Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive"

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the subjective-research-is-now-conclusive dept.

Killer Orca is one of many to tell us about a new study on the effects of violent video games on kids. The latest meta-study that analyzed research from 130 different reports claims to have "conclusively proven" that violent video games make more aggressive, less caring kids. "The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature -- to test the effects of violent video game play on the behaviors, thoughts, and feelings of the individuals, ranging from elementary school-aged children to college undergraduates. [...] Anderson says the new study may be his last meta-analysis on violent video games because of its definitive findings."

53 of 587 comments (clear)

  1. As always... by Pojut · · Score: 5, Insightful

    As always, whenever this topic comes up, here are my thoughts on it:

    http://livingwithanerd.com/violence-in-videogames/

    Excerpt:

    You have to allow the little monster to come out every now and then and release its frustrations. If you don't, you risk becoming a quivering mass of nervous and dangerous flesh. What better place to do this than in a simulated environment with simulated violence where the only things harmed are your eyes for staring at the screen?

    --
    Living With a Nerd
    1. Re:As always... by Andy+Dodd · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The way I've always described the effect of violent video games:

      Digital punching bag. At least for me and some of my friends, the stress release of violent video games made us LESS violent in school.

      --
      retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
    2. Re:As always... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

      Or you, like many others, can keep you mouth shut when you don't know about the topic you are speaking. Just think to yourself "If I post this, how much does it prove I am a moron/asshole/useless talking head?" and then go out and walk in traffic...slowly.

    3. Re:As always... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I love how all of these studies overlook the fact that so many parents use video games, like television, as a baby-sitter. Kids who's parents neglect them and allow them to spend all their time alone are bound to end up mal-adjusted. The fact that the kids choose to play violent video games is just a product of the situation and not the root cause. But of course ... it's never popular to release a study saying "bad parents raise violent kids" ... so much easier to have a scapegoat.

    4. Re:As always... by Moryath · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Sigh.

      Another day, another "lies, damn lies, and statistics" bullshit study.

      Psychology provides interesting insights. There are people who become "desensitized", but they're a pretty small minority. There are people who get more aggressive temporarily after a "violent" game (this includes contact sports, "violent" video games, watching a slasher flick, watching UFC, or anything of the sort), calm down for a half hour, and are much calmer than they were before watching. There are people who can watch the most violent stuff on the planet entirely dispassionately, discussing whether a boxer is holding his hands too high or low, telegraphing his moves or not... there are people who discuss the "ring psychology" of pro wrestling, the way that the actors play to the crowd to get a response.

      At the end of the day, violent games or violent media cause those who are predisposed to go nutso anyways to find something to fixate on. If they didn't have violent video games, they might go play football. Or full contact street basketball. Or get involved in the underground "street fighting" circuit. Or become UFC devotees. And a few of them will go nuts.

      The media's also going crazy popping stories about how that raving lunatic professor who shot up her campus was a "fan" of Dungeons & Dragons. Oddly enough, if you compare the statistics of the playerbase to the population at large, D&D fans are LESS likely to go raving nuts and shoot someplace up or get into bloody fistfights, but that little statistic never makes the news because it's not sensationalist.

    5. Re:As always... by Moryath · · Score: 4, Insightful

      If they are predisposed to go nutso when exposed to violent video games, they are predisposed to go nutso. Period. They would go nutso if they had moved out to the "wild west." They would go nutso if some idiot let them command the 7th Cavalry. They would go nutso if exposed to UFC, or pro wrestling, or underground boxing rings in New York, or joined a thug gang, or any of a thousand other things. Their personality is predisposed to find a reason to go nutso. Period.

      What are the statistics on "video game related" violence, anyways? The most that has ever been found is anecdotal crap, usually because someone dug up a copy of an incredibly popular video game that almost all kids had access to somewhere, and tried to blame that for the violence, rather than the fact that the kid had an alcoholic parent beating them up, or dickweed kids at school were torturing and harassing them while shithead administrators turned a blind eye, or local gang members were threatening enough that they decided they needed "self-defense" in some way...

      I note that it's an anonymous coward who puts forth the "how many..." strawman. It's the common refuge of someone who is looking for an all-or-nothing approach, a dishonest call for "action" against something they have decided to dislike, whether it's the real cause of a "problem" (and sometimes not even an overarching problem) or not. Sister to "think of the children", half-brother to "if you use oil then the terrorists win."

      To answer your question: how many postal workers have to "go postal" before we say fuck-it and shut down the post office?

    6. Re:As always... by Creepy · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Say what you will about that, but I disagree - after a high school friend of mine blew his brains out with a 38 to the head, I spent two weeks depressed and the first thing I was able to get myself to do after that is help a church group tear down a house. Best release I ever had was deflecting that anger with a sledgehammer.

      Incidentally, I'm sure I can conclusively prove that aggressive, less caring kids are attracted to violent video games by their study, and therefore there is no conclusive evidence that violent video games cause kids to be aggressive and less caring.

    7. Re:As always... by Hatta · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The way I like to think of it is like cake. No one would argue that cake isn't a causal factor in obesity. Likewise no one would argue that a healthy child can't have any cake.

      Even if this study is 100% accurate, you can't extrapolate that into "no child should play violent video games", any more than you can say "no child should ever eat cake". But given the political reality of the world, that is exactly how it will be used.

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    8. Re:As always... by nine-times · · Score: 2, Insightful

      It's a good theory, but really it doesn't pan out too well. I think the problem is that people are so damned habitual. If you sit around thinking violent thoughts, that becomes the way you think, the way you see things, and the way your brain works.

      It's like complaints; contrary to what you might think, complaining and "getting it out" doesn't really tend to make you feel better. The more you talk about your complaints and criticisms, the more you dwell on them. If complaints and criticisms dominate your thoughts, you'll only feel worse. Sometimes it is better to just gloss over some of the bad things, just so long as you don't get caught up in denial of the factual reality.

      Still, I don't believe that playing violent games has a big effect on violent behavior. I think some of these studies may make the classic mistake of confusing causation and correlation. Sorry, I know it's a cliche to point that out, but it's appropriate here. If you want to say there's a high correlation between kids who play massive amounts of violent video games and kids who become violent, I'll believe you. Maybe kids disposed to violence are attracted to violent games. Maybe kids who have extremely lonely and unsatisfying lives are more disposed to play video games. Maybe kids who sit around playing video games all day have some overlap with kids who are emotionally neglected by their parents?

      It's not that I don't think video games can have a negative effect, but (not really based on any science) I don't think they particularly make you violent. I think they're far more likely to make you detached, even passive. The primary experience of video games, even in FPS, is that you are not really a part of the world.

    9. Re:As always... by rtb61 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Every one knows a violent environment produces violent children. An excessive gap between success and failure produces enormous stresses, a sense of no hope no future, so nothing to lose, no personal investment in the community, just a growing sense of rage from being excluded in a society that pursues and idolising exclusivity.

      All this study is trying to do is create the illusion that the drone worker bots can be sufficiently mind controlled that they won't resort to violence when their life pretty much sucks. When they are continuously bullied at school by the right wing cheer leader jock strap crowd, when they return home to be confronted by all the things they can't have in saturation marketing, all in a society where violence is celebrated in the news, movies and TV, in close association with reminders of what they have been excluded from, modern marketing specifically driving psychological stresses to induce greater and more damaging need for shiny junk, done by professional who use their medical skills to harm rather than heal, on purpose.

      The games are popular because of the violence in the rest of human society, people are drawn to them because of the violence they are already exposed too, the need to escape because of the constant fear and anger driven home by the likes of Fox News (the, "your all gonna die in there, all of you, your all gonna die", the Reverend 'let me in' Rupert 'Kane' Murdoch news network).

      There are far bigger problems to fix than computer games, in fact the popularity of violent computer games in a society is a valid measure of the violence in that society. As a society heals and creates a more humane and supportive environment so the popularity of violent games will drop.

      --
      Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
    10. Re:As always... by Darkness404 · · Score: 2, Insightful

      And Mike Tyson is one example. But look at all the other boxers who didn't do that, look at all the karate champions who could easily seriously harm people, yet they don't go on rampages, etc. One example doesn't prove anything, add into the fact that Mike Tyson was probably doing steroids which affect emotional stability and you probably have the worst example.

      --
      Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
    11. Re:As always... by WrongMonkey · · Score: 2, Insightful

      There is also difference that you were doing PHYSICAL exercise instead of playing video games.

    12. Re:As always... by Moryath · · Score: 2, Insightful

      How many "school shootings" in the past 10 or 20 years? Go back to your 50 years and replace "knife" with "gun", and check again. I bet you'll find that in lower-income schools especially, school violence has remained relatively constant. Or else the difference may be that they simply waited until after school?

      How many turned out to be related to violent gangs?

      How many were actually "videogame related"? And no, Columbine doesn't count, despite the propaganda and misinformation you've been hearing.

    13. Re:As always... by martyros · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Your arguments make a lot of sense -- I do especially like the cake one. :-)

      However, you haven't answered the question. You've merely brought out more logical frameworks which fit the data (some correlation between video game violence and real world violence) into your pre-existing beliefs (video game violence has no net negative effect on normal people). Your explanations and examples are good and logically sound. But the problem is that it's very easy, once you have a logical framework, to keep "tweaking" it to fit the data, or dismiss data that doesn't fit in with the framework.

      So let me ask again. Opponents of violence in video games claim that, in addition to being a factor in "triggering" a small number of people who may have triggered on any number of things anyway, violent video games have a net negative effect on average people, making them more tolerant of violence in their every day lives. What kind of study, with what kind of results, would convince you that this statement was true?

      --

      TCP: Why the Internet is full of SYN.

    14. Re:As always... by Moryath · · Score: 2, Insightful

      What kind of study, with what kind of results, would convince you that this statement was true?

      To start with, you need to be sure you correctly define "violent" video games. Many studies have stretched the definition so far as to be useless.

      Then, you need to be very, precisely careful about your study. Given the number of competing influences which might cause people to be "tolerant" of violence, you need to be very careful and clearly explain your methodology and how you control for them. No child exists in a vacuum; short of taking kids and sticking them into a bio-dome with teachers for five years, monitored 24/7 by camera to ensure they get "precisely" the education you want, and then controlling as best you can for innate traits as well (genetic/hormonal development), differences will occur.

      Your study also needs to control for all so-called "violent" media and fantasy play. If a book or movie or TV show includes fight scenes? Sorry, that's out. One imagines most fairy tales or pseudo-fairy tales (Princess Bride? Stardust? Narnia?)would need to be cut off. Cops and Robbers? Cowboys and Indians? Something resembling this that we used to do all the time as kids?

      I invite you to read this article by MIT Professor Henry Jenkins on the matter.

    15. Re:As always... by Moryath · · Score: 2, Insightful

      All you have shown is that you are disrespectful, dishonest asshole who enjoys misrepresenting positions.

      Allow me to fix that which you have so clearly altered.

      Moryath: Normal sane people will enjoy a reasonable amount of cake with no ill effects. People who are predisposed to excess will overindulge on a regular basis and receive ill effects.
      Hatta: Overeating cake on a regular basis will cause someone to be fat, but this does not mean we should ban all cake.

      Unfortunately for you, since you are a dishonest asshole who misrepresented the positions above, your subsequent "argument" shall hereby be laughed away. Try again.

  2. Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by SpuriousLogic · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It's just another study by people with an agenda.

    1. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by MightyMartian · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Metastudies are a troubling area. What's more, particularly with this kind of work, there's a huge risk of GIGO... Even where the "researchers" don't have an agenda.

      It's just bunk. Pure bunk. It comes too late to save Jack Thomas (thankfully).

      --
      The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
    2. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by langelgjm · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What I think is more interesting is the stuff right after that:

      But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies. And until then, there is plenty parents can do to protect their kids at home. "Just like your child's diet and the foods you have available for them to eat in the house, you should be able to control the content of the video games they have available to play in your home," he said. "And you should be able to explain to them why certain kinds of games are not allowed in the house -- conveying your own values. You should convey the message that one should always be looking for more constructive solutions to disagreements and conflict."

      I really don't have a problem with that analogy (between parents controlling a kid's diet and controlling what games they play). However, he seems to be arguing that we need new policies that go beyond this. That breaks the analogy. People are already upset over the idea of the gummint telling them what they should and shouldn't eat through things like "fat taxes." Fat kids abound; instead of parents taking responsibility for their children's diets, maybe we should ban the sale of candy bars and soda pop to minors.

      --
      "Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
    3. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by jimbolauski · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I like the logic, all rapists drink water it must be the water! Time to start watering our plnts with BRAWNDO The Thirst Mutilator.

      --
      Knowledge = Power
      P= W/t
      t=Money
      Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
    4. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by hardburn · · Score: 4, Insightful

      It's only an "agenda" in the sense that it has a viewpoint you disagree with.

      Here's an article done a while back by the same psychologist as the study done in the OP: http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx. To summerize:

      Video Game Violence, and media violence in general, are more than proven to increase aggression. This is not an area of "mixed results" any more than any other group of studies--there are always outliers. It's as conclusive as wifi and cell phone signals not causing cancer or being responsible for "electrosensitivity". Probably more so, since media violence has had over 40 years of research, whereas EMF health studies are relatively recent.

      He also has some very pointed words about the massive overuse of the phrase "Correlation is not causation".

      If you still think he has an agenda, then read this:

      Media violence is only one of many factors that contribute to societal violence and is certainly not the most important one. Media violence researchers have repeatedly noted this. (Emphisis mine)

      In other words, if your goal is to reduce violence in society at large, media violence, including video games, are not where you should be focusing your efforts. These studies in no way justify going to huge lengths to censor such violence. They justify parents being more attentive. Inattentive parents in various forms are probably a bigger factor in overall societal violence than any specific media violence.

      --
      Not a typewriter
    5. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by icebike · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Metastudies are a troubling area. What's more, particularly with this kind of work, there's a huge risk of GIGO... Even where the "researchers" don't have an agenda.

      It's just bunk. Pure bunk. It comes too late to save Jack Thomas (thankfully).

      And its pretty clear the researchers DO have an agenda.

      No scientist/researcher would ever use the term "Conclusively Proven".

      When you see that phraseology, mindset, or pronouncement, run away like your hair is on fire. No assertions of this type are ever conclusively proven. All such conclusions are merely working theories. And this study offers nothing new than increasingly suspect meta-analysis from dissimilar studies.

      "Conclusively Proven", "Settled Science", = Hidden agenda.

      --
      Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
    6. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by ircmaxell · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, what I don't see is the direct relation to causality. They show there's a strong connection between violent video games and violence. But a connection doesn't imply causation. Is there an underlying factor in there (Say, oh I don't know, poor parenting perhaps?) that actually causes the connection? Statistics are funny in that given enough data, you can usually find what you're looking for, even if it's not really there. Good science starts with a clean slate (Ok, we know violence is an affect, let's study violent and non-violent groups and try to see the common factors and differences) and look for an outcome. Bad science starts with an outcome and looks to justify it based off of observation (That's not applicable to instances of verifying predicted outcomes based on an otherwise complete model)...

      --
      If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
    7. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by interkin3tic · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's just another study by people with an agenda.

      Yes, but this time they have CONCLUSIONS! Which is more newsworthy than an unbiased study by honest researchers who caution people not to overreact to their results. It is always this way, which is why even after that study linking vaccines to autism has been completely demolished, a depressing amount of people still run around thinking that autism is caused by vaccines. That study was poorly done, and the results were announced to the world as final proof rather than something that would merit at most one or two repeats of the experiments before it was taken seriously.

      If you want to get a lot of attention and don't care that all of the serious professionals in your field will immediately see that you are a quack and will eventually prove you wrong, then make a quick study and shout your results as the word of God for all the public to hear.

      ""We can now say with utmost confidence that regardless of research method -- that is experimental, correlational, or longitudinal -- and regardless of the cultures tested in this study [East and West], you get the same effects,"

      Yes, you can say that, Mr. Anderson. You should also point out IN THAT SAME FUCKING BREATH that regardless of research method, YOU COULD STILL EASILY BE WRONG. As you're promoting this as infallible truth, based on research you didn't even do, I'd say that increases the chances that you're wrong, because you're a complete moron.

      I'm actually a bit surprised he actually says policy needs to be changed, rather than "Elect me to be supreme overlord and I'll have this whole violence thing sorted out in a month." I mean, if you're going to boldly overstate your results, then by God, overstate your results, don't pansy out at the end and suggest someone else be empowered to deal with it.

    8. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Mod parent up!

      Agreed. Anyone who does statistical analyses and claims to have thus "conclusively proven" anything can be dismissed as not knowing that the hell they are talking about.

      Not only that, but since when has the whole field of psychology claimed to have "conclusively proven" anything?

    9. Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by LordKazan · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I'm an ISU Alum

      this guy has an agenda. He was a common subject among the CS students, about how he talks out his ass with confirmation bias.

      As an alum i just sent him a polite email telling him that he's full of shit

      "conclusive" in science.. uumm
      "conclusive" in psychology? not even POSSIBLE
      "conclusive" in a meta-analysis? YOU'RE FREAKING BIASED!

      --
      If you cannot keep politics out of your moderation remove yourself from the Mod Lottery.. NOW!
  3. Funny by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    I seem to remember there being plenty of violent criminals before video games were invented.

    Yawn. Another academic tries to prove his pet theory. Nothing is "conclusive" in science. You can merely fail to reject the hypothesis.

    It's like saying that children who participate in animal cruelty grow up to be serial killers because most serial killers have a history of animal cruelty. They fail to take into account that almost all CHILDREN have been cruel to an animal at one time or another. No, that doesn't support the point we want to make, so let's not mention it...

  4. "not huge effects" by Anonymusing · · Score: 4, Insightful

    FTA:

    "These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang," said Anderson. "But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it's a risk factor that's easy for an individual parent to deal with -- at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one's genetic structure."

    The analysis found that violent video game effects are significant in both Eastern and Western cultures, in males and females, and in all age groups. Although there are good theoretical reasons to expect the long-term harmful effects to be higher in younger, pre-teen youths, there was only weak evidence of such age effects.

    How did they rule out the possibility that children who are prone to violence might also be prone to playing more violent video games?

    --
    Liberal? Conservative? Compare perspectives at Left-Right
  5. Pretty balanced view by monoi · · Score: 4, Insightful
    From TFA:

    "These are not huge effects -- not on the order of joining a gang vs. not joining a gang," said Anderson. "But these effects are also not trivial in size. It is one risk factor for future aggression and other sort of negative outcomes. And it's a risk factor that's easy for an individual parent to deal with -- at least, easier than changing most other known risk factors for aggression and violence, such as poverty or one's genetic structure."

    As a parent, that seems a pretty fair and balanced analysis to me. And yes, I have been known to play GTA myself. As an adult.

    1. Re:Pretty balanced view by Late+Adopter · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's a reasonable statement on its face, yes, but you don't judge scientific works by their conclusions.

    2. Re:Pretty balanced view by EvanED · · Score: 2, Insightful

      You should tell that to 95% of the people posting in this story.

      (Not saying that he's right... just that the /. crowd is remarkably prejudicial against the conclusion.)

  6. Definitive on what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    That he's a complete loon, idiot, incompetent?
    Sorry - but we grew up on ultra-violent-tv - bugs bunny / road-runner / daffy duck / elmer fudd - etc... drek-cetra - always getting shot, blown up, smashed, poisoned, etc...

    Before that, it was war, television broadcasts, movie shorts, etc...

    Before that it was real-life - wild-animals, bandits, thieves, scum, etc, drek-cetra

    The human race is violent... The entertainment we choose is violent. Always has, always will be.

    Sorry - same thing, different generation.

  7. Re:Maybe he's right. by plague3106 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Doubtful. Violent video games have been around for a while now, and VIOLENT CRIME CONTINUES TO DECREASE.

    But don't believe me, just take a look at the DOJ website.

  8. The Only Thing Conclusive... by Black+Gold+Alchemist · · Score: 3, Insightful

    ... is that it is very challenging to study political hot topics without bias.

    --
    Responsibility is an addiction
    Virtue is a temptation
    Community is a cartel
  9. I'm dubious by mcgrew · · Score: 3, Insightful

    he says a new study he led, analyzing 130 research reports on more than 130,000 subjects worldwide

    It (TFA is actually a link to the school that did the study) doesn't take into account that many if not most of the studies he was studying were horribly flawed and designed to give the answer the researcher wanted (in short, not real science). Few studies I've seen on the subject were the least bit reputable.

    However, at the end is a bit of hope -- he calls for parents, not governments, to police the children

    "From a public policy standpoint, it's time to get off the question of, 'Are there real and serious effects?' That's been answered and answered repeatedly," Anderson said. "It's now time to move on to a more constructive question like, 'How do we make it easier for parents -- within the limits of culture, society and law -- to provide a healthier childhood for their kids?'"

    --
    Free Martian Whores!
  10. Or maybe by XxtraLarGe · · Score: 4, Insightful

    An attention seeking/instant gratification/short attention span culture is generating less caring, more violent children because their communication is self-centered, widely dispersed and largely meaningless between their 7000 text messages a month and their garish myspace pages with 10000 friends.

    --
    Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
  11. Re:Maybe he's right. by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, I mean his study is conclusive. I guess that means he must be right?

    Of course the article is completely fact free, with no actual methodology or conclusions other than "the effects are measurable."

    Ooooo, measurable. Look out everyone, the effects are measurable. Whatever the hell they are.

    Of course, they're not measurable in an upswing of violent crime, or anything like that. But gaming and puppy kicking behaviours? Strong correlation. Also, I'm told, gaming and pwning noobs is also strongly correlated.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  12. Correlation is not causation by Hatta · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Yes, this is always trotted out, but I think it's applicable here. How can you demonstrate causation through a meta-analysis? Without randomizing your subjects, and subjecting them to different treatments you can't prove that any given effect is caused by that treatment and not a 3rd variable.

    Also, how big is this effect compared to other things we tolerate as a society? Watching sports for instance causes an increase in testosterone, and testosterone is linked to aggressive behavior. We need this kind of context in order to prioritize how we treat these issues.

    --
    Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    1. Re:Correlation is not causation by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

      Well, psychological studies are almost always ridiculed here, so it's not just that we tend to be gamers, and therefore hostile to articles that make blanket statements about gamers. Psych is a fuzzy branch of study, and to hard core empiricists, there are a lot of things wrong with even their most basic assumptions.

      Add to that the fact that it's a "meta" study, which collects data from 130 odd studies with different methodologies, and you start to slide into "wanking" territory.

      --
      ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  13. Versus other risk factors by Saishuuheiki · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The article claims it's a risk factor, right?

    I'd like to know how it compares to other 'risk factors' such as parents who drink, parents who smoke, or parents who are psychologists.

    I move that we must first issue a ban on people who drink from having children...tricky to enforce in that many children are a result of excessive drinking

  14. Re:So does living in New York by RevWaldo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I live in New York, you FUCKING ASSHO - ahem, I mean, you insensitive clod!

    Seriously, it's usually people who've never lived in NYC that say things like this. We're as good-natured as any Americans. And when was the last time you offered a homeless guy on the street a place to stay?

    --
    Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
  15. We should keep an open mind about this. by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 4, Insightful

    For people like me who take science very seriously, I find these results disappointing. I imagine that many people here do as well. Let's remember, though, that just because we don't like the results does not make them wrong. I was really hoping that the universe would not end in a boring heat death, but I'm not about to attack cosmologists because the results of their research have dashed my hopes.

    We have to examine the data very carefully, trying to look for other explanations for the correlations that were allegedly discovered. If becomes an established conclusion in the field that video games weakly cause violent and antisocial behavior, we might still decide that we don't need to do anything to regulate them beyond "M" labeling. This research result, even if confirmed, doesn't mean that the prudes won and that the state will be prying Crisis from some fat kid's cold dead fingers. We have many choices in how to react to this. But let's not get on our high-horse and yell about how this research must be tainted because we don't like the result. Fundamentalists with no respect for science do that, and we should meet a higher standard.

  16. Violent videogames do not cause violence - BUT - by RevWaldo · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Violent videogames do not in of themselves cause violence - BUT - works of fiction (or exaggerated works of non-fiction), including videogames, with characters that exhibit extreme behavior, can warp our perceptions of what "normal" behavior is, giving us license to act in ways we'd otherwise consider extreme.

    "Yeah, I'm a gangster and I've killed a few people but it's not like I'm Scarface or anything."
    "Yeah, I'm not the best manager in the world, and I goof around a lot, but it's not like I'm Michael Scott or anything."
    "Yeah, I've been known to give a perp a beatdown after he's cuffed, but it's not like I'm Jack Bauer or anything."
    And so on and so on...

    --
    Prisencolinensinainciusol. Ol Rait!
  17. Re:Maybe he's right. by skine · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Let's assume he's right (which I will not pass judgment on). What does that imply?

    It implies that age-restricted material shouldn't be sold to minors and that parents should be more active in determining what is appropriate for their children.

    Do we really need a study to tell us that?

  18. Re:Maybe he's right. by ZeroSumHappiness · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Unless other causes had reduced violent crime, of course. For the same reason he can't assume violent video games cause violence you can't assume violent video games reduce violence.

  19. Re:Uh... no. by algormortis · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I agree with this. The majority of people who conduct these studies and find that video games "make people more violent" are generally trying to prove that they do. Probably everyone can attest to at least one friend they know that acts more aggressive while playing games, but definitely not after. My own brother swears like a sailor when he plays flash games about amoebas and Tetris and the like; it's more of a competitive aggression than a response to violence.

    Also, in terms of desensitizing, it's more likely that the news desensitizes people than violent video games. Nobody even flinches nowadays when they hear about another car bomb or some other terrorist attack. Killings happen daily; it's a pretty well-known fact. When the news constantly report it, people stop caring. Playing Halo 3 or COD: Modern Warfare 2 aren't what make people yawn when they hear about the latest tragedy befalling people in Darfur, Rwanda, etc. It's the fact that when news stations constantly report such things, they simply become... expected.

  20. the /. community by theghost · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I'm not going to address the study, but i think a lot of the people here on Slashdot should take a look at their own gut reactions to this sort of thing, especially those of you who flame the research before rtfa'ing.

    Slashdot readers are to videogame violence as Fox News viewers are to global warming.

    Mod away - i have karma to burn.

    --
    The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.
  21. Re:So does living in New York by malkavian · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "And when was the last time you offered a homeless guy on the street a place to stay?"

    That'd be about 1991, in between degrees; still paying out the nose for the first, and prepping up for the second.. To make a little extra cash, I did early morning work cleaning a homeless hostel (trust me, jobs don't get much more crap than that; shaking the blankets on the beds and wondering if crap will fly out, literally, or needles).. Some of the guys there were really unpleasant. Most were pretty good blokes, in hard times.. One was an absolute blast, just had had a complete mental meltdown and hit rock bottom.. He was full of plans to get back into life proper again after getting his head straight.. Ended up hanging out with him for a while, then offered him my spare room for a few months until he got sorted (having a good address as correspondance works a lot better than a homeless hostel for job apps). Took him a few weeks to get a job from there, and after getting the first month's paycheck, he hunted a place for himself..
    Guys on the street, like anywhere else, are like anyone else. Some are arses, and some are good guys.. Sometimes, life just deals bad cards and you end up somewhere unpleasant.

  22. Good link, this is what we need! by Dr.+Spork · · Score: 2, Insightful
    OK, good. Notice that this isn't a kneejerk response, but a reasoned, fact-based dissenting view. The Texas researchers definitely make good points, and the Iowa people are just dicks to say that their study is so "definitive" that the book on the subject is closed.

    Now I wish that the discussion on the rest of this thread were conducted on this level, instead of the "If the research doesn't support my preconceptions then it's wrong" crap perfected by geocentrists, cigarette companies and climate change deniers.

  23. Re:Violent crime descrese after first video game by SatanicPuppy · · Score: 2, Insightful

    To be fair to them, they're at least trying to isolate a factor, which is a lot more than what you're doing. The same drop in violent crime could be attributed to cable tv, and it could easily be argued that the drop would have been MUCH higher, if it weren't for those pesky games.

    I would suggest that it's disingenuous to claim that there is a measurable increase in real world physical violence that can be directly attributed to video games, but it's much easier to suggest that other social indexes (like empathy) are affected.

    Still, I don't think that there is anything resembling conclusive proof. The studies are all much too narrow, and many of the things measured are questionable.

    --
    ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
  24. Re:Already debunked by geekoid · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The author of this meta study deserve all the derisive responses he gets. for his entire career he has been trying to show that TV, and now video games' cause people to have a higher risk of violence. His proof is always crappy studies.

    The man should either start doing proper studies, or have his doctorate revoked.

    --
    The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
  25. So, your facts are facts by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2, Insightful

    So what you are saying that your study is a fact and that another study is a lie. How does this work? Because you like the conclusion of the one and not the other?

    Violent crime studies are as controversial as computer game studies and have the same bias by people wanting to make their point.

    Why do you blindly accept one study and denounce the other? Because you got an agenda?

    Science doesn't work that way.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  26. Re:Maybe he's right. by tool462 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Even if death were to decrease population, it would only do so for those predisposed to dying.