Study Says Video Games Do Affect People, But Hardly At All
from the reason dept
Violent video games have been back in the news lately, following the Virginia Tech massacre (even though the shooter apparently wasn't a big gamer) and renewed efforts by state legislators to pass unconstitutional video-game bans. The overall issue here is that plenty of people want to eliminate responsibility for violent behavior by blaming it on video games, and saying they make people killers. Studies that claim to prove a link between games and violent or aggressive behavior generally fail miserably, with all that can really be agreed on is that video games do cause some sort of mental reaction in players -- as you might expect. Still, it's quite a leap to go from that to saying that video games make people behave a certain way after they're done playing. That's the general point made by the author of the latest study in the field, who says that games do create aggression in some people, but that the overall effect on people is very small, and has been exaggerated by activists, politicians and the media (it's probably worth noting that the title of the article about the study does this, by saying "Games Do Cause Violent Behavior (But Not Much)", when the study didn't look at violent behavior, just feelings of aggression). This gets to the heart of the matter: it's common sense that some video games could evoke certain feelings or mindsets in people -- but that's a completely separate issue from acting out those feelings through real-world violence outside the game. Plenty of other factors have far more impact the behavior of people -- particularly kids -- than video games. Trying to ban violent games is misguided, and overlooks all the other, more culpable, pieces of the puzzle that make people act out violent behavior.
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Sample Bias
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPxrjK7LgpY
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Re: Sample Bias
Have you ever played video games? There are some highly violent ones out there. You just have to go looking for them. But if you're looking for them in the first place, wouldn't that mean that you're predisposed to violent thought already?
Socially irresponsible games? More like socially irresponsible parents who don't monitor what they children play.
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Re: Re: Sample Bias
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Re: Sample Bias
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Distraction
Fact of the matter is, ban violent video games and we'll still be killing each other with guns. We've been doing it long before the advent of pong. Shit, South Africa and Colombia even manage a murder rate that rivals that of most countries during war time, and they sure as hell dont need GTA to do it.
Now, banning the sale of firearms to civilians would be an experiment worth its mettle. I'm not saying a determined individual won't be able to kill without a pistol or rifle, but shit, he won't be able to kill 35 people in the space of 2 hours.
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Re: Sample Bias
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A 4 Year old knows the difference....
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Re: A 4 Year old knows the difference....
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AC
agrred
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Violent video games can be a catharsis to violent tendencies. Normal people have pent up aggression or excess energy that a video game can allow to be disspiated safely. Psychopaths dont need video games to be violent. They have reality for that, as sick and twisted as it is in their warped little minds. One person goes berzerk and immediately the ignorant blames an industry that caters to millions of people who never have and never will be violent in real life. That just doents add up.
X
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Our Infuriating Government
RIAA, FCC, MPAA, The House, The Senate... How did the ignorant come into these positions of 'power'?
The RIAA anymore has only become an annoyance (their lawsuits effectivly meaningless), the FCC will only be satisfied when they can regulate every aspect of Article 1; then of course the Senators and Representatives who have made it their personal agenda to completely abolish Article 2. I can only imagine these people sitting down after banning all personal use of weaponry, discussing how they could make money renting rifles to hunters during various game seasons.
Speculation aside, the glaring ignorance of people like Clinton and Lieberman putting their cross hairs over companies like Rockstar and Valve is ridiculous. I've been to many gaming events where hundreds of people compete in a series of stressful competitions in hope to take 1st place (CPL is an excellent example). If violent gaming combined with stress brought out bizarre outbursts of mayhem, surely these "game related" incidents would be more likely to surface during such events, as opposed to school grounds and college campuses.
Like students preparing for their SATs and ACTs to try and get into a college/university, perhaps all would-be politicians should take a similar 'current events' test. Things to be covered:
1. THE INTERNET
2. Technology, ISP's and Internet Distribution means, Games and the Gaming Culture.
3. US Constitution followed by a review of THE INTERNET
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So statistically speaking, it'd probably be safer for the world if everyone was a gamer.
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How could we have missed it!
The answer is more real guns and less games featuring guns.
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Re: technofear
More guns! Huzzah!
Seriously, though, I'm all for more people having guns and knowing how to use them. Yeah, I'm one of those gun nuts that point out how easily that whole mess could have been stopped if someone else had taken out the shooter before he could kill all of those people.
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Re: Re: technofear
So... your answer is to issue everyone with guns so they can take down potential deviants before they can do too much damage?
Great, that gives me so much more confidence in the country that has the biggest nuclear arsenal in the world.
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Re: Re: Re: technofear
Oh and Cho seemed to know how to use those guns, quite effectively if you ask me.
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Re: Re: technofear
I've heard this "If more people on campus had guns" crap too often.
Here is what would happen.
(1) The shooter kills two people in a dorm room and runs off.
(2) Security is called, who informs all the students that there is a gunman on the loose.
(3) Students with guns go out to find the shooter.
You now have people with guns looking for a person with a gun. However, the people searching aren't in a single group, so you have several independent people with guns looking for someone with a gun. Now, try and convince me that they are going to make sure, when they run across someone with a gun, that this person is the shooter and not someone else looking for the shooter.
More likely, lots of people with guns, looking for someone with a gun, are going to get shot by *other* people with guns, looking for a man with a gun.
I used to think like you did, until I realized that it takes a trained man with a gun to be of any good use with it. Not just Junior or Granny packing heat.
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Re: Re: technofear
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Re: Re: technofear
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If politicians were right...
The truth of the matter is that violent video games do absolutely jack squat in inducing violent behavior amongst normal people. I can honestly say that I have played over 1,000 games in which one person brings about the death of another creature, yet I have never committed a violent act against anyone, nor do I see myself doing so in the future. Games have only ever been able to better emulate the reality of a situation when it comes to violence, but at the heart of the matter ever since the first video game was created, DEFEAT was at it's core. Competition is the true soul of man, and the more vivid, glorious, lustful, blood thirsty, glamorous, erotic, and cinematic you can make it, the better.
Get off your high horse and acknowledge that in every aspect of frowned upon behavior, it always comes down to bad parenting. End Of Discussion.
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Gaming & Guns
No game, D&D, xbox, pc, or ps2 has ever caused anyone to go out and commit mayhem. Those individuals who have, had major psychological issues before they ever picked up a controller.
Guns are another matter. The problem is that the vast majority of the people that own guns are responsible, sane law-abiding citizens. There are more guns in the US than there are people, if guns themselves were the cause of violence there wouldn't be anyone alive.
Unfortunately there is no perfect solution, in every country in the world if you are determined to get a gun, and do not care about the source, all you need is the cash and a bit of perseverance. Getting a firearm just isn't that difficult.
Cho was a very disturbed individual who was determined to slaughter a bunch of people. Do you really think different gun laws would have mattered?
Just Google home-made bombs and see what comes up....
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Re: Gaming & Guns
Lets take an analogy.
Sweden has more guns per capita than the US.
Sweden has more hard core FPS players per capita than the US.
Sweden does not give any real care to disgruntled or highly disturbed people.
Sweden has different gun laws than the US.
There are NO mass killings in Sweden...
This is just one of many, you could most probably replace Sweden with any other western country and get the same answer.
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Well see...
It takes a certain mentality to even want to aspire to those positions. I mean, it's typical of people that have problems with Greed and Power to desire jobs like that - that are otherwise unrewarding except in terms of power and money.
I personally think people that have significant amounts of desire for money are power are actually suffering from a mental illness. But you'll not likely see anyone put research dollars towards that anytime soon.
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Virginia Tech was STAGED
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Gun Laws
I also see where The infamous Joe is coming from where people are a little overzealous when it comes to things like that.
I'm not sure there's an answer to both of those arguments but I do think that having more possibilities to stop people like cho before they kill dozens of people is definitely the answer.
I also believe that having more guns in the hands of people that know how to use them and use them properly (Not going on a shooting spree) won't cause the problems that some people think they will.
Maybe having a few faculty members trained?
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Re: Gun Laws
More people having guns would NOT make me feel safer.
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Re: Re: Gun Laws
Agreed. I don't see anything wrong with requiring people to have a "shooter's license" in order to own and/or use firearms. People really ought to have to show basic firearms proficiency (including safety) in order to carry a firearm. That's the same basic principle behind driver's licenses.
I don't have anything against good gun control laws as long as they don't use "gun control" to mean "outlawing guns". It's unfortunate that most of the gun control laws on the books aren't particularly good.
How about more responsible, proficient people having guns?
BTW, I'm not particularly proficient with firearms, which is one reason I don't carry a gun. Plus, right now, I have better things to spend my money on (like food).
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In denial
The 21st April issue of New Scientist has a feature on this topic.
Basically, the evidence that observing violence makes people more violent or aggressive has been steadily accumulating for about half a century. It's getting to the point where there's very little doubt that there is a causal connection.
The magazine also mentions meta-analyses, which look at whole collections of analyses to see whether they point to a consistent pattern or not. In short, the correlation between observing violence and committing violence or aggression is about twice as strong as that between passive smoking and lung cancer, also twice as strong as that between using condoms and reducing HIV, and more than three times as strong as that between time spent on homework and academic achievement.
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Re: In denial
1) I do not think (violent) video games caused any massacre, not this one, not Columbine, not whatever.
2) If one day it is proven that a violent video game was the direct/main cause of a massacre, or even every massacre, I will have no problem admitting I was wrong about 1), but even if there is irrefutable scientific evidence of this, it should carry absolutely zero weight when it comes to "banning" violent games, it should "only" motivate people to find a better system to monitor/detect those potential players that might be susceptible to act out IRL what they experience in the game(s) and take appropriate actions against them (limit their access to said games), re-sensitize them, etc...
Because here's the thing: even if games would be the cause of the massacres (which, so far, nobody has been able to proof for any massacre), it would be ridiculous and plain out wrong for the vast majority of people/games to be deprived of their freedom to enjoy those kind of games, because there are a few individuals that get screwed up in the head because of it...(I don't hear anybody wanting to ban alcohol and/or cars just because a minority is stupid enough to drink & drive). And, again, my opinion, people screaming violent video games are the cause are stupid (or not using their brain): if the influence of video games (or violent movies or music or....) is as big as they advocate, shouldn't this kind of massacres be happening with a much higher frequency? millions play/watch/listen to/... this content, yet only a few individuals are driven to do these things...faced with these numbers, logic just dictates it can't be the games/movies/music
anyway, regardless of my personal opinion, as a scientist, I have a major issue with this study (at least based on what I could read about it in the New Scientist article). For several reasons this study proves nothing, not even gives a valid indication (which doesn't mean it's conclusion can't be correct, but if it is, the study can't take any credit for it).
Here's a couple of reasons why:
1) the study can't disprove or eliminate a statement like: those 39 gamers like to play a lot of violent games because they are desensitized when it comes to violence.
2) "those with the greatest reduction in P300 brain responses meted out the most severe punishments": first off, this might very well be explained by: the ones most desensitized had the least inhibition in the game, where as the others (for an actually quite irrational reason, since after all, it's a game, not real life) held back because they linked it more to real life than the more desensitized ones. and secondly, at best, it proves that the games with the greatest reduction in P300 brain responses meted out the most severe punishments in a game. There is absolutely no proof or research as to how this would translate to real world behavior...even if those gamers are more angry, doesn't mean a single one of them would act out more violently or sadistically in real life than any non-gamer.
3) "As far as I’m aware, this is the first study to show that exposure to violent games has effects on the brain that predict aggressive behavior". I can understand him jumping the gun a little as it would be the first study to show/prove what he's claiming, but it just doesn't.
4) "violence" is such a non-exclusive property, we see it everywhere: in real life, the news, movies/tv, games,... so to point the finger at games is just jumping the gun
5) the other "test-samples" (dead animals and sick children) the study use are extremes, they should have included a whole spectrum of test-images, not just violence and a couple of extremes like cute, dead animals and sick children.
As my statistics and probability professor said in college: statistics have such a bad rep because a lot of people either abuse/manipulate (the) numbers, or misuse them. The percentage of researchers/scientists in non-exact sciences that are incapable of correctly using statistics, correlations, etc... is quite frightening. And I must admit, (after reading about a lot of studies on all kinds of subjects, over the years) he is right.
Here's how a study should be conducted. An absolute prerequisite would be that the test/study is conducted adhering to the double blind principles. Which is an absolute must for any serious study, yet it is scary how often this is not the case...I can't stress this enough, at least 90% of research is worthless because it doesn't adhere to this principle...you would be amazed how often results and especially conclusions are influenced by either placebo effect or observer bias (especially the latter)...again, that doesn't mean the conclusion of a study can't be correct, but it does mean the study in question is worthless as proof.
The study should include not just a group of games, but there should include members of a bunch of different groups (details of to which group each subject belongs obviously being stored sealed and unread until after all measurements), not just gamers.
In my opinion, members of each of the following groups should be included (and preferably the same amount, in light of the size of the study, say 50 of each):
1) a neutral "control" group
2) intensive (violent gaming) gamers
3) occasional (violent gaming) gamers
4) a group of non players who will start playing a lot of violent games
5) people who don't play games but watch a lot of violent movies/news
6) soldiers
7) cops
8) ER doctors
The study should also be conducted over a period of time, not be a momentarily snapshot, for example two sets of tests, 3 or 6 months apart (to give group 4) the chance to get some serious violent gaming time in). And the tests should include a wide selection of (types of) images
And then based on the test results, if what they've set out to prove is true, they should be able to, based on the 2 sets of results, pick out group 2 and group 4. After which the identity of the subjects can be checked against their information to see just how many of the intense (violent) gamers and gamers that started playing a lot of violent games they correctly identified, based solely on the sets of P300 test results. And see if they had a high success rate (which doesn't necessarily mean 100%) and calculate the correlation of both their results (of predicting the games based on the test results) as between the test results of all test subjects.
And even if this objective testing/study would prove that effect, it does nothing to prove it would or will result in any un-acceptable behavior in the real world.
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Re: In denial
That's like saying you will only accept that passive smoking causes lung cancer when it can be proven that smoking a particular cigarette caused a particular patient to die.
As was pointed out in New Scientist, the connection between violence on-screen and violent or aggressive behaviour has been established more strongly than several other things that, if people were to deny them, we could reasonably conclude that they were out of touch with reality. So why is it so hard to accept the idea of a connection for violence?
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Re: Re: In denial
people like you, sir are the single reason i enjoy looking at this site! none of you have said "lol that's gay! video games dont cause violence u n00b! lo lwhat a fag!!!1!!111"
thank you!
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Bias Conclusion
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your write
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video games
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bad
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bad
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Causal Link
In my personal opinion(I've been playing Video games for over 20 years now) not once have i seen anyone running around yelling something from a video game with a AK-47 in their hands making the attempt to kill someone.
Granted i know people who run around yelling "FOR THE HORDE"...but that is a different discussion all together
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violent? or parents?
I do not agree on banning games because parents play these that dont let there kids so that would piss them off.
SO its ultimitaley up to parents to not let there kid play it. I mean its also there mindset. If you get in trouble and have been to juvie more than once then you should reconsider buying that Manhunt 2 game or maybe even halo 3?
but its all subjective anyways they would never ban it
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naww
Unless you retarded. BuhT.. Yaw tryna band it iz helluh Stupidd.. Theres violence errywheer n u cant stop it no matter what so if you take it away it aint gonna change violence
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Re: naww
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i think this way
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Concerning videogame violence.
I'm a teenager and I play extremely violent games but I don't go act on what I do in the game. For me it is a way to channel my anger and stress of the day or week or whatever. So I can take it out on the game instead of on a person. It actually calms people which is the opposite effect of what "experts" say are doing to us.
If my mother didn't want me playing these kinds of games she wouldn't buy them for me. And it's not because she doesn't know what the games contain because she plays them to. Not for the violence, but for the fun of it.
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Video Game Blame Game
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Video games
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Problem with your article about video games
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