getting 'blobbier' by the year and this may cause me to eventually lash out at anything within reach. This is an issue that is little addressed, but should be as the generation growing up on Atari games grows older for the sake of all the pixelated blobs out there.