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Another Study Attacks Violent Video Games, Claims To Be "Conclusive"
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."
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
It's just another study by people with an agenda.
FTA:
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
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.
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.
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.
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!
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.
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!
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?
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.
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.
"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.