Another Questionable Study By Brad Bushman Claims Violent Video Games Are Bad For Children

from the when-everything-looks-like-a-scapegoat... dept

Brad Bushman, the Ohio State University researcher who (usually in conjunction with Craig Anderson) has somehow managed to ignore a body of work to the contrary, has again produced a study that claims video games turn players into monsters. His study, conducted with the aid of Italian researchers, makes a couple of specific claims based on the observed behavior of the 172 subjects.

- People playing violent video games are more dishonest than those playing non-violent games.
- People playing violent video games exhibit less self control than those playing non-violent video games.

Subjects either played violent games (Grand Theft Auto III or GTA: San Andreas) or non-violent games (Golf3D or Pinball3D). During their playtime, they were given a bowl of M&Ms to snack on, but were first warned that eating too much candy in one sitting was "unhealthy."

Let's stop right here for a moment and consider the credibility of researchers who (presumably with a straight face) told teenagers that eating too much candy would make their tummies hurt. The health implications of a single bowl of candy in a research setting are effectively nil, but this ridiculous instruction is used as evidence that violent video games adversely affect players' judgement.

According to Bushman's research, players playing violent games ate more than those playing non-violent games. Ipso facto, violent game players have less self-control.

Moving on.

Post-playtime, players were given a set of logic questions to answer and received a raffle ticket for each correct answer. The "catch" (as it were) was that players were allowed to collect these tickets themselves from an envelope. Research showed those playing violent games were eight times as likely to grab more tickets than they actually earned, thus suggesting players of violent games are more subject to moral turpitude.

An additional factor thrown into the mix was a post-play "game" which gave players the option to blast losing players with a loud noise through their headphones. (There was actually no one on the receiving end of the blasts, which is kind of a shame…) Violent game players were much more prone to do this, again suggesting those under the influence of Grand Theft Auto tend to be more aggressive and harmful towards others.

The problem with Bushman's study is that it collects evidence on short-term effects (behavior observed during or shortly after play) and uses that to suggest there are long-term repercussions inherent in playing violent games. It's completely unsurprising that those who had played Grand Theft Auto would be more prone to blast other players with noise than those who played a sedate game like Golf. (It would be interesting to see this comparison done more aggressive sports games -- like football, hockey or boxing.) Both games demand a different mental approach and a game containing violent behavior would likely see a short-term rise in aggression in most players.

Also, when players have just finished playing a game where their protagonists can break all sorts of laws, taking a couple of extra tickets just doesn't seem to be a big deal. But this is behavior viewed nearly immediately after playing. A reasonable amount of "cool down" time would likely reduce this number. Stealing a raffle ticket from a research project is a far cry from exiting the building and punching people or making off with their vehicles.

The less said about the candy "evidence," the better. But, if nothing else, we are again observing behavior during and shortly after gameplay, not long-term indicators.

It needs to be highlighted that the negative behavior was more prevalent in those who "scored highest on a measure of moral disengagement." This suggests the underlying factors are pre-existing, rather than created by gameplay. Research subjects with moral issues were more morally suspect. Go figure. Bushman wants to believe the video games alter the morals of players, but his own research states otherwise. In fact, Bushman himself states otherwise.

“Those who are most morally disengaged are likely to be the ones who show less self-restraint after playing.”

Even the "moral disengagement" is questionable. Take a look at one of the questions used to indicate "moral disengagement."

“Compared to the illegal things people do, taking some things from a store without paying for them is not very serious.”

Well, no kidding. Someone doesn't have to be suffering from outsized "moral disengagement" to realize that stealing from a store is a much less serious crime than other criminal acts (like, say, stealing directly from another person). Anyone who disagreed with this statement has some moral issues of their own.

Bushman's study involved 172 students, a grouping that will generally produce statistically solid results. But compare those 172 who seemingly proved Bushman's theory ("violent video games are unquestionably bad") to a recent study involving 11,000 children that spanned 10 years. A broader base, spread over time, indicated that video game playing had nearly no discernible effect on children.

Bushman's (and Anderson's) body of work has tried to prove that violent video games make people violent, but has actually done little more than see him push preconceived notions under the pretense of "science." His research tends to indicate short-term effects but his statements assert players of violent video games are incapable of resetting their moral compass. He's been called out before for his flawed research and cherry-picked "analysis." This is more of the same. Bushman ignores the results his own "moral disengagement" test and makes the claim that violent video games make otherwise good people aggressive, dishonest and (LOL) eat more candy.

Because of his past "research," Bushman (and Anderson) will continue to be the go-to man for talking heads who want their own perceptions of Big Bad Video Games confirmed. Those willing to see past the headlines will find little more than a researcher repeatedly confirming his own bias.

Filed Under: brad bushman, studies, video games, violence

Lessons Learned From Adam Lanza's Video Game Obsession: Blame Dance Dance Revolution

from the just-kidding dept

The Sandy Hook massacre has been back in the news as of late for a multitude of reasons. The anniversary of the shooting is coming up soon. Someone decided to release a game associated with the tragedy to send a message and everyone lost their damn minds. And, finally, the government is releasing a full report of their findings of the shooting and of Adam Lanza, the disturbed perpetrator, which includes his possessions and specifically details his video game collection.

Now, if you'll recall, the NRA and several conservative and/or gun rights organizations found themselves the reactionary targets of people who don't like them in the wake of the shooting. Much of this was essentially undeserved fervor, which effectively drowned out any reasonable middle-road discussion we might have had about the issues of firearms availability and their effects on shootings such as this. The mass media supercharged the stupid on both sides, which produced equally stupid results from, you know, everyone. Included in that everyone was the National Rifle Association, which proudly defended our 2nd Amendment rights by suggesting maybe we should shit all over everyone's 1st Amendment rights. Their argument was essentially that guns don't kill people, all those violent video games played by the person folks mistakenly misidentified as the perpetrator shot those people. Yippee for American discourse.

Well we now have a list of Adam Lanza's video game collection, and it indeed includes games of violence, such as Splinter Cell, Mercenaries, Call of Duty, and others. Case closed, amirite? Mmmm, no. Here's some other games on the list: Spiderman, Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, and Pikmin. Oh, and the game he reportedly was totally obsessed with? Dance Dance Revolution.

So here's the deal: people that want to draw conclusions about Adam Lanza from his gaming habits don't get to cherry-pick their facts. If we're blaming the games that include violence, surely we must include the games that don't, particularly the game with which he was most obsessed. And I sincerely want to hear the proponents of restrictions on the 1st Amendment by way of video games to argue to the world that we must restrict access to DDR, because I know exactly with what kind of reaction such an argument would be met: derision. Which is exactly what it should be met with, because all this low-hanging fruit-picking over video games is stupid.

Filed Under: adam lanza, dance dance revolution, newtown, video games, violence

Cop Shoots Cuffed Teen In The Face With A Taser, Claims He 'Feared For His Safety' [UPDATED]

from the the-first-rule-of-policing-rears-its-abusive-head dept

[UPDATE: Several commenters have pointed out that the "his" in the quote "feared for his safety" may refer to the safety of the suspect (who may have been running into traffic), rather than the safety of the officer. I will try to find another quote that clarifies this matter and will add it to the top of this post when I do. Tasing someone while they're cuffed seems like a strange way to make someone "safer," but it's a better rationale than arguing a cuffed suspect represents a "threat" to an officer's safety. This incident does seem to have a bit more vagueness than other "feared for his safety" cases. In most others, the suspect has ended up beaten or shot, which pretty much eliminates the suspect's "safety" from the equation.

Why an officer couldn't simply run down a cuffed suspect on foot is beyond me, considering they have to pass certain physical tests before exiting the police academy. But if the physical shape of police officers tracks with the general physical condition of much of the population, it's easy to see why firing a Taser would be preferable (and quicker) than attempting a rundown. (I'm reminded of Christian Slater's character's quote in the seminal 90s comedy "Kuffs," delivered while undergoing physical training at the police academy: "Why are we doing all this running? Aren't we going to be driving around in cars?")

The "pulling his legs out from under him" quote is probably just an example DA Heckler used to illustrate how this teen's face ended up in the condition it did.]

Let's get everything else out of the way. Everything that might indicate this teen/perp got what he "deserved."

1. He was caught shoplifting at a Wal-Mart along with his 19-year-old cousin. He was positively identified by Wal-Mart Asset Protection.
2. He was arrested and cuffed.
3. He ran from the cops before they could place him in the squad car.

This kid isn't exactly a sympathetic character. He was caught red-handed breaking the law. He was on his way to being processed. But then he ran. And for that, he was shot in the face with a Taser.

This isn't according to the kid or his mother. This is according to the County District Attorney himself.

Bucks County District Attorney David Heckler tells NBC10 that police officers yelled warnings at the teen and fearing for his safety, they fired a stun gun to subdue him. The D.A. says the Taser struck the boy in the face and with his hands cuffed, the boy had no way to brace himself against falling face-first.

None of this adds up.

How does a cop "fear for his safety" when a handcuffed suspect is fleeing police custody? It's highly unlikely he was running towards police officers in order to escape them, but the DA himself claims the teen was "struck in the face" by the Taser.

Marissa Sargeant, the teen's mother, claims he was beaten.

“The picture speaks 1,000 words. They brutally beat him,” Sargeant said in her Levittown apartment. “If he did fall on his face, why does he have scrapes and bruises all over his whole face, everywhere. Why is his nose broken? Why is his nostril lifted off his face? Why is both of his eyes black and swollen?”

Maybe the cops just roughed him up a bit and somehow thought the ridiculous Taser story would cover it all up? Even the DA can't seem to get his narrative right.

“You take off running at a full clip and someone pulls your legs out from under you, and you’re cuffed from behind, you’re going to break your fall with your face,” Heckler said last night. “I could well believe that you’d have fairly substantial bruising, cuts and scrapes.”

So, which is it? Was he struck in the face by a Taser or were his "legs pulled out" from under him? Either way, it's conceivable he'd take a faceful of pavement. But neither response sounds appropriate.

It's tough to make a complete assessment about this teen's physical size from a headshot, but to me, he looks pretty slight -- not like some overgrown boy/man who's jumped the development curve on his way to 6'6" by age 16 and who purchased his first razor at age 11. Even if he was running directly at the cop, his hands were cuffed behind his back. Anyone in law enforcement who "fears for their safety" when a cuffed perp starts running either towards or (especially) away from them should probably hand in all assigned weapons, whether lethal or not.

His mother is certainly being overly dramatic when she compares it to the Rodney King beating. This isn't an extreme case of excessive force. Nope, this is just the run-of-the-mill deployment of excessive force to subdue a perp who made the responding cops' job slightly harder. For the DA to not only swallow, but parrot, the "fear for my safety" line is sadly unsurprising as well.

This isn't a poster child for police abuse. This is just another in a long line of incidents showing just how frequently law enforcement members will claim to "fear for their lives" in order to justify handing a perp a little extra "attention"... or a full-on beating... or an instant death sentence.

Filed Under: police, police brutality, taser, violence

Study: Claiming That Games And Violence Are Linked Now Linked To Violence

from the we've-gone-meta dept

You know how this usually works when we talk about major media and their comments on violent video games. One of the mindless talking heads on one of the cable news programs that I've been trying to convince you to never watch jumps to the wrong conclusion about games after some tragedy and then I make fun of them. It's been a nice, tidy, symbiotic relationship thus far: they apparently need to say something stupid and I apparently need to tear their nonsense to shreds.

But now we've got a problem. It turns out that these baseless claims that video games lead to violence may themselves be leading to violence.
"Dude, bro, what does that even mean?"
Image Source Okay, so it's just a parody article by The Guardian, but it so closely mimics the real nonsense spewed by the media about video games that, like me, you'll probably read it through the first time and think it's plausible someone actually said this stuff. The joke starts with a claim of a study.

Dr Mario Vance, a psychological researcher at the Rapture Institute for headline-inspired science, conducted a seven-year longitudinal study that monitored the anger levels of more than a thousand volunteers from gaming communities. The results showed statistically significant increases in overall aggression and violent tendencies that occurred very soon after tenuous mainstream media stories claiming video games cause violence.

"Mainstream media have never liked video games, but it's just getting silly lately," said Dr Vance. "Recently, several media sources focused on Aaron Alexis (the Washington naval yard gunman) and his enthusiasm for Call of Duty as a cause for his brutal crimes. Because when wondering what could have made a naval reservist, someone trained by the military to engage in actions with the express intention of killing people, turn to violence, the obvious conclusion is 'video games', apparently.

This is something we've actually seen in our comments about these kinds of tragedies: why are we so focused on the video games, or the guns for that matter, instead of banking that the source of violence might be the violence-training some of these perpetrators receive in our military? This, of course, isn't to say that our military turns people into mass murderers or anything of that nature, but it's a much better direct link than the fact that these guys played Grand Theft Auto.

The article about the "study" then goes on with some rather funny quotes that parody some other counter-examples we've heard in our comments section.

"I used to enjoy multiplayer gaming. Granted, it expanded my vocabulary for homophobic insults considerably, but I've never felt the urge to travel to war-torn regions and practise my sniper skills for real. But my mother read that I could turn violent so confiscated my Playstation. One dubious article in the Telegraph and she decides I'm too impressionable. She owns four Derek Acorah DVDs and keeps asking her fortune teller what to do about me, so yeah, I'm the main problem here."

So, if it's a parody article, what's there to learn here? Well, the problem is that all the made up quotes, claims, and bullshit in this parody article aren't far off from what's being spoon-fed to the public by a mass media that would rather go the lazy self-serving route of scaring the hell out of parents than actually tell the truth about the link between games and violence, which is to say there is none. Sure, this pro-gamer article was pulled out of someone's ass, but if mass media can do it we can too.

Filed Under: satire, studies, video games, violence

And, Right On Time, Here Comes The Blame Video Games Train For The Navy Yard Shooter

from the blame-game dept

Perhaps it makes me a cold, heartless son of a bitch, but when I read the news reports about Aaron Alexis, who shot up the Washington Navy Yard and killed several people, I immediately wondered how long it would take before we got someone blaming video games. It simply happens every time. Whether it's simple accidental shootings, the Aurora theater shootings, or the Sandy Hook tragedy, pundits and advocating blame-shifters just love to take the gun out of the shooter's hands and place it squarely at the feet of violent media. It's the kind of culpability avoidance that has so frustrated the American public over our legal system. So, again, I wondered how long it would take.

One freaking day, that's how long. It starts with an obviously distraught friend of Alexis', who it should be noted is a restaurant owner and not a practicing psychotherapist.

The darker side to Alexis's character saw him playing violent "zombie" video games in his room, sometimes from 12.30pm until 4.30am. Mr Suthamtewakul said: "He could be in the game all day and all night. I think games might be what pushed him that way. He always had this fear people would steal his stuff so that's why he would carry his gun all the time. He would carry it when he was helping out in the restaurant which scared my customers."

From there, cable news, which is the bane of all intelligence, took the stupid ball and ran with it.

New Fox & Friends host Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Tuesday suggested that “the left” was trying to make Monday’s mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard about “gun control,” when what the country really needed was a registry to track video game purchases.

“Are more people susceptible to playing video games?” Hasselbeck wondered. “Is there a link between a certain age group or [demographic] in 20- to 34-year-old men, perhaps, that are playing these video games and their violent actions? What about frequency testing?” she added. “How often has this game been played? I’m not one to get in there and say, monitor everything, but if this, indeed, is a strong link, right, to mass killings then why aren’t we looking at frequency of purchases per person? And also, how often they’re playing and maybe they time out after a certain hour.”

Ah, the classic "I'm just asking questions" routine. Does Hasselback know she's reading from the nutso conspiracy theorist's script? Regardless, the problem is that we've seen time and time again that the evidence suggests there is no link between video games and violent behavior. Yet the response should be government monitoring of our entertainment choices? And this is from a Fox News anchor!?!?

Hey, heads up to all you folks that want to use this crime to blame guns, video games, movies, heavy metal music, football, or Pokemon: the guy had mental health issues. He was hearing voices and had already contacted the V.A. to get help. Oh, and he was apparently shuffled through the civilian contractor application process without a proper background check, because we all know the DoD doesn't have any reason to be more strict when it comes to civilian contractors these days. This was a failure on many levels, with the ultimate responsibility falling into the hands of the man who was firing the weapon into the innocents: Aaron Alexis. You know where there wasn't any culpability? Video games.

Filed Under: aaron alexis, elisabeth hasselbeck, fox news, navy yards, video games, violence, washington navy yards

British Library Network Blocks 'Hamlet' For 'Violent Content'

from the infinite-jest dept

The use of Web blocks -- usually "for the children" -- is becoming depressingly common these days. So much so, that many people have probably come to accept them as a fact of online life. After all, the logic presumably goes, we can't do much about it, and anyway surely it's a good thing to try to filter out the bad stuff? Techdirt readers, of course, know otherwise, but for anyone who still thinks that well-intentioned blocking of "unsuitable" material is unproblematic, the following cautionary tale from the British blogger W.H. Forsyth may prove instructive:

On Monday, I was sitting in the British Library frantically trying to write my new book in a shturmovshchina. I had to quickly check a particular line in Hamlet, so I Googled Hamlet MIT, because the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has put the entire works of Shakespeare up on the Internet. (It takes 70 mins to order a physical book). I clicked on the link and...

A message came up from the British Library telling me that access to site was blocked due to "violent content".

The rest of the highly-entertaining blog post details attempts to get the library staff to see that there was a worrying symbolism about blocking Hamlet of all things in the British Library of all places:

The IT department said there was nothing to be done, as it was only the British Library's wifi service that was blocking Hamlet, and the British Library's wifi service, they seemed sure, had nothing to do with the British Library. They were merely ships that passed in the night. Children crying to each other from either bank of an uncrossable river.

As this shows, the British Library's IT department tried to shrug this off with a "not our fault" comment to the effect that it was the wifi service doing the blocking, not the British Library, but that is just casuistry: the wifi service was being offered by the British Library to allow its users to access the Internet -- an indispensable research tool these days. As one of the world's leading repositories of knowledge, the British Library has a clear responsibility to facilitate that access. The fact that its staff seemed unperturbed by the censorship of Shakespeare in this supposed temple of British culture is also deeply troubling.

A tweet bemoaning the block had more luck: within 12 minutes, the British Library Reference Services tweeted back:

Not any more! We've made adjustments to the filtering software :)

Since the block was quickly removed, you might ask: what's the problem? Well, maybe stuff like this, reported by @matt_sperling on Twitter, the same day as the Hamlet censorship:

various images found thru google image search were blocked

These included a painting of Lot and his Daughters by Hendrick Goltzius:

and Luca Giordano's Battle between the Lapiths and Centaurs:

The next day, @alexvtunzelmann tweeted about continuing issues:

New @britishlibrary wifi is cranky & erratic. Has just blocked me from reading Tennyson on Project Gutenberg. Possibly on grounds of taste.

And that's the problem: taste is highly subjective, and clearly leading here to massive overblocking on the British Library's wifi network. The fact that the blocks were later removed misses the point: that they are inappropriate obstacles for scholars carrying out legitimate searches, and that they should never have been applied in the first place. It's sad to see a great institution like the British Library complicit in this spread of routine and mindless censorship.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

Filed Under: british library, censorship, filters, hamlet, violence

Dr. Oz Claims Violent Video Games 'Hurt' Teens; Backs Up Claims With Absolutely Nothing At All

from the Wii-Sports-awarded-custody-of-teens-after-years-of-abuse-by-CoD dept

You know what people just absolutely love? When someone makes bold proclamations and then dances off into the ether without providing a single supporting source for their statements. You'd think someone highly touted in the medical community would at least be able to provide a link or a searchable source for something as brash as this, but from the looks of it, you'd be the only one thinking.

Via Gamepolitics comes this delightfully horrible column, written by Dr. Mehmet Oz (TV's "Dr. Oz") and his colleague, Dr. Mike Roizen (chief medical officer at the Cleveland Clinic Wellness Institute). Its title makes an unequivocal statement before moving on at a breakneck pace to its conclusion, utilizing a combination of unsourced stats and unproven conjecture.

Here's the title:

It's official (again)- violent video games hurt teens

A quick read through the column (and it is a quick read) shows that Oz and Roizen aren't too keen on providing any sort of backup for this claim (much less the fact that it's "again"). Nowhere in the 300 words or so will you find links, quotes or citations of any sort. Here's the opening paragraph, which gives readers some insight into the doctors' mindset, but not much else.

Call of Duty: Black Ops (dismembered limbs, obscene language, torture) and Hitman: Absolution (can you really absolve a hit man?) -- $13.6 billion is spent annually in North America so that more than 210 million folks can play video games like these. Many of those players are younger than 18, and that's, you know, way bad for kids and teens.

No. I don't know. Perhaps if you could point me to some research (preferably nothing by Craig Anderson) that shows how video games are "way bad" for kids and teens. Also, a majority of the 210 million gamers are over the age of 18, which is who these games are targeted at (and rated for).

But let's not dwell on the lack of evidence indicating games hurt teens (again) by "fueling aggressive behavior, dulling empathy and causing sleep problems." (Parents: are your teens aggressive, self-centered and up all hours of the night? Welcome to Life with a Teenager, a.k.a. Why the Hell Did I Decide to Have Kids? Take away video games and I would imagine the hormonal developments, myopic worldview common to that age group and erratic sleep patterns wouldn't be altered in any significant fashion.)

Let's move on to the doctors' next point, which is also dropped unceremoniously (and without sources) into the mix.

And if you think you know what's going on with your kids, think again. Most parents say they're pretty sure of what their kids are doing online, but 50 percent of kids report having inappropriate-age-rated games ("M" for "mature" and "AO" for "adults only") among their often-played favorites.

And this "50 percent" was determined how? Rounding up the interns and asking them what percentage of a whole would they find both "scary" and "believable?" Who would dispute this "finding?" Who could dispute this "finding?" There's nothing to work with.

It would be one thing if a psychologist made a few unsourced claims based on first-hand experience with the subject matter (kids, video games), but when a surgeon and a chief medical officer make bold statements about the effect of violent games on kids, they need to bring a little bit more to the discussion than a willingness to fill a column with words.

On the plus side, the doctors don't take the government or retailers to task for kids' access to M-rated games. (Though I wonder where these kids are getting "AO" games... Certainly not from any major retailer.) Instead, they ask parents to get involved and aim children towards other activities, rather than allowing the Xbox/PS3/Wii to fill in as full-time caregivers. This is the only part of the column that actually contains good advice and no ridiculous, unsourced statements.

Maybe this substance-free column is an offshoot of Dr. Oz's love of homeopathy -- the weaker the sources, the stronger the argument. No sources at all possibly means his proclamations are completely unassailable. Well played, sir.

Filed Under: mehmet oz, mike roizen, video games, violence, violent video games

Dan Brown: Video Games Lead To Violence

from the another-example-of-poor-research dept

You'll of course remember Dan Brown as the author of The Da Vinci Code, a book based on a poorly researched work of non-fiction largely built on the fraudelant claims of anti-semite Pierre Plantard. I mention this only to remind anyone who forgot that you couldn't ride a bus, a train, or sneak past the office water cooler in the early part of the millenium without someone breathlessly rushing up to tell you how amazing the book was and how terrific a researcher Dan Brown had proved himself to be. Dan Brown's book and the book off which it was based have since been judged to be the sort of drivel normally reserved for terrifyingly hysterical conspiracy theory websites. History, it seems, does indeed tend to repeat itself.

I'm speaking of an article to which Dementia alerts us. The entire thing is bizarre, honestly, from a report that Dan Brown may now be joining the punching bag of conspiracy theorists, the Freemasons, to his assertion that Freemasonry is not itself a religion. That last one seems to stretch the definition of religion entirely, considering the group has lodges (churches), rituals (sacred rites), and requires the belief in a supernatural deity (God), which all sound like religion to me. All that said, the article took an even stranger turn mid-prose, when Brown suddenly began railing against video games.

"I think video games are very dangerous," he said. "The quantity of hours that people play these first person shooter games. It becomes a reality of some sort, and that's a part of it. It really comes down to educating schools and parents. To say 'you know what, you can;t play that, sorry, I'm just not going to let you do it'."

Let's get the obvious out of the way: an exhaustive look at the research into the question of violence and its relation to video games should probably be labeled inconclusive, with a nod to a ton of research that says there is simply no link. I can't say for certain that Brown is simply shooting from the hip, here, without really researching what he's putting out for public consumption, but I will say that he's demonstrated the ability to do so with his books.

If you think about his quote above, he's basically saying video games are dangerous because of the quantity of hours people play shooting games, which are violent, and suggests that people are getting lost in those games, embarking from reality. In other words, the games are dangerous because they fictitiously propel people into a world which doesn't actually exist, and gamers come out of that world changed into believing something or acting in a way they had not previously. Are you seeing the problem? One might have said that The Da Vinci Code, which wasn't lacking in violence, by the way, is dangerous for the exact same reason. People read that book and came out of it believing in a reality that didn't exist. So perhaps Brown wants to explain why it should be different for his own books?

Filed Under: da vinci code, dan brown, video games, violence

Researcher Tries To Connect Violence And Video Games During Murder Trial; Gets Destroyed During Cross Examination

from the 3-Mortal-Kombat-saves?-thank-god-this-'killer'-is-no-longer-walking-free dept

Violence and violent video games still remain connected in the eyes of many despite a lack of supporting evidence. When an act of violence occurs, the more horrific it is, the more certain it is that people will try to connect the two. We've seen it happen time and time again.

A recent murder trial used this "connection" in the accused's defense, but with a twist. Instead of using violent video games as a scapegoat to help defray the culpability of their client ("video games made him do it"), the defense team used it to portray one of the victims as a violent person motivated by violent video games.

Illinois man Chris Beason was accused of the murder of five members of his ex-wife's family -- parents Ruth and Raymond "Rick" Gee, Rick's 22-year-old son Austin and Ruth's two children, 14-year-old Dillen and 16-year-old Justina. Beason also severely beat the Gee's three-year-old daughter, but she survived. Things looked bad for Beason, who went on trial facing an uphill battle against a ton of forensic evidence and damning testimonies provided by a former cellmate and his own brother.

So, Beason went in a wholly unexpected direction, claiming that he was walked in on a murder-in-progress, perpetrated by Dillen, and had to kill the 14-year-old in self defense.

The defense tried to paint the victim (who was bludgeoned to death) as an anti-social at-risk teen whose rage and anger was exacerbated by playing video games. This, the defense argued, led to Dillen killing his entire family on the night of September 29, 2009 - which Harris claimed to have walked into in progress.

The defense called in an "expert" (you'll see why the quotes are attached as this unfolds) to support its theory that Dillen's video game habits had turned him into a murderer.

To drive this angle home, the defense called Iowa State University professor and researcher Craig Anderson. On May 28 he testified about a report he created for the case based on documents sent to him by the defense.

Those of you familiar with Craig Anderson's video game research will see where this is going. Those who aren't, prepare to meet the man most likely to take Jack Thompson's place as the shrill voice of video game hysteria.

To set the stage, here are a few quotes (by others in the research field) on Anderson and his "research."

In reference to a 2008 study of his that "linked" video games to violence in the US and Japan:

In the literature review the authors suggest that research on video game violence is consistent when this is hardly the case. The authors here simply ignore a wide body of research which conflicts with their views...

[Prof. Christopher Ferguson's] paper claims that Anderson’s study “included many studies that do not relate well to serious aggression, an apparently biased sample of unpublished studies, and a 'best practices' analysis that appears unreliable and does not consider the impact of unstandardized aggression measures on the inflation of effect size estimates.”

I would certainly say there's an agenda here... what Craig Anderson argues in his paper, he then goes into describing youth violence, talking about how serious a public concern youth violence is. [But] He doesn't measure youth violence in his study. He doesn't measure anything even close to it. The aggression measure he uses is not a behavioral measure, it doesn't measure aggressive behaviors. It doesn't predict youth violence. So they're engaging in hyperbole that is not warranted by the results of their study, and that to me say there's clearly an agenda.]

Anderson first delved into Dillen's non-video game background, citing multiple risk factors like anti-social behavior, ADD, learning problems and troubled home life. He pointed out that Dillen kept a "knife and golf club" in his room and was prone to "emotional outbursts." After running down everything in Dillen's life that may have contributed to his supposed killing spree, Anderson turned to his area of "expertise."

Anderson testified that research has shown that playing violent video games can lead to aggressive behavior. The defense then moved to discuss three save games on Dillen's PS2 - for Mortal Kombat. After describing the fatalities in the game - one character ripping another's spine out - the jury was shown various fatalities from Mortal Kombat: Armageddon.

One game. Three saves. Obviously a pattern. The fatalities in the game are indeed violent, but they've also been around for years, being enjoyed by millions of gamers with no ill side effects. Anderson was probably feeling rather confident in his conclusions -- right up until the prosecution began drilling holes in every argument.

But on cross examination, Anderson was put on the defensive as the prosecution drilled down into his expert testimony on video game violence and research. First he was asked if he had ever played Mortal Kombat and if it had made him violent.

Anderson said that he had in fact played the game many years ago and indicated that it did not make him violent.

Millions of gamers. Millions of violent video game hours played. Violent crime at an all-time low in most of America. And yet, Anderson and other like-minded individuals insist these games craft killers. Somehow, Anderson wasn't affected by Mortal Kombat but he expected the jury to believe Dillen was.

Focusing on violent video games, the prosecution pointed out that 70 percent of adolescents play video games and the majority of them do not commit violent crimes. But the real zinger came when the prosecution asked Anderson if Pac Man eating a ghost could be considered violent by some definitions. Anderson says that it could.

The prosecution wasn't finished nailing Anderson to the wall. It also attacked the supposed research he had done into Dillen's past.

Anderson also admitted that he didn't talk to anyone (including therapists, teachers, school officials, or family members) familiar with Dillen's behavior when preparing his report for the defense. The prosecution pointed out that Anderson's first draft of his report listed six risk factors, but a later draft listed 16. Anderson responded by saying that prior aggression is the highest indicator of violence. Anderson also admitted that he had no way of knowing if the documents he used for his report were accurate. The prosecution also pointed out that Dillen's grades had been improving over time and that in some subjects he was getting "A's" and "B's".

For someone so confident that video games are creating killers, Anderson didn't seem too sure of much else. I'm sure he thought he wouldn't need to do more than trot out a little bit of his proprietary "research" and coast out of there unscathed. Instead, the prosecution went after his half-assed "expert opinion" relentlessly, forcing Anderson to utter some pretty damning statements of his own. Unfortunately for Anderson, the only person these statements damned was himself.

Later the prosecution got Anderson to acknowledge that there has never been a study that shows violent video games have been directly linked to violent acts.

Certainly nothing outside of Anderson's own. It gets better (for us). The prosecution brought up Brown v. EMA, pointing out the Supreme Court justices' criticism of Anderson's methodology. Anderson's response?

Anderson said that the decision by the Supreme Court looked like it was written by the video games industry and that he felt like the video game industry went out of its way to personally attack him.

Wow. The video game industry controls the Supreme Court. Who knew?

Ultimately, Anderson's testimony did little, if anything, for the defense. Beason was found guilty of five counts of first-degree murder. Anderson, on the other hand, has further cemented his own reputation as researcher severely short on credibility and objectivity -- both generally considered to be positive traits in this field. Furthermore, he's proved himself to be the kind of opportunistic person who's willing to further his own agenda by painting a murder victim as a violent killer. The courtroom is no place to be tossing around predispositions and shrugging off actual facts. Anderson did both.

Filed Under: blame, chris beason, craig anderson, murder, studies, video games, violence

Retired Lt. Col.: Violent Media Has Bred A Generation Of Killers

from the not-to-subtle,-huh? dept

I can understand why someone who watches the news on a daily basis might shake their head in dismay. I get how it must feel necessary to put the blame for tragedies like Sandy Hook somewhere, anywhere, even if the eventual target of ire is misplaced. There's probably a certain ill-conceived synergy in pointing at violence in movies for a horrific theater shooting, even if the jury is at best out on the concept of violent media causing violent behavior. But when you hear someone so arrogantly sure that all of this wrong thinking is right and then using that arrogance to pompously try and scare the shit out of everyone, it deserves pushback.

So push back in your own way on Retired Lt. Col. Dave Grossman, whose hobbies amount to telling anyone that will listen that violent media has bred a "generation of vicious, vicious killers."

“This generation is going to give you massacres in the domestic environment and in the work environment,” he predicted, with unrestrained outrage, after ticking off a sobering list of mass murders -- particularly those that have occurred on school grounds and university campuses -- which have plagued American society in recent years.

It's a scare tactic that would be absolutely compelling were it not so absolutely wrong. Nevermind that no conclusive link between violent media and mass violence has been demonstrated, the fact of the matter is that in the long view, mass shootings are decreasing. As is violent crime in general. If one wanted to play the correlation game, they might happily state that violent media is decreasing violent output. I personally won't go that far, but it's fairly difficult to square Grossman's claims with reality.

“There is a generation of vicious, vicious killers out there,” he told his audience. “The video games are their trainers. They’ve been playing Grand Theft Auto every spare moment since they were six years old.”

Oh, please. Who the hell could listen to Niko's voice for years without killing themselves long before they killed anyone else? And besides, if these children are killers and the games their trainers, given the statistics already noted, then the little bastards are really bad at being killers and the games are a poor training manual, since none of this seems to be coming true. But if you thought Grossman had emptied his scare-clip at you already, you're wrong.

His views were no more subtle when he turned his sights to the international scene. A dozen years after the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the energetic and charismatic speaker sees life-threatening threats emanating from Pakistan, Russia, North Korea and Iran. What will the next 9/11 look like, he wondered aloud, before answering his own rhetorical question: “We’re going to get nuked.”

Lovely, and perhaps it will someday happen, but he forgot to mention something: if you look at the number of terrorist incidents in America throughout history, you'll note that the sharp increase in their occurence is non-existent. An enterprising commenter can graph the whole list out from that link if they like, but here's a brief example. We live in the year of our lord, 2013, so let's just start in 2012 and count how many terrorist incidents happened every ten years back:

1. 2012 - 3 incidents, 9 killed
2. 2002 - 14 incidents, 15 killed (note: the beltway sniper is counted as 11 separate incidents, which is stupid. This number should be 3 incidents total.)
3. 1992 - 2 incidents, 1 killed
4. 1982 - 6 incidents, 3 killed
5. 1972 - 7 incidents, 6 killed
6. 1962 - 1 incident, 44 killed
7. 1952 - 0 incidents, 0 killed

Now, my use of 2012 as a starting point certainly is convenient in leaving out 9/11, but it's useful to note that outliers don't dominate the statistics. I should also note that this list ignores Pearl Harbor as the site of a terrorist attack, which seems incorrect in a way. The idea isn't that we can't be concerned about terrorism of any kind, be it Islamic fundementalist or the home-grown Aryan Nation variety, but if you make it your business to go around scaring people like Grossman does, you shouldn't leave out the more comforting facts simply because it is inconvenient to your narrative.

The next generation is not one of killers, this generation is not having to deal with terrorism in a way never before required, but it may be true that the media is more like Grossman and less like myself in that they enjoy scaring you for profit. Beware the man or woman who makes simple proclamations, because they're usually forgetting to tell you something.

Filed Under: data, dave grossman, stats, video games, violence