Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Study Suggests Violent Video Games May Make Teens Less Violent

Posted by Soulskill on from the rovio-cancels-development-on-melancholy-birds dept.

barlevg writes "A new paper is out in the Journal of Youth and Adolescence which shows no positive correlation between playing violent video games and acts of aggression. The study of 377 children with attention deficit and depressive symptoms in fact showed a slight negative correlation between video game-playing and aggressive behavior such as bullying, which the researchers posit is due to the games awarding some measure of catharsis. The full paper is available online (PDF)."

12 of 120 comments (clear)

  1. No relationship, not negative relationship by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The stats in the study show no significant relationship, not a negative relationship. The regression coefficient happens to be negative, but the coefficient isn't significantly related to the dependent variable (bullying). You should change your headline.

    1. Re:No relationship, not negative relationship by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      No significant relationship also bolsters the current position that catharsis is bullshit.

      Catharsis is only one hypothesis for why video games reduce crime. A more plausible one is the "sucking up time" hypothesis. Every hour that kids spend playing games, is one less hour they are out on the street. When "Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas" was released, there was a noticeable drop in real world crime for several weeks. The most plausible explanation was that the potential criminals were at home playing.

  2. An outlet by WarJolt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Games are a good outlet for stress and frustration. I'd argue a game is a constructive activity as there are things you can learn from video games.
    Of course they make people less violent.

    1. Re:An outlet by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Funny

      Games are a good outlet for stress and frustration. I'd argue a game is a constructive activity as there are things you can learn from video games.
      Of course they make people less violent.

      ?

      I found many games to increase my stress level to the point I can actually hear red corpuscles whistling through the capillaries in my cranium.

      and once I finished getting them unpackaged, installed and running my stress level went even higher

      --

      A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  3. Never agreed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Never agreed that violent video games make a person more violent. I've been playing FPS since I was a child with my first being Wolfenstein 3D right when it came out. I also listen to heavy metal. For me it's actually relaxing. Nothing I like more after a stressful day than sitting down and shooting someone in the face.

    1. Re:Never agreed... by Synerg1y · · Score: 4, Interesting

      People react differently to different things. This shouldn't come as a surprise. For some people violent video games increase stress, for some they lower it. Some people find driving stressful, others find it relaxing. Applying the video game debate to driving: because some drivers have had road rage and have caused accidents as a result some of which led to fatalities, we should ban driving in favor of catching carts driven by those who want to ban violent video games. Any volunteers? (We'd also be contributing to fixing the obesity plague)

    2. Re:Never agreed... by dragon-file · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This also caries over into music. I've found that when depressed, depressing music actually makes me feel better, which, according to friends and coworkers, is counter intuitive. Apparently they listen to upbeat music when they're down. What's up with that?

      --
      Whenever a player quits EVE to go play WoW, the Average IQ of both games increase.
  4. Amazing! by onyxruby · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Who would have thought that giving kids a safe environment to get their aggression out would have beneficial side effects? The said thing is that this study ever had to be conducted in the first place.

    I remember when D&D was blamed for suicides, goths were blamed for school shootings, movies were blamed for just about everything and so on. At some point the idiot brigade needs to quit blaming everyone else and go back to being parents instead of outsourcing the job to the media. /rant off

  5. In other news.... by sconeu · · Score: 4, Funny

    In other news, Jack Thompson's body was found in Florida. Apparently his head had exploded. A copy of the Journal of Youth and Adolescence was found on his desk.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  6. Re:TL;DR by Nemyst · · Score: 4, Insightful

    If there wasn't any movement towards restricting the distribution and sales of games, if we didn't constantly get games being censored for content deemed too violent or too gross (games targeted at adults no less!), if we didn't see all the blatant misinformation being circulated by the media concerning games and violence, then yeah, it wouldn't be news.

    As is, the point needs to be hammered home as much as possible if we're to keep the medium on an equal footing to all other media.

  7. Re:Yup... by jonwil · · Score: 3, Interesting

    For most of the 20th century, every new form of entertainment/recreation/young people hangout was blamed for the ills of society by the older generation.

    I bet the same people blaming violent video games for today's problems probably grew up in an era where their parents and grandparents were rallying against Rock Music and Pinball Parlors and such.

  8. Re:Yup... by lgw · · Score: 4, Interesting

    To steal a quote from Wikipedia about my favorite Moral Panic:

    In the 1771 German novel Geschichte des Frauleins von Sternheim by Sophie von La Roche, a high-minded character complains about the newly introduced waltz among aristocrats thus: "But when he put his arm around her, pressed her to his breast, cavorted with her in the shameless, indecent whirling-dance of the Germans and engaged in a familiarity that broke all the bounds of good breeding - then my silent misery turned into burning rage."

    .

    --
    Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.