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."

Comments

As always...

[Pojut]

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?

Re:As always...

[Anonymous Coward]

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...

[Moryath]

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...

[dieth]

D&D freaks are easy to get, sneak up while they're rolling for initiative

Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists

[SpuriousLogic]

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

Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists

[icebike]

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.

Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists

[elrous0]

Well, it does have electrolytes.

Re:Just like porn "conclusively" creates rapists

[LordKazan]

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!

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

[Anonymous Coward]

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

Maybe he's right.

[captaindomon]

Just taking the viewpoint that the majority of comments will probably not take.

Re:Maybe he's right.

[SatanicPuppy]

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.

Re:Maybe he's right.

[psiclops]

Death's been around for a while now, an POPULATION CONTINUES TO INCREASE.

Ergo, Death doesn't decrease population.

Re:Maybe he's right.

[ZeroSumHappiness]

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.

So does living in New York

[Kagato]

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

[RevWaldo]

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?

Re:So does living in New York

[malkavian]

"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:I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm

[MrEricSir]

Reading your comment turned me into a violent criminal.

And that's conclusive.

Re:I'll shoot anyone in the face who says that I'm

[nebaz]

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

Re:Uh... no.

[algormortis]

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.

Re:Funny

[vell0cet]

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.