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New Study Finds No Link Between Violent Video Games and Behavior (dailydot.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Daily Dot: Scientists have been investigating the impact of violent video games on behavior for more than two decades, and the results are still being debated. In a 2015 resolution on games, the American Psychological Association reported that multiple studies found a link between violent game exposure and aggressive behavior, though critics at the time questioned the findings. Now, a new study published by researchers at the University of York in the journal Computers in Human Behavior further challenges the connection.
It has long been theorized that exposure to in-game concepts like violence has a "priming" effect on players that ultimately impacts behavior, leading scientists to believe that a player exposed to in-game violence will be more susceptible to displaying such violence in real life. The new study found the exact opposite to be true in some instances. In a series of experiments with a little over 3,000 participants (more than any past study to date), university researchers found that exposure to video game concepts like violence won't necessarily impact behavior. It also found that increasing the realism of violent video games does mean aggressive behavior in gamers will increase.
It has long been theorized that exposure to in-game concepts like violence has a "priming" effect on players that ultimately impacts behavior, leading scientists to believe that a player exposed to in-game violence will be more susceptible to displaying such violence in real life. The new study found the exact opposite to be true in some instances. In a series of experiments with a little over 3,000 participants (more than any past study to date), university researchers found that exposure to video game concepts like violence won't necessarily impact behavior. It also found that increasing the realism of violent video games does mean aggressive behavior in gamers will increase.
Yeah how many Wolfenstein players are out in the streets shooting Nazis?
- You're so right, not nearly enough.
For years we've been bombarded by press releases that say video games cause violent behaviour, followed by studies that say "nuh uh" So what changed? Did someone actually posit video games cause violent behaviour, then run a study that disproved the hypothesis?
See also: Comic Books. Nekkid wemmin in magazines. TV. Rock music. Marijuana. Abortion.
The fact that the study accepted the null hypothesis argues against this being junk science. The flux in the field, with established concepts like priming being vigorously challenged, is actually good sign.
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This study has a few problems. For one, the participants were all adults; the argument is usually that violent video games have a harmful effect on children whose minds are still developing, and these experiments don't assess that. Furthermore, several studies found that short-term aggression was increased by playing violent video games, but there was a lack of evidence for any long-term effects. This experiment didn't study long-term effects, either.
IMO the theories on how violent video games might mentally harm children approach Intelligent Design levels of pseudoscience, pushed by moral guardians who have a knee-jerk "think of the children!" reaction. I've played lots of violent video games, and the ones that most realistically depict violence are pretty disturbing; they make me less likely to want to employ violence, if anything.
What I'd REALLY like to see is if a VR game where you use motion controllers to punch people makes the players more likely to employ punches in real life afterward (in say some roleplay with a dummy where a punch, kick, or handshake can be employed.) I wonder if muscle memory (pressing a button on a Dualshock is nothing like throwing an actual punch) and feeling that the game isn't real (VR takes this away) are the main things stopping a connection between in-game violence and real-life aggressive tendencies. However, there's a big difference between "I'm curious if" and "I'm certain, therefore it must be made illegal immediately." I also chuckle at the idea that 'ragdoll physics' apparently equals 'realism' now; all those hours playing UT2003 and I never realized how REAL it was.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
False equivalence.
It is entirely possible that violent video games do not make people more violent, whereas sexist video games do increase the degree to which one subscribes to sexist ideals.
This study covers violence. It says nothing on the topic of sexism. So, this study lends evidence to the claim that there is no link between violent video games and violence. We cannot infer from this that there is no line between sexist video games and sexism.
I don't think we need any additional proof that social science is mostly junk science. Priming, intersectionality, trigger warnings all brought to you by these clowns.
I used to think that. My degree is in physics and I got a job later in life teaching community college physics. I got interested in the teaching craft and started taking master's level teaching courses and was forced to read these kinds of studies.
What I learned: The science for learning now humans work is way harder to study in a scientific manner than physics or math. That is, to study correctly. We don't even know how to form the questions well. We didn't even know what all the questions are. Yes, a lot of what you're seeing is in fact shit, but a big reason is that we really are only beginning to learn how humans work.
However wrong phlogiston, Aristotelianism, Ptolemaic astronomy, Dalton and so on are, they don't deserve ridicule because they're the foundation of our learning how the world works. It's the same with social sciences.
And on the other hand, if a few more people had stood up nazis when it counted, it would have saved millions of lives. And before you ask, yes, the same is true of communists and jihadists and plenty of other fundamentalists besides.
those who spend huge amounts of time playing video games avoid personal growth and avoid connecting with the world.
Do you have any actual evidence for this? Or are you just spouting off the same "conventional wisdom" that is debunked by this study?
Sure, introverts may be socially isolated and play a lot of video games. But that doesn't imply that the games caused the isolation, nor does it imply that the isolation is actually harmful, to the introverts or to the rest of society.
When I was a kid, there were no video games (other than "Pong"), yet we still had socially isolated people, watching Star Trek on TV, reading SciFi, and playing D&D. So are interactive video games "worse" in some way compared to likely alternative activities? I have seen zero evidence for that.
I feel like the accurate analogy would be you suddenly sitting down and starting to deal a poker table in the middle of a busy street because you're thinking about poker. It's what you think about exactly that counts, not the "area" of thinking you're doing. Even if the area contains violence, thinking doesn't automatically become violence only. Even if the area contains card dealing, thinking doesn't automatically become card dealing only.
In video games, the violence is only the act. The substance comes from what is around the act. Just like with any hobby, really.