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Violent Video Games Only Affect Some People
An anonymous reader writes "The media would have you believe that violent video games will be the downfall of our civilization and the cause of moral decline in young people. A recent study suggests that most people aren't so easily influenced by the violence; instead, just a few bad apples are likely to react poorly, with everyone else showing little or no effect from playing these games."
The American Psychological Association has posted the academic paper (PDF) as well, in addition to a few related studies. One examines how games can be a force for good (PDF), and another looks at the motivations behind children playing such games (PDF).
...something like a video game cannot turn a normal person violent. The tendency has to be there already. You could argue that without violent games and movies these tendencies would not be realised, but I think that is a very naive notion. I think violent games for adolescents/adults are a good thing for society. In this castrated western world where two dudes wanna get drunk and fight each other are both reprimanded, and all kinds of contact sport gets softened up and dumbed down, it is natural to seek other means of expressing a competitive/violent yearning.
I don't have children, but when the time comes I will not ban them from all violent games (like my parents did) but rather let them play them as long as I am satisfied they understand the context, that there is a difference between movies and games and the real life.
As someone who played it a lot said one:
"I quit because I've had a pedestrian in front of my car on a small, twisty street and for a moment I wanted to hit it".
By what I know, he never played Carmageddon again.
The problem I find with all this research on violent video games is that it all seems to assume that video games have an effect that matters. Well, how about we study that first? Back when I learned about scientific research, especially as it applies to people, you go and do some observational research first, see if there's a trend. Only if there is do you bother with experiments.
In this case compare the violent crime rate for people who play video games as well as people who do not to the population at large. Unless you see an increase, there really isn't anything else to study. Trying to measure the effect of a videogame on an individual is going to be much harder and more error prone than evaluating statistical data. So, let's do that first. Unless there is a statistically significant difference in the rate for violent crime between the population at large and the subset that likes violent games, I don't see why further study is warranted.
Now I realize that there could potentially be other, more subtle, effects. However why do we care? Does it matter if playing violent video games causes people to get excited, or release more adrenaline or the like? Might be mildly interesting as a general psychology/physiology study, but nothing worth reporting on or making policy on. The only concern in terms of that would be if violent videogames make people more likely to commit crimes.
I'm going to say they don't just based on the fact that violent crime has been dropping for around 30 years and what do you know, video games have been increasing for around 30 years.
While if you sucumb to "feeling like wanting sex" doesn't usually harm others, sucumbing to "getting bloodlust" is highly likelly to harm others.
The GP point still stands: sex (which harms nobody) is taboo while violence (most definitely harmful) is commonplace in cinema and literature.
Even if seeing sex in movies is more likelly to make you want to have sex than seeing violence is likelly to make you want to go on a rampage, that is not a reason to not show sex on movies while still showing violence since even frequent mass-orgies after movies would harm less people than a single individual going on a rampage.
Agreed. I don't think either topic in general reaches the level of 'taboo'. That said, claiming that 'creating life' is the taboo subject ignores both that the content we're talking about is casual sex that doesn't result in reproduction, and that the intent is to limit childrens access to the content (since it's undesirable physiologically and financially for 14 year olds to be pregnant).
Please explain to me why the USA, being such a puritan country, ranks a lot worse in teenage pregnancy that European countries, that have a very liberal vision regarding sex education of teens. I mean, you teach stupid things like abstinence (that is considered ridiculous by most normal Europeans) instead of teaching contraception, then your results are so bad, and you still think your way is better? How about some rational behaviour, for a change?