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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.
I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm violent.
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...
Just taking the viewpoint that the majority of comments will probably not take.
Just because I can hook a shark from a boat, I do no offer to wrestle it in the water.
You know what else makes people indifferent and uncaring... living in New York city. Nobody can ignore a bum on the street nearly as well. Should we ban living there too?
Nothing other than a double-blind study with random selection of test subjects can truly be considered "conclusive", IMHO. All studies that I've seen thus far are hopelessly thwarted by selection bias.
Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.
This reminds me of the TV version of this anti-violence crusade in the 80s and 90s.
One thing that always stuck out in my mind about that last round was how the talking
heads of that movement would take things out of context and then whine about them. I
knew this because I watched the stuff they were whining about. They would show you a
little 15 or 30 second bit and then criticize it and leave out ANY of the context.
People can abuse information in any way that suits them.
Disraeli probably didn't even say it first.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
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.
How can we prove that these studies are valid, without a good valid study demonstrating that it's not the categorical violence inherent in the research study that is causing these results to suggest that the kids themselves are more violent as a result of these violent video games.
Nice use of the word "Attack" by the way. As a violent video game player, I totally had a mental flash of a stack of papers beating the s^%&% out of a game console cartridge.
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.
Pay no attention to the stolen e-mails. The behavior science is settled, and the scientific consensus is:
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
... 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
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
Free Martian Whores!
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.
I'll pummel them I tells ya! How dare they! Video games don't make me more violent! I'll rip their throats out!!!!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
Because obviously the most violent places in the world, like parts of Africa, Afganistan / Pakistan and the Colombian drug forests have far too many violent video games. ... and where are the studies saying that Hockey, Football, etc ... cause violent behavior?
I guess we should ban that too.
I can conclusively prove that researching the effects of violent video games on children make the researchers stupider.
My evidence? http://www.news.iastate.edu/news/2010/mar/vvgeffects
...studies about video game violence make me violent.
Caffeine is my anti-drug!
Duranin - A NWN2 Roleplaying Persistent World
Its more likely than you think!
http://www.engadget.com/2010/03/01/if-you-throw-away-your-console-the-terrorists-have-won/
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!
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
The Three Stooges and Batman on TV was considered dangerous for kids. You know, poking out eyes and screaming, "Baaaaatmaaaaan!"
Oddly enough violent crime has been decreasing since 1992, and is now at 1960 levels. Ergo another possible conclusion: Video games decrease overall societal violence level.
Consider that the first generation of videogame kids became old enough to start committing violent acts readily in the early 90s.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States
Note to parents: this also puts the lie to "we must keep our kids inside all the time, since it's a scary world out there".
Yes, I'm a parent, and yes, I'm thinking of my children!
Min
On the whole, I find that I prefer Slashdot posts to twitter ones because I don't get limited to 140 chars before
Reading your comment turned me into a violent criminal.
And that's conclusive.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Pff, I don't care.
we use the reports and findings that benefit only what we want the result to be. as Pojut quoted we need to release the inner monster sometimes.
But you have to use the right definitions.
"Conclusive": Of, relating to, or being a CONCLUSION.
"Conclusion": (2) The last part of something.
So they proved it conclusively, by writing it up as the last step in performing the study.
Doesn't mean they proved it irrefutably. Just that they concluded their study with a possibly-flawed statement. ;)
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
"BOOM! HEADSHOT."
http://xkcd.com/654/
-kgj
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.
The last few mass murderers I've seen have all been bunny hopping from place to place throughout their entire massacre. Where else do you pick up such skills?
"The team used meta-analytic procedures — the statistical methods used to analyze and combine results from previous, related literature
This just means that if *ANY* part of the previous published studies or literature on the subject is flawed in any way (bad sample size, bad methods, wrong conclusions) your study is doomed to produce the same flawed conclusion. Also, which studies were used? Did you use ones that did not support your position?
This all just points to "I want to say I've done a study without doing any real science".
I put on my robe and wizard hat..
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!
I think that applies well. If you base your meta-study on bad studies, obviously you'll come to the same (erroneous) conclusions. I'm sure the author goes through plenty of analysis as to why his basis studies are acceptable...
Afterward, therefore, because of it. Same reasoning as what's used in all the studies, and just as valid.
Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
How come the names of Anderson and Bushman come up so often in studies that find ill effects from playing video games? For whatever reason they seem to have quite a knack for finding exactly what they set out to look for. I understand that scientists do often manage to legitimately confirm their pet hypotheses, but why do these two manage to do so more often than other researchers who are working on the same question?
"In prison you just have to shut your eyes and take it. Here you have to shut your eyes and give it."
Anyone remember when the far right religious wing started saying that playing D&D turned people into Satanists who then ritually killed people? Same stuff, different decade. Believe it or not, Ann Coulter of all people even called this type of reasoning BS when she said, "Consider the harmless fantasy game, Dungeons and Dragons -- which happens to be played almost exclusively by young males. When murders were committed in the '80s by (1) young men, who were (2) Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts, some people concluded that factor (2), rather than factor (1), led to murderous tendencies."
"If a meta-analysis is conducted by an individual or organization with a bias or predetermined desired outcome, it should be treated as highly suspect or having a high likelihood of being "junk science". From an integrity perspective, researchers with a bias should avoid meta-analysis and use a less abuse-prone (or independent) form of research."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-analysis#Dangers_of_Agenda_Driven_Bias
"I might have made a tactical error in not going to a physician for 20 years." -- Warren Zevon
You're vi? Nice to meet you, vi, I'm emacs.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
FIGHT!
Scientists point out problems, engineers fix them
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I have my concerns that the Slashdot crowd seem to have immediately disregarded this research, particularly that "correlation is not causation" rant. In this case, they *have* been looking for causation. There is, however, already a response from researchers at Texas A&M discussing the flaws of this particular paper (link below), including selection bias and apparent contradictions from other evidence. In short, peer-review is acting just as it should. It is only because Anderson has jammed out a press release to get his 15 minutes that we are even discussing it. Link to A&M paper http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Much%20Ado.pdf
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.
After careful consideration and employing meta-analytic procedures based upon comments in this and previous stories about violence and video games, it is conclusive that this guy is a moron.
Your hair look like poop, Bob! - Wanker.
I always love it when someone sends out one of those Do Not Buy These Violent Games lists because I get great ideas for what to buy my nephews for Christmas.
...and thus destroy society. The end of the world is coming, thanks to violence in video games, just as it came thanks to rap, heavy metal, rock & roll, various forms of art, movies, tv, radio, and virtually any technological innovation over the past 100 years. I bet that when people first figured out how to make bronze they were like "the world is ending, things made of bronze will completely replace everything made of copper, the copper industry will go out of business, people will lose their jobs and starve, and society will be destroyed." (Or something like that, you get the point.)
You know, I don't have any problem with saying that violent video games desensitize people (not just kids) to violence and that may have (some) social impact. In the same way that Jackie Chan movies glorify martial arts and Rage Against the Machine songs can incite anger and discontent. What I (primarily) object to is a complete lack of understanding of the scale and context of the impact. If there was reasoned discourse in this country, I would expect that people would say "well, how Much impact does a particular type of simulation have?" and the result of such discussions would result in some manner of reasoned rating system which, oh wait, we have (the VALUE of said rating system notwithstanding, especially in places like Australia). But despite the at least reasonable attempt at a rating system, which makes sense, we do NOT have reasoned discourse in this country, and the result of this (and every single study, "study", and outright rant before and after it) is OH MY GOD SAVE THE CHILDRENS.
As a result, the world we live in, at least in the mainstream media, promotes that if your child plays video games, he/she/other will become a serial killer. Period, end of sentence. And we don't want that. What we want is for our children to grow up into responsible, socially conscious adults, who would never hurt anyone else, and would, for example, donate millions of dollars for buying toys for sick children on a yearly basis (http://www.childsplaycharity.org/) or disgrace and disbar bombastic lawyers who make fantastic claims without evidence and violate court orders and judicial procedures to back up the false claims (http://kotaku.com/5054772/jack-thompson-disbarred). That sounds like a reasonable thing to want from our current (and future) generations.
Now, again, I don't disagree that someone who had played through the latest Doom/Quake/Unreal/Modern Warfare clone is going to have some differences in they way they perceive violence vs someone who never consumed ANY VIOLENT MEDIA EVER (also known as an embryo), and I also admit that this particular article does not seem to want to raise the panic flag so much as say "there is some impact, how much we can't exactly calculate, but we should account for it in some way". And I think most people on this site will agree with that statement-the problem is agreeing with what should be done. (My impression is that) most people who have been exposed to significant amounts of video games believe that control should be imposed on the parental level. Whether that's right or wrong, I don't know, but what I do know is this-if we were to have reasoned discourse on this, things would be better. Unfortunately, that's really unrealistic these days.
Western children today are inheriting a legacy of squandered resources, environmental destruction, and increased global competition. Their futures have been mortgaged time and again by their predecessors. I'd like to think that these are things they could work through enlightened cooperation but in a time of shortage a generation of more aggressive, less warm and fuzzy kids might fare better.
If you didn't come to party don't bother knocking on my door. Prince '1999'
Reading studies that attacks violent video games makes you more aggresive. If we are going meta, lets go all the way.
I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm violent.
I love the fact that this is (currently) modded as "Informative".
How many times to we have to point out that correlation does not prove causation? Have they proven that "violent video games make more aggressive, less caring kids", or that "more aggressive, less caring kids make better violent video game players"? Also, a change in attitudes measured immediately after playing a game does not prove a long-term affect; my daughter acts very differently after viewing the movie "Lilo and Stitch" too... does this mean Disney should be banned?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
Videogames are not an exception, nor are they exceptional to the fact.
1. Measure ACTUAL criminal activities convictions, as opposed to the bullcrap "aggressive thoughts" or actions that these scientists like to claim are violent instead of merely memories or normal, NECCESSARY assertive thoughts (i.e. they measured violence not merely a mind set that they personally dislike)
2. They compared it with non-violent video game usage of the same type? (i.e. they did not figure out that humans are violent)
3. They compared people that did NOT self-select the violent video games (i.e. they don't confuse cause and effect)
Now, let me read the article and find out that:. These morons did NO research themselves, did NOT attempt to measure actual criminal activitieas, did NOT compare non-violent video games with and did NOT stop self-selection. All these incompetent fools did was do a study of other studies and found that most of the flawed existing studies confirm their own personal predelictions.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
There is no such thing as a "conclusive" study. Not to mention the fact that he used a compilation of various other studies, at least some of which are probably biased. As much as I hate to think about experimenting on children, the only way to settle this debate would be to conduct an experiment with different treatments and control groups. Since that will probably never happen, these studies really don't do anything but make everyone throw some mud and feel angry. Also, where is any of his data? What was his methodology? Did he use a 2 proportion Z-test? If so, what was his alpha level, his null and alternative hypotheses? This is really just irresponsible statistics that seems to be aimed at getting attention rather than actually providing useful data.
No exceptional soul is exempt from a mixture of madness -- Aristotle
OK- lets take this logic and hit against something that is considered a "classic"
William Shakespeare deals with teen suicide in "Romeo and Juliet".
If we do a study that shows that more teens commit suicide after reading R&J than before, should it come with one of the stupid warning labels they place on CD's and in front of every TV show?
I can just see Barnes and Noble with a security guard in front of the Shakespeare aisle with a big sign: "Books in this aisle deal with adult subject matter and cannot be purchased by persons under the age of 17. Purchasing of this material for the purpose of furnishing it to minors is strictly prohibited by law."
Stupid, huh? Makes just as much sense though.
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.
My wife's PhD thesis was a Meta-Analysis, and I helped her create some new tools for doing the math behind the analysis so I feel like I have a pretty good grasp on the topic. The process (greatly simplified) is this. Dig through hundreds of articles published in peer reviewed journals on the topic you are examining, and find as many as you can that test the specific theory you are studying. All the articles included in the meta-analysis must test the same theory. Next you need to reverse engineer the numbers reported in the article. This can be a bit tricky since each article may have reported their result using different statistical tests. Occasionally some articles don't have all the relevant numbers and you have to contact the author. Once you have all that data together the math is relatively straight forward.
Presuming that all the other articles that you feed into the process are based on high quality research, then a Meta-Analysis can give you an insight to the overall strength of the results of the theory being tested. As you might imagine this process can easily be a Garbage In Garbage Out sort of situation. The researcher performing the meta-analysis must have the ability to identify bad studies that overlooked key moderating variables, or were simply done poorly and remove these bad studies from their analysis. If you want to attack this meta-analysis, attack the articles it was based off of. A meta-analysis by itself is not 'conclusive' just because of the method it represents. The analysis itself must be performed on many many well done studies in order to have any credibility of its own.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
Kids of parents who are clueless enough to buy these games for their kids are more likely to be aggressive.
Supporter of the +1 Over Dramatic mod option. In memory of apk.
Science is where you disprove the old theory (defaults to "nothing happens"), within a 95% probability. Then you propose a new idea that fits with the data. You can't prove a hypothesis, so I personally wouldn't bother reading an article by someone who thinks they did.
I haven't read the actual study, so I can't speak as to it's validity or not, but as someone who conducts research into the interplay between video games and psychology, I find it most concerning that Professor Anderson is advocating policy in order to prevent children from playing violent games. This is the job of the parent. If there is any measure that should be suggested, it should be one to promote better parenting, not censorship. Again, please note that I have not read his study, but I am concerned with his display of the game "Manhunt," on his poster and his desk. Manhunt is already a controversially violent game, and was was given a Mature (18+) rating in the United States. As a fairly prolific gamer, I can qualitatively state that the majority of games, including most modern first person shooters, do not depict the level of violence and brutality shown in that game. The main point is that if games like Manhunt were used in Professor Anderson's studies, they are not representative of the majority of video games, and therefore his study may exhibit bias. From the numerous (and often contradictory) studies I have read, I would not be surprised if violent videogames increased aggression, but given the general content of media these days I would tend to think this was more a symptom of greater problems within our society than an issue in-of itself.
"Iowa State University Distinguished Professor of Psychology Craig Anderson has made much of his life's work studying how violent video game play affects youth behavior."
Does anyone really think that if he devoted that much of his life to this cause, that he would do research in such a way as to put himself out of a job?
Get real. I mean, even if it would not put him out of a job, it would negate much of his life's work. Hardly an "unbiased" position.
in fact, they're are only slightly worse then the worst study in the batch.
That said, there is nothing wrong with meta studies, you just need to keep in mind the pitfalls.
The man wrote this piece of shit:
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/2003/10/anderson.aspx
it's chalk full of logical fallacies and misinformation.
I could use his exact same arguments to prove that drinking milk causes kids to be more violent.
His work is sloppy. Anyone with some dignity would recognize that and either do a good series of studies, you stop flapping their gums about their pet project.
One day, he decided the he could build a career of proving TV cause violent behavior;which he molded to include video games; Which is fine, but when your data relies on specifically cherry picked studies, it is highly unlikely you have found any plausible causation.
Anecdotal information actually shows opposite patterns. Talk to any drill sergeant about who he would rather be training, a high school football player or a video game player.
Yeah, it's just anecdotal, and could very likely be wrong due ti some sort of bias. I am just the picky sort that wants to look at the actual studies.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Now this could actually turn violent!
No self-respecting behavioral scientist would say that they have proven something conclusively with their research. It's just not how research works, and we don't start out with the assumptions that we can "prove" anything. The data support one hypothesis, but the way that this is stated is that the researchers have failed to reject the alternative hypothesis: video games produce [violent] behavior. The null hypothesis was rejected (video games have no effect on [violent] behavior.
In the article, the researchers say, "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."
It's correlational data from a metanalytic study, but it is quite possible that the metanalytic study covers several true experiments. In any case, we should probably state that the evidence is mounting for causal link between violent video games and violent behavior.
The Death Penalty: Killing people to show others that killing people is wrong.
Jack Chick of the media world. Using Bullshit studies instead of bullshit religion to prove the 'evils' of video games and./or TV.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
You offer the exact same proof he does. i.e. NOTHING.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Is this the beginning of what Asimov predicted in his Foundation series : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Foundation_series_characters#Lord_Dorwin
from the article:
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,
* I accept that the occasional overview / review of the current state of the literature has its place, but attempting to draw conclusions in this manner is treading a dangerous path fraught with possibilities of inadvertant bias (through cherry-picking of _which_ previous literature to include) and statistical noise amplification by recycling a limited set of original measurements (ie. if the results of this 'research' are considered in future meta-analysis in addition to the original publications) : see for example http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/09/29/yamal_scandal/
As a middle aged guy with teenage kids who (long ago) went to school with the geekiest of them, I find it hard to believe that anyone can maintain an interest in video games once adulthood sets in. I have seen very, very few games that are anything more than elaborate adolescent fantasies, and it's difficult to imagine that as still interesting once you have a life. I sure as hell don't wish to revisit my teens and twenties! Really, go play outside and get some fresh air. And get off my lawn.
This is just like trying to fight religion. Religious intolerance breeds violence, just like social intolerance breeds violence.
The intolerance of the gaming culture is what wounds society. Not the games or gaming culture itself. When you oppress a persons' culture, you get violence.
You're vi? Nice to meet you, vi, I'm emacs.
You're not really emacs - emacs would never say that.
Perhaps a good reason people should not bother worrying about what 'normal' behaviour is and instead aim for ethical behaviour.
I like the "or anything" part. Real existential stuff :)
One convenient locations...in Africa.
In other news, another slashdot article attacks another study contradicting the slashdot groupthink, claims to be more correct than the study.
You know, there is a difference between trolling and pointing out the flaws in your reasoning. Just saying.
Unlike most papers, where you have to read them to discern whether they cherrypicked their evidence, with metastudies you know right away.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
I guess this mean no more Hello Kitty for me!
"Computers are a lot like Air Conditioners" "They both work great until you start opening Windows"
I can't help but wonder if the thing these studies are picking up on is that violent people are drawn to violent games, rather than that violent games make violent people.
93rd rule of Slashdot: No matter how obvious my sarcasm is, my comment will be taken seriously by someone.
'Gaming causes more harm than smoking' - http://gamers-underground.com/content/387-gaming-causes-more-harm-than-smoking.html
Dangers of Agenda Driven Bias
I wish I could get my hands on the studies that he used to make up his study just read them and then burn them in a Game Induced Fit of Rage.
You are claiming that this study based on stats is bogus, and show another bunch of stats... If one set of stats can be manipulated, then why can't yours?
There are also stats that show juvenile crime is up. Including women now becoming far more violent then ever before. You can descredit those of course as well, but only if you discredit your own at the same time.
Either all stats are suspect or none are, you can have it both ways.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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.
Far more violence has been caused by religion. Yet we give these people a free pass and tax breaks.
Basically, you are saying that you gamed, were violent as a youth and even as an adult got into a fight because of your religious intolerance.
If this was a court, your lawyer would have shot you by now to shut you up. Stop making the other sides case.
On the whole, if you want to proof violent games do not make violent people, do not show a person who gamed and is violent. "yes you honor, I want to proof that cats are NOT predators and to demonstrate I want to present this hungry lion and taste juicy sheep to the stand."
In fact, the aggressive reaction to this kind of story in general, kinda proofs the point. What is needed is a gentle polite response, backed-up with data. Not "you lie, I am going to kill you".
When pop-music was under attack, you didn't sent metal rockers to discuss things, you send the beatles. Clean kids who know to dress in a suit when needed who can finish a sentence without getting high to show that just because you don't get the music, doesn't mean all young people who listen to it are scary drug-crazed commies.
When you want to proof you are not a crazed killer because of gaming, wipe the foam from your mouth and clean up the blood splatters before making your case.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
We live in a hyper-competitive world where the strong survive and the weak are defeated. If playing video games instills a more competitive or aggressive spirit then perhaps that is a good thing. We should be teaching our children about the real world where there are winners and losers and competition is the rule of the day instead of coddling them and giving everyone awards for "participation". Instead we are too worried about "self-esteem" and ruffling peoples' feathers whereas the Chinese and Indians have no such qualms. Indeed, many of our children today are going to lose out to aggressive, smart and hungry kids growing up tough in China and India if we sit on our hands and do nothing to change the situation.
And yet there is no mandatory parental rating system for violent content in any printed media nor any rules against selling or otherwise making it available to minors. Just because works that aren't just the printing of words on paper are considered to be "press" only figuratively, so their freedom is subject to limitation by content.
Well, that and if books were rated, they would ban The Bible.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
It is pretty obvious to me that Anderson is only doing this study to play video games and get paid for it.
Reading crap like this.
Are comic books and rock&roll still corrupting our youth, too?
Actually, hold that thought, I need to set up the sacrificial altar for our next game of Dungeons & Dragons...
We're as good-natured as any Americans.
So you admit it eh? Seriously, not exactly helping your case here.
Two weeks ago, 20 euro's to a guy to get to a shelter for a week.
How many American's can say they did the same eh? None. (Think about it for a second)
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Cherry picking is one problem of meta analysis, the other is the opposite of cherry picking where every study is included without regard to its quality.
I bet we eventually find that saving the game and reloading is bad for kids, but all games themselves are fine so long as you don't restart from the same game.
The Christian religion has been and still is the principal enemy of moral progress in the world. -- Bertrand Russell
What about ALL the outliers (ie 90% of slashdot)?
While growing up, I had videogames to play all the time. The only thing we weren't allowed to have was Mortal Kombat. I think it just wasn't appropriate for young kids because it was gory. We were allowed to play Street Fighter though, which wasnt graphic. From there I moved into Halflife, and Quake III, and Unreal Tournament and into Counter-Strike. Aggression has never been a problem for me, or all the kids I played these game with. I guess you could take some of our sick and twisted games as aggression. Sting Pong, Swords, Submission (two players grab arms, a belt is tied around their arms, no cheap shots, but what ever else it takes to get the other to submit) Night Tag... I dont think it was aggression, I think it was just a bunch of kids with a lot of time on their hands and a high tolerance for pain.
Aside from our games, i think I turned out pretty well.
Im a troll because I disagree with you.
a.) Long time gamer here. Been gaming since the Atari 2600.
b.) Psychology major. Undergrad. 3.7x GPA if, for some odd reason, that matters to anyone who's reading.
I'm going to be blunt and say that studies such as this one are biased. I've considered doing research in this area myself to counter this sort of nonsense.
Personally I am of the opinion that a major part of the bias comes from the isolated nature of these studies. For example, one need only to watch my brother as he watches sports in order to draw the conclusion that watching sports increases violent thoughts and/or behavior. That's not because he attacks anyone - just as any well adjusted person who's playing a game isn't going to attack someone - but because his behavior (and dare I suggest some of his thoughts) is pretty obvious. He yells at the screen, he jumps up in anger, he clenches his fists, his face turns red.. yeah, he's a major sports fan.
Does this mean that sports increases violent behavior? Sure it does. Does that actually mean anything? No, of course not. To suggest that watching sports makes him violent is to play a game of semantics. It's technically correct, but to generalize that in any way is rather stretching it. This kind of behavior is perfectly normal (maybe really strange to some of us, but perfectly normal). This does not in any way mean that my brother is going to attack someone, or go out and shoot a fan of the opposing team.
As far as that's concerned, we have plenty of examples of sports fans causing public damage or attacking other people. It happens, just as it happens with people who play video games, or watches movies, or yodels, or whatever.
I'm not saying that this is done deliberately for the sake of an agenda, though that may be true in some cases. This meta study, however, is flawed, as any number of other posters here have noticed and mentioned.
This sort of nonsense is disheartening for me to see. This clearly isn't good science, and calling it any form of "definitive" is just arrogant and ignorant.
Done venting. Thanks for reading. I'm pretty tired so I'm not sure if this made as much sense as I kinda hope that it does.
.. and this guys results are garbage.
Unless you are raising kids in controlled environments the best you can get out of these types of experiments (and analyses of them) is that violent stimulus can elicit temporary violent responses. The literature regarding TV is fairly certain of this conclusion but as TV isn't a hot button issue any more those researchers don't overhype it like video game researchers have been doing. Without full control of a humans environment you can't make conclusive judgements that a media stimulus is the cause of violent behaviour. The other problem is that what the researchers measure as "violence" would be dismissed as rough play by most parents. I spent my childhood wrestling with my friends and playing "violent" games (like samurai vs ninjas) even though my mother had a psych degree and had studied media violence in the 80's and so heavily limited my exposure to violent media.
What most of these researchers are actually trying to show is that media violence leads to real, curb stompings at 2am outside a bar, violence. Which as previous posters have noticed is unlikely given that such violence has fallen as children have gained access to these sorts of entertainments (that keep them inside and not bored, the two factors associated with severe youth violence).
What has been shown:
Media violence causes temporary increases in "violent" behaviour. Kids also act out scenarios from violent media they have seen in play situations.
What hasn't been shown:
Consuming lots of violent media will turn a sweet little angel into a psychopath that will tie other kids to a railway track (Many of the researchers in this area have noted that violent people consume lots of violent media and tried to show that link is causative.).
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CINC, 4th Penguin Legion
looking for Doom-players, who want to maximise their impact on society.
"Yeah, I make ridiculous analogies, but it's not like I'm RevWaldo or anything." ;-)
I don't believe in time. It's a grand conspiracy designed to sell watches.
Bah, if video games had effected my generation when we were younger, we'd all be running around in darkened rooms, eating pills and listening to repetitive music.
Oh....
My book about LSD and Self-Discovery
Also on facebook as: DroppingAcidDaleBewan
Well heck now, when I were a youngster like you fellows, we didn't have no fancy cell telephones nor many kids' tv shows to distract us. We watched the news which was full of bombs being dropped and people being maimed or killed, plus the constant threat of a theatre nuclear war that would destroy our society even faster than the closing down of all the mining, steelworks and other industry. We had to go to arcades to play games that slaughtered masses of aliens or humans and when we didn't have the money for that we would borrow 'video nasties' full of gore from each other. Yup, i have been a-playing violent video games for over thirty years. I don't know when I am going to snap and slaughter the neighbourhood, but it had better be soon as I am declining in fitness, visual acuity, hand-eye coordination and hearing at an accelerating rate.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
these "researchers" are just trying to justify their existence they must be seen to be productive or they get dissolved it's that simple losers
I have to agree that over the years as a game player that games especially MMOs have gotten dumer and more violent actually cutting other parts of content the latest example is STAR TREK ONLINE that was expected to be a very diverse and immersive game which was one of the best platforms for imbeded learning in the last 15 years but cryptic dissreguarded this and ultimatly released yet another HACK and BLAST game they didnt even bother to include all the planets in our own solar system! and the scanning and charting and exploring has been all but excluded it is the same fate with crafting. it may LOOK like star trek but it definatly is only a weak mirage of what it should be.. they should require games to include imbeded educational content either in an organic mode such as learning to be a medic,, or a stealth mode such as data needed to complete a quest or with crafting or economy.
Crap research In, Crap research Out.
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I'd always thought it was the stressing times, high pressure on these kids and unreasonable expectations combined with the lack of real attention from their parents which gets substituted by virtual education in schools and such that leads these kids to be less caring. I've also thought of teenagers as generally not giving a flying fuck about the world (if i remember correctly, i used to be one myself). Seems like these hippies are really turning into todays nazis. I'm sure the kids will thank them for it later, what with the aging population and all ... be careful who you opress dear hippies, they might have to change your diapers someday ...
beware he who denies you access to information for in his mind, he already deems himself to be your master (SMAC-ish)
...and remove these bad studies...
And this alone can just introduce selection bias. After all we all know that any study that shows $OPPOSITE_OF_FAITH_OR_ACCEPTED_FACT_DOGMA is going to have a much harder time meting requirements.
The Grey Goo disaster happened 3 billion years ago. This rock is covered in self replicating machines!
That view is as unscientific and biased as the studies claiming a causal relationship. It's what many of us want to think, but there isn't a very good scientific basis for either view at this point.
I would not be surprised for them to show an objective correlation between people who gravitate towards exceptionally violent video game activity and those who gravitate toward violent real world behavior. For whatever reason (that probably can't be reasonably tested, therefore we are left with speculative, unprovable hypotheses like this 'study' declares), I wouldn't be surprised that people who gravitate toward a more violent lifestyle in general would include violent video games in that. If the violent video games didn't exist, I'm not sure that would have any impact one way or another, these people may well still be violent. Conversely, if someone is innately uncomfortable with video game violence, I would be very surprised if they brought themselves to commit real, violent acts.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Actually its the exact opposite of what this study says.
Game actually protect people.
You see a leprechaun in my head tells me to "burn the world" and to generally go on a murderous rampage.
Video games keep me occupied where otherwise I would be off stalking the countryside or up to nefarious deeds.
Tuesdays are not a good day, at least for anyone that lives withing stabbing distance...
Let's make a study conclusively proving that football tends to increase the players' long term tendency toward aggressive and antisocial behavior (like stuffing classmates into lockers, for instance), decreases empathy, and correlates with lower lifetime income. Heck, you might not even have to fudge the data...
"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," said Anderson, who is also director of Iowa State's Center for the Study of Violence. "And the effects are that exposure to violent video games increases the likelihood of aggressive behavior in both short-term and long-term contexts. Such exposure also increases aggressive thinking and aggressive affect, and decreases prosocial behavior."
As an ISU alum, I'm kind of ashamed. Not as bad as when a prof was judged incompetent in a RIAA trial, but it's still kinda sad. From what I gather, he's not doing any tests himself, he's just looking for the trend in papers on the subject. So what he's actually discovered is most papers on the subject are written by psychologists with their head up their ass.
Psychology is a retardedly soft science.
The snuff porn person is going to be far to gentle. I have worked with pregnant women. I long for the comforting embrace of death as I sit up at night 20 years later, still afraid to close my eyes.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
The real question is: Does anyone give a shit? This is so old and tired. I'm going to go slam some shaped blocks onto poor other shaped blocks and make lines of blocks explode, rewarding me with points.
The kids are fat, blame fast food
The kids are stupid, blame the schools
The kids smoke, blame cigarette ads with cartoons
The kids are on drugs, blame rap
The kids shot up a school, blame Marilyn Manson
The kids are violent, blame video games
But never blame the parents, because they have nothing to do with kids right?
Bad Science and Science that does not agree with the reader are not the same thing. Bad research is defined by inaccurate models, failure to consider important variables, or just plain bad math. Bad research is not defined by what its results show.
Slashdot is an anagram for Has Dolts, and I am Dolt number 468543
Guess who's back.
I know tobacco is bad for you, so I smoke weed with crack.