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

As always... by Pojut · 2010-03-01 09:15 · 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?

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Living With a Nerd

Re:As always... by Andy+Dodd · 2010-03-01 09:30 · 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.

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retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
Re:As always... by Pojut · 2010-03-01 09:36 · Score: 4, Interesting

You know, psychology has shown that "letting it out" doesn't in fact result in your become calmer. It does rather the opposite.

I don't really think that engaging in videogame violence is anywhere near the real thing, I'm just saying that if that's your reasoning, it's flawed. If that's your excuse for playing videogames, why don't you just admit that you enjoy them, and leave it at that?
It's not my excuse...at least, not any more. There was a time (early teens) when I had an absolutely horrendous temper. I'm extremely laid back now, but back then my anger was sometimes nearly uncontrollable (seriously...there were times when I literally felt like I almost couldn't control myself. It was bad. Real bad.) Weightlifting and violent video games were the only two things I found that I could focus on rather than lashing out. In a way, violent video games were part of the reason I DIDN'T become dangerously violent in real life...they provided me with a safe way to live out the violence I wanted. To me, it wasn't venting...it was "good enough", as opposed to going through with the real thing.
Interestingly, as I've gotten older (one month shy of 26 now) and chilled out, I find myself playing violent video games less. I still enjoy them, but they are no longer therapeutic...I would rather play a game with a good story instead of, for example, taking a chainsaw to the Locust. ::shrug:: Don't know if violent video games were part of the cure, or if it was age, or maturity...but whatever it was, just about any violent emotion and feeling is completely gone in me. I'm as harmful as jello at this point (although I'm still kinda built like a 5'7" linebacker, lol)
Naturally, YMMV, this is just my own experience, etc applies.

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Living With a Nerd
Re:As always... by vell0cet · 2010-03-01 09:47 · Score: 3, Informative

"You know, psychology has shown that "letting it out" doesn't in fact result in your become calmer. It does rather the opposite."

Need citation. For instance, we happen to know that doing activities like boxing relieves stress and results in a calmer state.

Also, having dark fantasies an engaging them in productive ways like writing or art have also been to known to help people become more well adjusted. Carl Jung called this dark nature "the shadow" and that it must be appeased. To avoid acknowledging it is incredibly dangerous.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_(psychology)
Re:As always... by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-01 09:52 · 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.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-01 09:54 · 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.
Re:As always... by NotBornYesterday · 2010-03-01 09:59 · Score: 2, Informative

You know, psychology has shown that "letting it out" doesn't in fact result in your become calmer. It does rather the opposite.
[citation please]

Funny, karate was a great way for me to blow off steam when I was younger. Plus, it taught me how to deal out lethal levels of real-world violence. Amazing I didn't turn out to be a karate-chopping, nunchaku-wielding psycho, huh?

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I prefer rogues to imbeciles because they sometimes take a rest.
Re:As always... by Demonantis · 2010-03-01 10:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Meta analysis is misleading or at least that what has been claimed against of the VOC causing cancer in drinking water studies that I have read. I guess acceptable results justified an acceptable means.
Re:As always... by Hoi+Polloi · 2010-03-01 10:05 · Score: 3, Funny

It really depends on the game though. Everytime I see road kill now I have the urge to pull over and loot the body.
"Damn raccoon, I need a new helm!"

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It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
Re:As always... by dieth · 2010-03-01 10:06 · Score: 5, Funny

D&D freaks are easy to get, sneak up while they're rolling for initiative
Re:As always... by Intron · 2010-03-01 10:31 · Score: 2, Interesting

As someone who grew up before video games I have to disagree. My mom (dad was always at work) shooed us out the door in the morning and we came home by dinner. We got into the usual kind of trouble during the day, and played violent "real" games instead of video games. I don't remember ever being encouraged to practice self control, whatever that is. I do remember getting into a few fights and being arrested once. I don't think my experience was much different from my peers. If anything, I think kids today are under more supervision and control than they used to be. Stats show juvenile crime at the same level as it was in 1980 after peaking in the mid-90's.

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Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-01 10:34 · 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?
Re:As always... by Creepy · 2010-03-01 10:57 · 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.
Re:As always... by Hatta · 2010-03-01 10:59 · 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.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
Re:As always... by nine-times · 2010-03-01 11:17 · 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.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-01 11:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Try seeing the comment above yours. They comment:
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.
Same basis applies. Many case studies have been done on serial killers, who tend to have a "trigger" that causes them to pick their targets. The trigger is often something very random and something which would cause no normal, sane person to decide to rape/assault/murder anyone, but for these psychopaths, the combination of something triggers them and they compulsively go into killer mode.
If someone is predisposed to be violent, they will find an outlet in society. It will feed off itself (anyone wonder about Mike Tyson, perhaps?) The same influences to which a normal, sane human could be exposed with no trouble, will cause problems for them. Alcohol addicts are warned to avoid not just alcohol, but situations in which they normally would drink. People trying to quite smoking are advised similarly. Violence, in the context of an addiction, is the same way. They get a thrill that a normally functioning brain wouldn't get, they crave more of it, and it's a loop. A normal, sane person would not fall into the loop, but they do because they're abnormal.
There is nothing new to what I am saying, by the way. This one area has been extensively covered. I will not claim the science is conclusive since research is ongoing, but it is a very, strongly working model for many, many cases and seems quite relevant to the question at hand.
Re:As always... by rtb61 · 2010-03-01 11:34 · 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.

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Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Re:As always... by HTH+NE1 · 2010-03-01 11:47 · Score: 2, Funny

A good example would be Mike Tyson.
That sentence contradicts itself. Why should I believe any conclusions that follow such a premise?

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Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Re:As always... by karnal · 2010-03-01 11:48 · Score: 3, Funny

That's just because no one has activated you yet with the secret code words. Just you wait....

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Karnal
Re:As always... by ravenshrike · 2010-03-01 12:05 · Score: 2, Informative

And,of course, was quite probably doing steroids for the vast majority of that time. Along with who knows what other strength enhancers. Unless you can prove that all the boxers who don't take drugs exhibit the same behaviors your argument isn't worth the electrons it's composed of.
Re:As always... by Darkness404 · 2010-03-01 12:46 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yeah, because we all know if you bottle up all of your feelings nothing is ever going to make you snap. Nope. Nothing. Because we all know that the people who go on shooting sprees are people who get out their anger via other means and then it makes them want to shoot others. Oh wait, most of the time they are quiet and don't let out their anger.

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Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Re:As always... by Darkness404 · 2010-03-01 12:49 · 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.

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Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
Re:As always... by GiveBenADollar · 2010-03-01 13:03 · Score: 2, Interesting

I'm always suspicious when I see a study like this. Did the studies cited compare kids that play violent video games with kids that don't play violent video games or did they actually force kids to play violent video games with a control group that is not allowed to play violent video games. It's like arguing that beach towels cause skin cancer. Sure people that are more likely to have skin cancer also have more exposure to beach towels, but that doesn't mean the towel is the cause. I don't believe violent video games promote violence, but if you have a kid that is obsessed with a violent video game who then goes on a shooting spree then the problem was there before the game was.
Re:As always... by WrongMonkey · 2010-03-01 13:43 · Score: 2, Insightful

There is also difference that you were doing PHYSICAL exercise instead of playing video games.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-01 15:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

"Metastudy" is another way of saying "we had 1000 studies to pick from, so we picked the ones we agreed with and then wrote that the data and conclusions match our carefully picked sampling bias."
I looked through the study. He very carefully picked only studies that agreed with his conclusion, and it's a small and not at all representative sample of the body of work regarding "violent" play.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-01 15:59 · 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.
Re:As always... by JollyT · 2010-03-01 18:56 · Score: 2, Informative

The word you both are looking for is "whose".
Re:As always... by One+Monkey · 2010-03-01 22:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

There are vital differences between your anecdote and the punch bag.

In your situation you were releasing anger in a positive act of helping to rebirth a social centre, that is turning a domestic residence into a spiritual centre. You were helping a group of people to do this positive thing. When you went home at the end of the day the house was a little bit more dead and that meant the spiritual centre was a little bit closer to being alive.

What you did was a physical demonstration of how anger energy can be turned into a positive expression that speeds up the natural cycles of life. You were mentally participating in those cycles and the process itself commented upon the fact that death is a part of life and even when a house is derelict life must go on.

The act of renewal, especially when placed in such a spiritual context, can be viewed from a deep and subtle perspective that easily explains why it released so much aggression and refreshed your psyche.

Punching a bag full of sand repetitively by yourself achieves nothing and shows little. If you are mentally in a state where such exercise is about discipline and physical improvement then this is not a problem. Using it as a valve for pent up emotion is unsatisfying and more likely to lead to frustration.

How does this inform the video game violence question? Simple a video game should not be used as a crutch for emotional release. They can clean the mental screen through simple, repetitive, action-reward cycles that may not be available in the wider world. If you sit down with a video game just to relieve the very particular frustration of feeling stuck in a rut, or not getting any where it could be quite therapeutic, but trying to cope with deeper anger issues this way is not appropriate.

A subtlety I doubt is addressed within any report on violent video games as we tend to view all "anger" as the same "anger" irrespective of its source. Its been documented a couple of hundred times how social and psychological experimenters tend to find whatever it is they're looking for in any given study and yet no major collapse or resolution in their questionable methodology is implemented because it would require an academic perspective too radically different from any remembered in the majority of human culture. So I don't expect it to change any time soon.

I give any sociological report the respect it deserves. None. And less than that if it claims to be conclusive.

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Re:As always... by martyros · 2010-03-01 22:30 · 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?

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Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-02 01:46 · 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.
Re:As always... by Moryath · 2010-03-02 01:51 · 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.
Re:As always... by RadioElectric · 2010-03-02 04:10 · Score: 2, Funny

Blimey, talk about a predisposition to being aggressive.
Re:As always... by Nefarious+Wheel · 2010-03-02 08:47 · Score: 2, Funny

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.
It's also a clear and unmistakable fact that over 90% of all heroin users started out drinking milk.
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc.

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Do not mock my vision of impractical footwear

Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by SpuriousLogic · 2010-03-01 09:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

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

Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Anonymusing · 2010-03-01 09:20 · Score: 4, Interesting

You can see the study author's bent in this quote:
"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?'" But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies.
Um... is it the government's job to make parenthood easier? I thought they put the kids in front of the glowing screen in order to give themselves (the parents) a break from parenting.

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Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by MightyMartian · 2010-03-01 09:31 · 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).

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The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by langelgjm · 2010-03-01 09:36 · 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.

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"Anyone who [rips a CD] is probably engaging in copyright infringement." - David O. Carson
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by jimbolauski · 2010-03-01 09:39 · 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.

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Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by hardburn · 2010-03-01 09:41 · 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.

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Not a typewriter
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Rei · 2010-03-01 09:42 · Score: 4, Funny

I'm waiting for the meta study that shows that studies on video games leading to anger make video gamers angry.

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The only way I would lionize Dick Cheney would be while he was still alive, and it would involve actual lions.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by ta+bu+shi+da+yu · 2010-03-01 09:44 · Score: 3, Funny

There's only one thing for it - we need to do a metastudy on this serious issue!

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XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by icebike · 2010-03-01 09:53 · 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.

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Sig Battery depleted. Reverting to safe mode.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by ircmaxell · 2010-03-01 09:54 · 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)...

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If a man isn't willing to take some risk for his opinions, either his opinions are no good or he's no good
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by WCguru42 · 2010-03-01 09:56 · Score: 2, Informative

You can see the study author's bent in this quote:
"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?'" But Anderson knows it will take time for the creation and implementation of effective new policies.
I think we have the ESRB for that. You could make the same claim about films, how are parents supposed to know what is okay for little jack and jill. Check the back of the box, it's damn simple.

--
"Educate the mind but never at the expense of the soul."~Blessed Basil Moreau
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by elrous0 · 2010-03-01 09:57 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, it does have electrolytes.

--
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by interkin3tic · 2010-03-01 10:06 · 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.
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Jane+Q.+Public · 2010-03-01 10:16 · 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?
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Sir_Lewk · 2010-03-01 10:18 · Score: 4, Funny

When you see that phraseology, mindset, or pronouncement, run away like your hair is on fire.
No no no, don't you know anything? You stop, drop, and roll!

--
"linux is just DOS with a UNIX like syntax" -- Galactic Dominator (944134)
Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by LordKazan · 2010-03-01 10:28 · 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!

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Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists by Odinlake · 2010-03-01 12:16 · Score: 4, Interesting

That's because the article you are reading is NOT written by a scientist-slash-researcher but by some idiot journalist who (I hope) interviewed a scientist-slash-researcher. I can't say I myself have bothered to read the whole paper
http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/abstracts/2010-2014/10ASISBSRS.pdf
... but from the abstract: "The evidence strongly suggests that exposure to violent video games is a causal risk factor for increased aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, and aggressive affect and for decreased empathy and prosocial behavior". This is a strong but not unusual kind of statement, meaning they are sure of themselves. The word "conclusive" is not used once (if Adobes search function is accurate). It also annoys me that the journalist turned "causal risk factor" into "causes", but then again perhaps people in general are just too stupid to understand anything more complicated than "A causes B".
What really bugs me though is how /. users eagerly discard scientists as having a "hidden agenda" based only on someone elses lay review, without having the decency to actually read the publication. Don't forget that there is often a distorting layer between what you read and the real stuff.

I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm vi by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-01 09:16 · Score: 5, Funny

I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm violent.

Funny by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-01 09:16 · 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...

Re:Funny by vell0cet · 2010-03-01 09:56 · Score: 5, Informative

Actually... there were MORE violent criminals before video games were invented.

Youth crime and violence have been steadily decreasing since the introduction of the playstation in 1995. And apparently, they haven't been this low since the sixties.

"As violent videogames have become more popular in the United States and elsewhere, violent crime rates among youths and adults in the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Japan, and most other industrialized nations have plummeted to lows not seen since the 1960s." - Texas A&M International University researchers Christopher Ferguson and John Kilburn

There are some graphs out there from the US Department of Justice that show exactly this trend.

Maybe he's right. by captaindomon · 2010-03-01 09:16 · Score: 5, Funny

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.

Re:Maybe he's right. by plague3106 · 2010-03-01 09:18 · 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.
Re:Maybe he's right. by SatanicPuppy · 2010-03-01 09:24 · 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.

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
Re:Maybe he's right. by psiclops · 2010-03-01 09:29 · Score: 5, Funny

Death's been around for a while now, an POPULATION CONTINUES TO INCREASE.
Ergo, Death doesn't decrease population.

--
i spent five minutes thinking and all i got was this crappy sig
Re:Maybe he's right. by skine · 2010-03-01 09:42 · 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?
Re:Maybe he's right. by ArsonSmith · 2010-03-01 09:44 · Score: 3, Funny

Maybe if Al Gore said so we'd know the debate was over.

--
Paying taxes to buy civilization is like paying a hooker to buy love.
Re:Maybe he's right. by ZeroSumHappiness · 2010-03-01 09:45 · 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.
Re:Maybe he's right. by ElectricTurtle · 2010-03-01 10:18 · Score: 2, Interesting

ESRB ratings are not restrictions, they are simply ratings intended to 'inform' consumers and help them choose products. They do not have force of law (at least intrinsically) except where a few state/local governments have decided to pass laws using the private ESRB rating as a guideline for age-discriminatory distribution.

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Re:Maybe he's right. by thePowerOfGrayskull · 2010-03-01 10:26 · Score: 3, Interesting

Just taking the viewpoint that the majority of comments will probably not take.
I'll bite. I'll come out and say it - I think it *is* correct. Playing an action game, or watching an action movie, gets blood pumping and adrenaline flowing. (for the more imaginative, so does reading a good book.) During adolescence this is especially likely to have a measurable effect on behavior, as these chemicals are flooding bodies at rates that are never again quite equaled except in the most extreme of circumstances. (Both as a result in changing physiology and maturing psychology.)
How many here did not go and half-pretend to beat the crap out of friends after watching a kung fu movie? Anyone else have memories of playing Contra and finding themselves jumping off of garages while pretending to shoot their neighb... erm, skip it, that last is probably just me.
By constantly throwing up the "correlationisnotcausation" attitude whenever a study like this comes along, we do two things. First, we say that we're sticking our fingers in our ears and refusing to listen. Second, we're letting everyone slide on the assumption that if there *was* aggression, it would be a Bad Thing.
By refusing to hear that there might be causation, we don't ask the next logical question. What does it matter? What are the harmful effects? Some rough-housing? Is that really a bad thing, or is it a fairly healthy reaction? In the absence of any real-life examples where such aggressiveness lead directly to real-life consequences, perhaps we should stop focusing on whether to games-aggression connection exists, and instead look at whether it's actually as harmful as everyone assumes it must be.
The truth is that aggression is a perfectly natural response -- "fight or flight" is built into us, and it doesn't matter if we're talking about 8-bit nintendo games or the quadrillion-poly games of tomorrow. But there has been no time spent focusing on the significance of this - instead we all loudly proclaim that no, there's no possible way we'd have a physical response to a simulated stressful activity. Until we get past the latter, we won't be able to learn the answers to the former.
Re:Maybe he's right. by roman_mir · 2010-03-01 11:42 · Score: 2, Funny

Wow, I think you have just conclusively proven that idea once and for all. ONCE AND FOR ALL!

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You can't handle the truth.
Re:Maybe he's right. by tool462 · 2010-03-01 12:49 · Score: 3, Insightful

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

So does living in New York by Kagato · 2010-03-01 09:16 · Score: 5, Funny

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?

Re:So does living in New York by RevWaldo · 2010-03-01 09:30 · 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?

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Re:So does living in New York by malkavian · 2010-03-01 10:19 · 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.
Re:So does living in New York by nine-times · 2010-03-01 10:59 · Score: 2, Informative

I know it's a joke, but in fairness, it's not that New Yorkers are uncaring.
It's more like... you have to learn to ignore *everyone*. It's not that we learn to ignore the few homeless people we encounter; it's that we learn to ignore our millions of neighbors. The homeless are just lumped into the group of "the millions of people in this city that I don't have time to think about right now."
New Yorkers are actually pretty nice and helpful and look out for each other. The funniest thing is, I said something like that to someone and they said, "No way. I went to New York and was hanging around in Times Square, and everyone there was horribly rude and nasty."
I laughed pretty hard at that. New Yorkers don't spend time in Times Square. Those horrible, nasty, rude people you run into at all the New York tourist traps? Those are other tourists.

Uh... no. by dgatwood · 2010-03-01 09:16 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

--

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Re:Uh... no. by algormortis · 2010-03-01 09:52 · 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.

Same sh*t, different decade. by jedidiah · 2010-03-01 09:16 · Score: 3, Interesting

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.

Re:Same sh*t, different decade. by Amouth · 2010-03-01 09:47 · Score: 4, Interesting

I remember when Columbine happened - i was in the den with my mom and we where watching the news.. they showed this "Violent GAME" that the kids had played - and it was the original DOOM - now my mom had remembered me playing that and looked at me odd when i started laughing..
i then explained. - this "Expert" on ABC was showing this "Violent GAME" which allowed kids to go around killing everything without any remorse or consequences..
what was on the screen was the starting level - he was running around with the rocket launcher and gold eyes (aka god mode)
so he had to cheat at the game to get the skewed point of view he wanted across

--
'...if only "Jumping to a Conclusion" was an event in the Olympics.'
Re:Same sh*t, different decade. by Hatta · 2010-03-01 10:00 · Score: 2, Interesting

Yep, the context here is important. Which is worse, a parent who plays CoD with his kid, explains to him the difference between reality and games, takes the opportunity to explain some things about politics and war and maybe even a little history, in the process actually developing a relationship with their kid, or a parent who just says "no violent video games!" and sits little johnny in front of the TV?

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

"not huge effects" by Anonymusing · 2010-03-01 09:16 · 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?

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Re:"not huge effects" by Pojut · 2010-03-01 09:21 · Score: 2, Interesting

How did they rule out the possibility that children who are prone to violence might also be prone to playing more violent video games?
That is a common point my wife makes whenever we have this conversation with someone. None of these studies look at whether or not violent people are attracted to violent entertainment (which, logically, they most likely are). Also, violence has different effects on different people. In my case, playing violent video games and watching violent movies as a kid has desensitized me to violence in such a way that I don't flinch from it. I don't engage in it, I'm just able to view it objectively and react with a clear head.
This has come in handy in many instances...the best example being when I worked as a mechanic and a buddy had one of his fingers lopped off by a metal radiator fan (the clutch in the fan was seized, so the normal "deadning" of the fan didn't occur when his finger hit the blade.) I was able to keep my cool, get his finger in the freezer, AND clean/bandage his wound until the paramedics arrived.

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Living With a Nerd
Re:"not huge effects" by plague3106 · 2010-03-01 09:21 · Score: 3, Interesting

How did they rule out that humans by nature are violent animals?
Re:"not huge effects" by tool462 · 2010-03-01 09:28 · Score: 4, Funny

I would assume by killing all the dissenters.
Re:"not huge effects" by Hatta · 2010-03-01 09:34 · Score: 2, Informative

You should be able to find his methods in the preprint of this paper on his university website. I haven't had a chance to read it so I have nothing more to add.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Pretty balanced view by monoi · 2010-03-01 09:16 · 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.

Re:Pretty balanced view by Late+Adopter · 2010-03-01 09:51 · Score: 3, Insightful

It's a reasonable statement on its face, yes, but you don't judge scientific works by their conclusions.
Re:Pretty balanced view by EvanED · 2010-03-01 10:05 · 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.)

Definitive on what? by Anonymous Coward · 2010-03-01 09:18 · 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.

The Only Thing Conclusive... by Black+Gold+Alchemist · 2010-03-01 09:19 · 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

I'm dubious by mcgrew · 2010-03-01 09:20 · 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?'"

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Free Martian Whores!

Re:I'm dubious by ColdWetDog · 2010-03-01 09:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

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).

This is the real kicker. Metanalysis doesn't work by magic. All it does it attempt to lump together different studies to see if a statistically valid correlation can be found in the data. One hopes that by having larger numbers, you get better statistical power than was available from smaller studies.

The validity of these studies is critically intwined with quality of the individual research. If all they did was lump everything together, you're going to get a lump of garbage. Interestingly, TFA doesn't mention any statisticians as authors. I would have serious doubts that psychiatrists or psychologists would have enough of a background in statistics to create a quality analysis.

And the fact that he is enough of an egotistical jerk to suggest that he has "definitively" proven anything in psychiatry leads me to believe that this is just part of the 94.277% (P less than 0.001) of all research that is crap.

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Re:I'm dubious by Colonel+Korn · 2010-03-01 09:42 · Score: 2, Interesting

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).
This is the real kicker. Metanalysis doesn't work by magic. All it does it attempt to lump together different studies to see if a statistically valid correlation can be found in the data. One hopes that by having larger numbers, you get better statistical power than was available from smaller studies.
The validity of these studies is critically intwined with quality of the individual research. If all they did was lump everything together, you're going to get a lump of garbage. Interestingly, TFA doesn't mention any statisticians as authors. I would have serious doubts that psychiatrists or psychologists would have enough of a background in statistics to create a quality analysis.
And the fact that he is enough of an egotistical jerk to suggest that he has "definitively" proven anything in psychiatry leads me to believe that this is just part of the 94.277% (P less than 0.001) of all research that is crap.
A distressingly large number of psychological/sociological studies (I agree with your 94.277%) have deeply flawed statistics and/or experimental design. This meta-analytical study starts by assuming the validity of the conclusions from these broken studies and then adds another layer of potential statistical and design mistakes on top of that.
In such a fuzzy field, it would be much more useful to move in the other direction: rather than looking at tons of other studies from high overhead, very carefully examine one at a time to determine how valid it is.

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"I zero-index my hamsters" - Willtor (147206)

Or maybe by XxtraLarGe · 2010-03-01 09:20 · 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.

Re:Or maybe by gregthebunny · 2010-03-01 10:22 · Score: 2, Funny

This. Now get off my lawn or I'll txt teh copz n ul b sry.

Let me at 'em by syousef · 2010-03-01 09:20 · Score: 2, Funny

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

Correlation is not causation by Hatta · 2010-03-01 09:25 · 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.

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Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!

Re:Correlation is not causation by SatanicPuppy · 2010-03-01 10:17 · 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.

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Versus other risk factors by Saishuuheiki · 2010-03-01 09:25 · 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

Violent crime descrese after first video game by Minupla · 2010-03-01 09:29 · Score: 3, Interesting

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

--
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Re:Violent crime descrese after first video game by SatanicPuppy · 2010-03-01 10:27 · 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.

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Re:I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm by MrEricSir · 2010-03-01 09:31 · Score: 5, Funny

Reading your comment turned me into a violent criminal.

And that's conclusive.

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There's no -1 for "I don't get it."

We should keep an open mind about this. by Dr.+Spork · 2010-03-01 09:39 · 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.

Re:We should keep an open mind about this. by Bert+the+Turtle · 2010-03-01 09:54 · Score: 3, Informative

As I have posted separately, there is a fully scientific critique of this research from Texas A&M
http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/Much%20Ado.pdf

Violent videogames do not cause violence - BUT - by RevWaldo · 2010-03-01 09:41 · 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...

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The D&D effect by SpuriousLogic · 2010-03-01 09:46 · Score: 3, Interesting

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."

Re:I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm by nebaz · 2010-03-01 09:47 · Score: 5, Funny

You're vi? Nice to meet you, vi, I'm emacs.

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Re:I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm by Kell+Bengal · 2010-03-01 09:52 · Score: 3, Funny

FIGHT!

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Already debunked by Bert+the+Turtle · 2010-03-01 09:52 · Score: 3, Informative

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

Re:Already debunked by geekoid · 2010-03-01 10:42 · 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.

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the /. community by theghost · 2010-03-01 09:53 · 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.

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The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.

Re:Conclusively proven flawed by pruss · 2010-03-01 10:00 · Score: 2, Informative

A good meta-analytic study will begin by spelling out a reasonable procedure for identifying studies. For instance, in this case, a reasonable procedure would be to identify two or three electronic databases of abstracts of peer-reviewed research in psychology and sociology, then to identify some relevant key words like "violence" and "video game", and then to come up with some further objective criteria for which studies one considers and which one doesn't. For instance, one might set a time window for the studies one considers (e.g., last 15 years) or a minimum sample size. One might also have some convenience criteria, such as only searching for things published in English. Then after one has set up these sorts of criteria, one follows them as best one can to identify the studies to include, and then one includes all the ones that match the criteria.

Moreover, good meta-analytic methodology will involve examining the strengths and weaknesses of the studies involved, figuring out the sample sizes, and using good statistical methods to get an overall result that is better than the best of the non-meta studies, because it has the benefit of a much larger effective sample size.

Can subjectivity sneak in? Of course it can. Peer-review can help here. But of course science delivers probability and not certainty--and that's fine.

Good link, this is what we need! by Dr.+Spork · 2010-03-01 10:22 · 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.

A Meta-Analysis of bad studies creates a bad Meta by vtechpilot · 2010-03-01 10:23 · Score: 4, Informative

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.

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I love metastudies by calmofthestorm · 2010-03-01 11:36 · Score: 2, Funny

Unlike most papers, where you have to read them to discern whether they cherrypicked their evidence, with metastudies you know right away.

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So, your facts are facts by SmallFurryCreature · 2010-03-01 11:57 · 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.

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

Re:Violent videogames do not cause violence - BUT by guyminuslife · 2010-03-01 18:53 · Score: 2, Funny

"Yeah, I make ridiculous analogies, but it's not like I'm RevWaldo or anything." ;-)

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Damnit ISU, keep it together! by HeckRuler · 2010-03-02 04:57 · Score: 2, Informative

Well, maybe it's because the journalist actually talked to Anderson:

"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.

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