
The analysis looking at more than 17,000 adolescents across 24 previously conducted studies has found that violent video games cause players to become more physically aggressive.
The "metaanalysis" was published earlier this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, looking into video game players aged nine to 19 between the years 2010 to 2017. The analysis covers studies from countries such as the US, Germany, and Japan, with people who had played games of this nature said to be more likely to engage in physical fights at school or hit non-family members.
Jay Hull, lead author of the study, said "Based on our findings, we feel it is clear that violent video game play is associated with subsequent increases in physical aggression". He says that the effect is "relatively small, but statistically reliable. The effect does exist."
The topic of violent games having an obvious impact on a player's real-life actions has been something of a hot topic for a while now, with occasional mumblings within the media or from concerned parents claiming games to be potentially responsible for violent acts or criminal offences, and those who play games being quick to defend their favourite hobby. USA Today reports that "there's not [any] research suggesting violent video games lead to criminal behaviour", although Hull's previous studies have found that "players may practice riskier behaviours"
Of course, all actions, thoughts, and feelings experienced by a player after playing a video game of any sort are completely individual to that specific player - something which the report acknowledges and hopes will be explored further in the future. While playing violent games won't have a negative impact on all players, the study aims to highlight the fact that they can have an influence and that more steps need to be taken.
"We hope these findings will assist the field in moving past the question of whether violent video games increase aggressive behavior, and toward questions regarding why, when, and for whom they have such effects."
With Fortnite currently taking the world by storm, and other violent games such as DOOM and Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus gracing Nintendo's platform in recent times, we're surrounded by games of a violent nature on a daily basis. For many of us, this has no obvious effect, and playing these games can be an enjoyable, innocent pastime like no other; for some, however, it would seem that the consequences can be a little more serious.
Do you have any thoughts on this topic that you'd like to share? Feel free to leave a comment or two down below.
[source pnas.org, via eu.usatoday.com]
Comments 160
This is nonsense.
Games are for fun. No matter the genre or the setting.
Idiots that are mentally ill do not need games to do stupid stuff.
End of story!
People who play Super Mario like to kick turtles!!!
There's no denying that many recent mass shooters are on mind altering pharmaceuticals and are into violent shoot-em ups.
This nonsense again >_<
Commence witch hunting!
Well, at least it's not enough ground to start banning violent games, right?
Nonsense
I feel this article is made for @anti-matter
So far, it sounds unbiased. It's an interesting study, I'll have to read the entire thing.
I don't doubt it for a second, and I think the author nailed it by mentioning base for future studies on who is more vulnerable to such effects, instead of saying anyone can become an agressive person by playing video games.
Too bad we will see it twisted to haters' needs.
New study suggest new studies are as trustworthy as Pinocchio.
It's not JUST video games. We are introduced to violence as soon as we're born. Everywhere you look you see violent culture
New Study Suggests That Fabricating New Studies About Playing Violent Video Games That Lead To Increased Physical Aggression, Increases Physical Aggression.
@1UP_MARIO Haha exactly. Just wait and see his input on the matter! I except a wall of text with some personal idiocy
The evidence presented in this only shows a correlative effect, and not a causative one. From this data we could also conclude that playing violent video games is a symptom of a mind drawn to physical violence and not that playing them causes it.
A big red flag with any study or experiment of any kind is when the abstract fronts the outline in a positive or neutral way (e.g. 'We plan to show video games cause violence'/'We plan to quantify the influence of video games on violence'). If the researchers have already ascertained that they believe there to be a connection, they are immediately biased towards proving the subject matter to be true.
All studies should be fronted and structured as to disprove something, and then if all evidence and efforts prove it to be impossible to disprove, then you have your 'positive' result. This is a slap-dash effort at best.
I'm not trying to say definitively one way or another whether there is causation in playing violent video games leading to real-world violence, I've not done my own peer-reviewed research into that, but this study is meaningless waffle in its current state.
What's with all the aggressive comments?
Can they really determine a causal relationship just in a study? It could just be a correlation. People who play more violent video games are more likely to be violent, but the video games themselves do not cause the violence.
It's statistically possible that playing Nintendogs every day will make you a more caring person. Things do things to people every day, and many factors play into that. This is not a revelation as much as it is a realization of the world observed. Moving on.
When I see a researcher consistently find something where no one else has, that person is either a genius or using a different method.
And since this is a meta analysis, taking it more than something to study further would be folly.
@AlexOlney I think the original article also mentioned that possibility. There's a (small) correlation, you cannot deny that, the numbers don't lie. However, you can question the conclusion drawn from the data (of course, with these studies it's also a question of how the data was obtained, and what kind of measures they used to determine ''violence''; and/or what a ''violent game'' is in their eyes).
Edit: Although not part of the original article, there is a small addendum on USA Today which seems to impose a fairer conclusion on the matter: ''A lot of people ask, do these games really cause these kids to behave aggressively? I would say that is one possibility," he said. "The other possibility is that it's a really bad sign. If your kids are playing these games, either these games are having a warping effect on right and wrong or they have a warped sense of right or wrong and that’s why they are attracted to these games. Either way you should be concerned about it."
I’d say Bethesda is the main cause behind mass shootings! After Doom Eternal we might get mass chainsawing aswell! For god sake, what about the music, the movies the freakin news nothing but violence in those aswell !
This is nothi... "Sees comment sections of IGN, Gamespot, YT gaming channels, gaming sites, etc..."
Games are made to be played for fun.
I've been playing lots of NES Mario games lately and I have been hitting bricks as a result. My poor fists.
We finally got our result, we can wrap it up now, it only took 2000 studies.
@DarthFoxMcCloud The USA isn't the only country with a history of large wars and poor race relations. Japan, England, France, South Africa, Germany, Iran, Saudi Arabia. Humans are inherently violent and tribal.
But I get your point, that there's far more other factors. Pretty sure Albert Fisch didn't play any video games
The quote from Hill at the end is probably the most forward-thinking thing related to this topic since it began.
It's great to have people questioning the results of statistics and studies, but some of these comments show way too much sensitivity and blind denial over this study, just because it shows their hobby in a negative light.
Somebody tell those US jerks who did this study that morons with guns kill ppl , not games
I will also have to read the study to see if they take preconditioning for violence into account. Are these kids already prone to violence, and that's what attracts them to the game? If they didn't play violent video games, would they just find another outlet for their aggression?
@AlexOlney Good point. Thank you
@AlexOlney That's pretty close to what I thought when I first read about this yesterday morning. In fact, it reminds me of a science project I had to do in grade school. It was to see whether exposing plant growth to electric current affected growth. 3 other students had to do the same project, and one kid got a few points off because he worded his study to be "How much negative affect" does it have as opposed to "Does a measurable effect exist"
Trump is at it again!
yawn They have been doing this so-called study for years. All it does is cause misconceptions and ignore other issues and causes.
I mean its not like some people have really bad tempers, were encouraged to rough play, had parents/school systems that let them get away with whatever, get violent when inebriated, or grew up in an abusive home. No, no, no. Lets just blame it on video games.
@AlexOlney Thank you for posting exactly what I was about to say. Except way more well written.
@BMO_Advanced I noticed that, too! It's like Hamilton and Burr up in here with some of these debates. Reading comprehension is also taking a hit, and there's an increased demand for knee braces from all the jerking.
@Schizor88 Trump Derangement Syndrome (TDS)is at it again
@Hobbesyall
Nintendo will cause mass bananaing in traffic!
While I am a big believer that videogames are affecting our society in a negative way, I find the case for violent games = violent behaviour to be rather silly.
The point is that videogames are very popular and most people between 15 and 40 play them, and the mainstream genre of choice is of the violent/military/shooting variety. It's very hard and almost impossible to find videogamers of that age that have never played a videogame that depicts violence.
A bit like back in the 50s every anti-social behaviour was blamed on rock'n'roll - but rock'n'roll in itself was harmless - it just happened to be the most common genre of music amongst youth culture.
What these studies don't get is that the people who behave violently have been, before videogames, alienated from society in one way or another - abusing violent games is just their answer to that. So, a much better research would be to investigate what makes some people retreat in their dark cave and play videogames all day, rather than analysing what kinds of videogames they play...
Heeeeeere we go again with this thing. It's so because Night trap was rereleased, isn't it? ;P
@AlexOlney Good point and exactly what I was thinking. GET OUT OF MY MIND!
Cya
Raziel-chan
Everyone is impacted differently by entertainment. I cannot claim to know anything about the statistics here, but can violent games negatively impact someone’s thoughts and actions? Absolutely. Of course, another person might experience no negative impact whatsoever. This is not a black and white issue.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=8QLf8c3TA2I
So when it comes to violence + videogames everyone suddenly becomes a run-of-the-mill 'science-is-bull-unless-it-suits-me'-conservative? That's ... really sad =(
#?! off! *punches monitor Just been playing the new Fist of the North Star game on PS4 and I see no adverse effects.... Waaaaaah-chaaaaaaa! Sorry, that was me ripping open my yoghurt.
Did Jack Thompson get into the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences?
@Zuljaras It's clearly not non-sense. It's a deeply analysed wide ranging study that is very careful to avoid saying "Video games make you violent" whilst noting "Violent videogames do have a measurable effect on some people".
It's science, not an opinion. You could find evidence to counter it but just calling it non-sense is, in itself, non-sensical.
Oh, boy. This is going to get interesting...
@Tempestryke And beware of people Inking one another XD
Funny, I get angry and more prone to violence after non-violent videogames like a rocket league match. Videogames will always be used as a scapegoat for people committing violent actions
Counter study coming up in 3 months.
People who snap and murder a bunch of people because of a video game would have snapped for absolutely anything because they already have mental issues.
I see violent games as punching balls. Focus all your anger at the controller and those bloody pixels. It's a good way to let off steam as long as you remember not to do the same in real life. I don't own a machine gun or a chainsaw so it makes it easier, but I really wish I had a blue shell or a star in my car
In before anti-matter.
I grew up with Goldeneye, Perfect Dark, Halo, GTA 3, Vice City and San Andreas. I'm one of the chillest people you'll know. I also do BJJ. My game is a calm inverted game.
So nope.
I grew up playing Doom, and I’ve never gotten into any fights.
What IF violent people just tend to play violent games more frequently? Why blame videogames, might just be a shady background of those people.
It's psychology research, you're not supposed to take it seriously.
@Zuljaras Maybe they are for fun, but let me ask you. What does shape a human being? Aren't these external factors, an enviroment around it, basically everything what one can see and hear? I think this could be the correct answer.
What does that have to do with games? Well, games are a part of external factors which we receive by our senses and they can have, let's say partly, an influence on our attitude and character. As a gamer who have been playing games since the age of 10 (31 now), I am sure games just like movies or music can be partly blamed for a violent behaviour of some players. But those players have to have something bad hidden in their insides.
I'd love to see their information on their control group. I'd also like tto see how this compares to those involved in school athletic programs. All this tells me is that such individuals are more confident in their actions and more prone to act on impulse as a result.
I don't disagree. I grew up with GoldenEye which for it's time was realistic. Now the shooters, that I more or less avoid, are filled with extremely realistic violence. I don't have anything against Destiny or Metroid or games like that, but certain games are a bit much.
Nintendo games lead to eating shrooms
All road accidents are caused by people that played burnout.
@Hobbesyall
Inkers are the true menace to society!
Lol
Why aren't people studying the effects of violent movies and television on people too? What makes this form of violent media more worthy of attention?
@BlackenedHalo I disagree. What shapes you the most at that age are the people you hang out with. Parents no longer have that influence over you because of puberty and stuff. You will find yourself a group of friends and will act in a way that the group promotes because you want to belong, you are looking for your place. If you happen to be part of a more violent group of people in your school, you'll act more violently, thats just how it is imho.
People with a higher baseline aggression level play violent games? Mind = blown.
Aw come on why are people so stubborn. The world isn't black and white. Just because there are some people that overreact and portray games as something horrible doesn't mean that the games have no effect at all. If someone talks about how videogames positively impact the players they will blow every small correlation out of proportion but as soon as it is something negative about videogames they say how there's "just correlation and not causation". Yeah it is just correlation but a lot of things we believe today are solely based on correlation. In fact most studies are based on correlation.
I would just suggest to maybe think about these topics critically and not just think of it as an attack on your hobby.
Allthough i think if we talk about violence in video games we also have to talk about violence in other media. Most studies that i've read about this were about violence in all media not just videogames.
@AlexOlney
+1 for being a timesaver and giving me more time to mindlessly procrastinate, instead of trying to form coherent sentences and put them into writing.
I prefer not to involve my brain in nearly all activities, but most of all it's not welcome during the most holy of my activities (yes, I have elevated procrastination to be my religion).
@Ralek85 Nope. See, a lot of us have enough common sense to know that there are actual, real, and in some cases more damaging causes for violent behavior.
Not to mention these so-called experts, have a looong history of blaming the most shallow, petty things instead of focusing on the real underlying issues. Which sometimes, lead to serious human rights violations.
Most of those people whether religious, psychologists, or paranoid ignoramuses are just self- important, blowhards who don't know squat about their subjects and prefer to slap band-aids on bullet holes.
Sex, music, dancing, video games, books, movies/television and even education and medicine have all gotten a bad rap.
@Fake-E-Lee
applauds
Violent games don't make people violent, I would assume it's more violent people tend to play violent games.
Nobody would even research that because in the second scenario nobody can blame the games...
@AlexOlney I was scrolling down to the comments to write exactly this. Thanks for saving me the trouble!
@BlackenedHalo Why should there be something to blame? Also it is important to distinguish normal humans with mental ill psychopaths that roam free.
This annoys me, I would comment more but @AlexOlney explained my problems with the study in his comment perfectly.
Centuries of wars, murders and massacres can be blamed on videogames.
Generally speaking, I have no idea if violence breeds violence. However, I would argue it at the very least de-sensitises folk to the point of making 'wrong choices' because they were not aware of any consequences. So whereas they a person might not want to go out and commit violent acts per se, in certain situations or conflict, they may choose to be aggressive as a norm. (Gah...I'll leave it to experts lol!)
@hatch That's definitely a study I can agree with
@Tibob The Holy Crusades were actually battle royale ladder matches. The Second Crusade was rough because a bunch of newbs joined and dropped friendly fire everywhere.
Your mothers like to play Kirby
@BigKing Are you saying my mother would swallow anything ?
They're still banging this drum huh? in the 50's and 60's all the ills of the world were blamed on rock music, in the 70's and 80's it was the so called "video nasties" and for the past few years it's been video-games. How about tackling the actual problems instead of scapegoating whatever is popular with the general populace!
oh look, something else for the media to latch onto with false made up propaganda to once again discredit videogames and paint them in the worst light possible. Find it strange that they don't go after the film,literature and music businesses with the same gusto 🙄
@BMO_Advanced I just got done playing Destiny and Wolfenstein. LOL.
@Precinct1313 Exactly! It is amazing to me that most don't see this crap for what it is! Video games are a scapegoat just like all of the other mediums you brought up. I totally agree with you. I hope that more people agree with us on this too.
Nintendo Life users: triggered.
@Ralek85 It's not that I don't believe in science. It's that this survey does not prove a causal relationship like this article seems to say. Even the authors wrote that playing violent video games is "associated" with violent behavior, suggesting a correlation experiment. It's plausible that more violent people are predisposed to play more violent games and that the games have no impact on their violent behavior. If the authors of the paper want to find a causal relationship, the only way to do so is to set up a controlled experiment so that they can isolate one independent variable (in this case, playing violent games).
ABACABB
And I wonder what parents back in the 60s/70s thought when kids where being physically bullied at school, hit with paddles etc...(I just watched dazed and confused)
The problem is and will always be bad parenting. I have played violent games my whole life, but have yet to be in any actual fights ever.
People who say this is nonsense have always boggled my mind. It's not about video games or movies or whatever. It's simply this:
We are affected, at least to a degree, by the things we expose ourselves to
If this wasn't true the advertising industry wouldn't exist for one. Now that doesn't necessarily mean something bad will come from a well-rounded sensible and intelligent person moderately playing violent games. But, if a person such as that spent all their time on something like a Call of Duty or even Doom like environment (were you are being constantly attacked and instinctively attacking back in a fairly realistic looking environment) for large portions of their life, of course it will affect the way they were in their daily interactions.
That's common sense and to deny or believe we individually are somehow an unusual human being above being affected by the things around us then that is stupidity or at least a lie to ourselves.
Yes there are those who are MORE easily influenced but we all are to a degree. I consider myself balanced and intelligent and I know that if I expose myself to a visceral fighting/shooting game for a long period of time I'm definitely a bit more 'edgy' in my interactions for a while after. That's my personal and fully verified life experience - not a 'study'. So I can say it's completely true. And since I'm a human being I can make a reasonable assumption that it's the same for everyone to a degree. Plus you can just see it in society anyway.
So yes this is a subject were people definitely over-react and blame video games for some terrible things. But it's equally stupid to pretend these things have no ability to effect our emotional effect at all, long term or definitely short term.
We need a middle view here
And I wonder what parents back in the 60s/70s thought when kids where being physically bullied at school, hit with paddles etc...(I just watched dazed and confused)
The problem is and will always be bad parenting. I have played violent games my whole life, but have yet to be in any actual fights ever.
Hitler must have played DOOM!
Utter nonsense
@brunojenso I definitely agree with you. This particular study does not prove a causal relationship, but there have been controlled experiments in the past that have shown children's behavior can be affected by exposure to violent media. What we expose ourselves too does affect our behavior to some extent.
@AlexOlney Well said. You should write more articles
Came here for defensive comments from boys and I was not disappointed.
@Zuljaras As opposed to idiots that are mentally healthy?
@FlimFlam Thank you. It's kinda crazy but I wasn't expecting anyone to agree because this is a subject where people easily get insanely defensive about one of their hobbies getting challenged in any way and lose there minds.
It's a subject that seems to attract extreme conclusions but the truth is much more middle grounded.
Online games where 10 year olds act like crazy folks can cause aggression, I never wanted to murder children until I played COD online.
@spizzamarozzi Good points, and all true. Though one could argue that whether video games, music, films, books, crafts, etc, there have always been and always will be that portion of society that retreats to a cave and occupies themselves, usually in a fulfilling way, through an outlet of their choice, but that's not typically an actual problem. I'm sure there were countless such individuals in the 18th century who burrowed in books or music for much the same reasons as gamers today. Some of them even became killers. Most of them didn't. Which comes back to correlation of little value.
@AlexOlney Do you realize you're the first person I have heard in a long, long, loooong time accurately state the proper use of the scientific method beginning with aiming to DISPROVE a hypotheses rather than aiming to prove one, as you can always prove any hypothesis by simply omitting any data that may disprove it. I've often said we are in the post-science era. Science is no longer applied, merely a show of science, particularly in the medical and natural fields where all studies are started with an agenda to give a facade of scientific backing behind and agenda/product the funding organization wishes to peddle. When was the last time we saw any study aim to disprove the hypothesis? Almost never, because that's not commercial viable. Science itself is thus commercially inviable.
@Truxton_4_Life "There's no denying that many recent mass shooters are on mind altering pharmaceuticals and are into violent shoot-em ups."
Of course one of the above common associations is a substance that directly alters the brain chemistry and states in legally approved fine print right on the bottle that it may result in violent behavior and homicidal tendencies, while the other is a display of moving pictures.
That the public is quicker to implicate the video games is an interesting form of peek-a-boo. I'd much rather the psychos continue shooting simulated Nazis on an LCD panel, than have their drug-induced violent tendencies and no simulated TV Nazis to shoot at.
These are the challenging questions of our time. It will take some seriously advanced minds to arrive at conclusions to that question.
@Ralek85 That kind of "but the scholars know what they're doing!" rhetoric gets old. Like I said to Alex above, the problem isn't "science is BS" but rather the majority of studies today across a broad range of fields are in fact not actually science. Just science theatre to justify a desired outcome. Today it's violent video games. Yesterday it was Rock n' Roll, before that it was comic books, prior to that it was jazz, before that Communists, and before that religion x. Somehow Hollywood and TV get a pass, despite being the most graphic of all. 25 years from now it will be VR which presents too much realism versus those completely safe video games of the past. 50 years from now, who knows.
The trouble is of course none of these outlets of imagination cause violent behavior. But the public always wants a quick fix, an easy cause for every problem, and the powers that be are always interested in finding one that points away from themselves. Fancies of the imagination don't make one violent. The real causes of such things are far deeper, far more insidious, far more structural, bulding human nature itself in with very many layers of a very flawed socio-economic structure, and adding fuel with pharmaceuticals. Fixing that problem involves identifying and massively changing the very fabric of the strucure of society itself, the structures of economics, and the entire underpinning of the entire world as it is. That's very frightening to all, very dangerous to most, and removes the success under the current system that those that would have to decide that currently enjoy. Thus with all parties self-interested in refusing to identify the actual problems that permeate every level of daily functioning on a global scale, we will continue to have growing numbers of increasingly violent people, and a majority more than content to sweep them under the rug and write them off as under the influence of some current hobby or fad. Then everyone can rest comfortably with their current success and pretend the problem has nothing to do with them and someone else can go do something about it to fix it by simply tinkering with a few fads. The actual solutions would more likely involve a nuclear winter than not, and ignoring random violent teenagers seems like a positive trade-off to most. But people will continue pretending to solve the problem by pointing at music, art, literature, or individual upstarts/rebels/figureheads or ideologies.
There is physical aggression like standing up for yourself and not being a doormat and then physical aggression like killing people over petty things. These are not the same thing but I can see where a game can give the player a new perspective allowing for more confidence and pride in one's self.
I think it make sense. It's reinforcing an interest, desensitizing and normalizing hyper-violence to some degree. We, as a society, would not tolerate the same for child porn, or other inappropriate entertainment. I definitely don't think violent games should be illegal. But we should recognize they are a negative influence, and perhaps a red flag.
And there have been plenty of studies that suggest otherwise, with other studies that suggest losing at video games can cause bursts of frustration from players, which isn't really dependent on video games, but losing in general.
@Tempestryke "Sex, music, dancing, video games, books, movies/television and even education and medicine have all gotten a bad rap."
So? This is not about a bad rep and it's not about other forms of media. It's about the question whether real-life actions can be informed by repeated virtual-'life' actions in a videogame. It's not about whether videogames alone cause e.g. school-/mass-shootings, it's about whether they have a hand in it and how and to what degree.
I'm not saying they do, I'm saying that I simply don't know. This should be self-evident though. Everything else is dogmatism. If you don't want to know ... well, then shame on you frankly.
I do not deny that there are plenty of people who like to pass blame for all kinds of societal ills on what is 'hip with the kids', be it 'rock'-music at one point or videogames today, but that does not take away from the fact, that disqualifying one is not disqualifying the other. The Beatles are not Doom and Doom is not The Beatles.
In short, I would expect people to have some faith into the scientific community and in general an open-mind and an ability for self-reflection and critical thought.
@FlimFlam Trust me, I am a social researcher by trade, so I do get all of that, I do, but I never argued this one way or another. It's just that I skipped over dozens comments and more than just a few amounted to 'B*S*! - my videogames r not evil - duh!'.
I have zero interest in defending or vouching for this study (or to be more precise metaanalysis, aka using existing and NOT new data from previous studies), but I would expect "gamers" to be at least willing to consider the possibility that their hobby could have harmful implications, even if only under very specific or rare conditions. Again, we KNOW very little about how our behavior is influenced by this type of interactive media. We know a little and there are plenty of theories, but knowledge and supposition are not the same.
I think that is a reasonable expecation, though I do acknowledge that in recent years, it became painfully evident that even this much might be asking to much of gorwing parts of populations even in the developed and supposedly 'educated' and 'enlightend' industrialized world.
@mist You manage to reduce a complex and thought provoking subject into a dumb and generic single line response there - with the classic dictator extremist example thrown in for good measure. Well done sir/madam
I think Ace Attorney is a great counterpart to the endless online shooters. Death is treated as shocking and undesirable in Ace Attorney, while online shooters portray kills as points on a leaderboard and therefore cool to rack up. I say this because Ace Attorney is the most mature my gaming ever gets and I'd like to see if playing it can raise or lower violence.
Its not nonsense but it is not limited to games. Anything that expands the imagination into violence will promote violent thoughts and behavior. It is way more likely to affect children because they are just discovering their imagination and their feelings are strongly attached to that and they can imagine themselves in those situations, while most adults understand the clear difference between reality and imagination and know don't associate themselves with it. Does it mean the kids are going to be violent? Not really but they may get frustrated more easily.
This is why violent games have an M rating, people. They're not for people who aren't mentally mature enough.
i understand the discussion but what i dont get is why videogames are seen as being more controversial when it comes to violence then movies or series.
Look at Netflix, Netflix has mostly violent shows and some unnecessarely gorey.
@Ralek85. My point is, it is harmful to broadbrush and only look at little things, instead of serious underlying causes, and they still are only capable of blowing little things out of proportions so they can make it the boogie man and ignore the real causes and personal accountability.
Violent media isn't responsible for extreme violence anymore then masturbation caused mental illness, or rock lead to people making sacrifices to the devil.
That is why I automatically disregard these studies. Not because I feel they are attacking a simple hobby. But because the people making them are still ignorant idiots who sing the same song and dance.
Plus we all have some violent tendencies. Whether its through play, or wishing you could punch a really obnoxious person, or letting your temper sometimes get the better of you to the point of violence.
Yet many of us have played violent games and read violent books and watched violent content and we usually control ourselves and are well adjusted.
Those who physically bully, who are abusive, who take it to extremes have real issues.
Saying that this media or that media is the root cause doesn't help anybody. Not them and not their victims.
I just want to highlight that the members who claim these reports are "nonsense" likely don't work with children, and are therefore making assumptions in order to defend their medium.
I'm a school teacher, and can assure any other adult that there are correlations between playing violent games (particularly for extended periods) and aggressive behaviour.
It is an epidemic - one that has a significant impact not just on the child's ability to learn, but behaviours that negatively impact our ability to work effectively.
A typical example. Child plays on PS4 all evening and all weekend playing a violent game. They come into school exhausted, unable to concentrate, fidgety, and feeling entitled to having decisions go their way.
If they cannot complete their work to class standard, we have to run catch up interventions. Doing this takes the adult out of class when they could be doing other tasks, as well as dealing with low-level behaviour.
The parents are spoken to, but they blame the behaviour on a label that's become fashionable (ADHD...), and wash their hands of any responsibility. They let said child play these games because they get angry when they're not allowed.
So do we just continue to let children like this draw machine guns, blood splatter, hatred words and more in the back of their exercise books? Do we allow them to call other children horrible names based on the games they play? No. Something has to be done.
I would also point out that the genre of game has an impact, too. The role of the player (first person, third person), the sound effects, consequences and type of graphics all affect the child's ability to distinguish reality from a lack of; and what is deemed appropriate.
The major difference between a video game and a movie is the participance. In a video game, the player is God. They have control over the actions of the character and witness the consequences. They must use their own judgement to decide how this relates to the real world, and whether they empathise with said character.
So please, before you all become psychiatrists and make arguments based on a lack of evidence, please consider the overall picture and how society has altered.
Extra Extra Read All About It
Unbiased study proves that video games don't cause increased aggression, world shocked!
@Emperor-Palpsy
So instead of letting people taking responsibility and especially the kids you just say its the fault of violent media? That is still just passing the blame along to one thing. The bullies need to have it reinforced at home and school that beating up other kids is not okay. The bullied are not protected by the adults who should be protecting them. Some of these children may not have parents who care or relatives who beat them up. Those are problems that have been happening for thousands of years.
But sure, media is solely to blame because that's easier to do then administering more then a slap on little Johnny's wrist for repeatedly punching other kids in the face, or finding out that little Crystal has a bad home life, or ignoring the fact that teachers keep ignoring some poor kid getting brutalized in the hallways.
Little Johnny can certainly learn to keep his hands to himself and his temper under control. Little Crystal can certainly learn, though it will be hard, to be better then the people around her. Parents can try and instill better behaviors and teachers can get off their rears and diminish bullying before the law has no choice but to intervene. We all need to learn personable accountability too and that there are consequences for acting violently outside of defense.
@Emperor-Palpsy well said and this applies to any mature content whether it is in books, movies or games, it’s just that a lot of kids would rather play a game than read a book and games hook kids so they do the activity for longer than reading a book or watching a movie. I don’t see how people don’t think there is any issue with it. I think mature games are meant for adults. I remember as a kid I played and watched and read anything I wanted and I can admit my imagination was more violent and dark, things I drew were gruesome, I think people don’t want to admit that but that was definitely because I would be consuming this kind of stuff. Did it mean I would be violent? Not at all, but there was definitely a difficulty in doing things I didn't want to but should be, does it mean we should get rid of it? No, I enjoyed it as a kid but it should have been more regulated or limited in time. Nowadays I dont take a lot of that stuff as seriously, but kids think all this stuff is such a big deal.
I think that refutting these studies is stupid. Calling nonsense all of that statistic collection is far stupider in my mind.
First, this study said they found a statistical link, a correlation, even if it was admitted it was a small one. We're not talking about causation here. I know that in this modern world of ours, people often have a hard time understanding this (correlation doesn't mean causation), often accusing people of bias because they didn't understand that.
Truth is, there are still a lot of things that needs to be taken into consideration that this study don't go into. Maybe both aggressiveness and violent games are linked through other factors, explaining the correlation, without games being a direct cause (which in fact the study isn't claiming, as far as I know, games as being the cause).
Maybe it isn't about the violent aspect of games, but the fact that most violent games tend to be action-based and thus making our adrenaline levels higher.
Could it also be linked to mental illness? Maybe those with a benign form of mental problem may be more attracted to violent games, thus affecting the numbers?
Thing is, this study provides statistics, which show a corrrelation. Now, it is up to us to interpret this in a various ways.
Also, games ask us to take an active part in what happens on screen, which is much different than reading a book, or watching a movie. It is somehow proven that the more you involve someone in something, the more it can have an effect. I mean, this is some of the basis of a lot of behavioral studies and sciences. It's not unreasonable to think that gaming might have a better influence on us, in some cases, than movies or other passive medium. Not saying that's the case, only that's it's not unreasonable to to consider it.
Let's all be mature about this, and stop acting like kids who feel attacked because somone said what we do might have an effect on us. You know what? Drinking affects our cognitive and physical abilities, and no one's disputing this fact. Some do, but that drunk guy over there isn't really credible when he says drinking doesn'T affect him... My point is, by attacking those who study the effects of gaming, we can sometimes look like that stupid drinking dude.
So while it's perfectly fine to ask questions about such a study, how data was collected, what was collected, how everything was compiled, factors considered, and so on... Let's just be adults here, and not simply protest this because we like games ourselves...
Anyway.,.. sorry for long post.
I've been gaming for 28 years (I'm 31) first game I played was on the old Spectrum, I have was then introduced to the NES and so on... When playing Doom for the first time on my SNES to to the last game I played that was violent, quantum break, I have never been more angry than how I am playing Mario Kart or Mario Party lol ... Even gears of war didn't really project anything... I've lost friends and a 2 girlfriens I've MP and MK haha
This is an error based in bias. I see this sort of thing all the time in research. Essentially, a correlation is at the core of the research and it can indicate multiple things. The correlation can show violent games cause violent tendencies or that people with violent tendencies are more attracted to violent games. The logic set used to frame the correlation is as important as the actual data. The conclusion in research always depends on the desired results, unless the researchers don't want to get paid or have a future in the industry. Most people aren't educated enough on statistics and methodology to question the results of "science", but most studies have a glimmer of truth and a ton of manipulation.
@Emperor-Palpsy
Seriously, dude. Most of these people you're talking to are probably teenagers.
I know some of us on here are adults, some even parents... not that being a parent makes you smarter - there are plenty of idiot breeders out there.
But for the young teens or 20-somethings who feel they've got cause and effect all figured out...
Hah.
This is nonsense, as usual. Every single study ever done that shows these "results" as they call it, are paid for by people who would benefit by that being true (or so my conspiracy theories tell me. /S /S /S /S /S /S if you don't get it).
Sure, in some obscure way it might be possible that there is an effect linked by a third party, but that just means that third party is the cause and not necessarily gaming.
The issue is that they're looking for one link in a chain filled with thousands upon thousands of links. You simply can't make a study like this and have it conclude a single thing. It's unreasonable, as you're not considering all the factors.
Instead the study should link everything together with gaming, both separate and together in all combinations. The issue is that this would take millenia, because there are millions of possible inks. In short, no conclusion can be made, and nobody has the funds or time to make a proper study of that magnitude.
I could make the same study about bird watchers and come to the same result. "Some individuals who watch birds in their free time can be more likely to hit non-family members or pick fights." It has nothing to do with bird watching at all, but because I put the two things in the same sentence, half the world goes into the braindead headline mode and thinks "OH MY GOD, BIRD WATCHERS ARE VIOLENT AS HELL AND BIRD WATCHING NEEDS TO BE BANNED!"
Cue a few weeks later a bird watcher does a school shooting in America. LINK ESTABLISHED, OH GOD.
TL;DR The study isn't conclusive in any way, and merely shows that there CAN be a correlation between individuals playing games, and individuals expressing more violent behavior. Meaning it shows... Nothing. They've been studying... Nothing. You could do the same study on bird watchers and have the exact same conclusion. Have fun with that.
@Yorumi Sure. But I wasn't stating a prove of causal relationship above (but I may below) and I don't care much for what a such studies prove or not really.
I believe we should be the judges of our own mind, but to do so effectively requires honesty. I was stating though, that through personal experience of observing my own mind that there is on some occasion, if not all the time to a far subtler degree, an effect.
Personal experience (if observed with a clear mind) is irrefutable. Many many people deny that they are effected by anything which I think is ignorance - like they are a special kind of super strong impervious human - and that is what I was challenging.
Please don't misunderstand btw - I'm not saying we HAVE to be affected by things - but it takes a very self-aware and conscientious person to be able to protect their mind from influence at all times. Such people do exist - highly experienced meditators for example - but they are rare. As for a causal relationship, to be honest, I think I can also verify that within my own experience. By that I mean that on occasions were I have not managed to keep my mind perfectly in check, and have been exposed to something negative, it has been the catalyst for me to ACT negatively towards someone else. I'm not proud of it and I normally can act more sensibly, but I am being honest. Things can effect my mind and cause me to act unwisely. Therefore I try to be vigilant and take some responsibly to protect my mind from overly harmful influences. I'll still play some Doom. Others can do what they like - but they wouldn't be wise to ignore their personal experience of what does affect them. Be damned with all these studies which potentially we hide behind - I just think we need to be honest with ourselves and adjust accordingly. For some that might mean there is no problem and they can just carry on regardless. For others it may mean a few changes might be needed. But that's for each of us to decide. I just don't agree with some blanket opinion that non of us are affected because I know that's not true. And yes on reflection I think there can be both a correlation and/or causal relationship.
@Ralek85 I see what you mean now. I agree that we need to have an open mind and evaluate these things on a case-by-case basis. Sorry for misinterpreting what you meant earlier.
They didn't even use a control group. C'mon people.
All this is probably showing is that teenage boys are slightly more aggressive at 15 than they are at 14. Nothing to do with videogames. That's just puberty.
Also very weird that you'd find differences between ethnic groups for something like this. That once again suggests that it's not the actual games that are causing changes.
@brunojenso
Just trying to fit in
@Realnoize The trouble with causation vs correlation is in real science correlation is almost universally thrown out as junk data. It's noise that distracts from useful information and has little if any value to a study. It proves or disproves nothing in the absence of other more useful information. A battle in the court of public opinion however thrives on correlation. Without anything definitively linking causation, it's about as useful a research as any internet flame war. Unfortunately so many "studies" today are really nothing of the sort. They are campaigns to assemble data to justify a predetermined theory. These gaming studies tend to be one of the most obvious but least harmful of those. Medical and environmental studies are much more dangerous.
@Emperor-Palpsy Most of what you describe isn't genre specific but simply a result of performing any said activity in excess. But where you describe genre specifics, I'm not sure where you conclude details like "The role of the player (first person, third person), the sound effects, consequences and type of graphics all affect the child's ability to distinguish reality from a lack of; and what is deemed appropriate.". That sounds like the result of another study rather than specific personal observation?
Meanwhile anecdotally, and certainly in a different era devoid of most violent games like today, so maybe it doesn't apply, when I was in elementary school, kids were quite violent, thuggish, and generally terrible in all the ways or worse of what you described. Yet I was the only gamer among them (and certainly guilty of spending "too much time" doing so....some things never change ) (and most of the others that did ever play games were mostly in it for sports games.) What they had all in common that I didn't, however was they were all heavily into sports, team sports, the aggressiveness of sports. And I wasn't even slightly competitive in any way at all. I mostly still am not (ok, Splatoon brings out the competitiveness in me somehow where nothing else manages to....fun times.) They were constantly emulating TV shows I had no knowledge of, possibly "violent" ones but most were, I take it more "edgey comedy" than violence, and they were generally athletic/competitive/aggressive.
Perhaps "violent video games" are the wrong question to be asking. Maybe it's not the violence in the games that is causing issues, but rather "competitiveness" that is the issue? The correlation to my era with the aggressively violent sports enthusiast kids (versus passive little me and my Nintendo obsession...) and today's "violent video game" aggression is perhaps not about the violence and more about aggressive competitive traits? I hate online shooters, Splatoon aside, because they embody everything I also have always hated about sports. Most of the violent games are about online competition....sports-like competition more than story driven campaigns these days. And those are also the games that lend to compulsive over-play (For some of us it's Octopath Traveler..... ) Could the real relationship of violence to activities be rooted in competition, not in graphic images?
Have any of the studies focused on how many "associated" violent individuals played "violent" games like COD, Battlefield, Fortnite, etc versus how many played Starcraft, Uncharted, or single player Halo?
And how would one call that out when sports are heralded as the end-all be all, and it's all supposedly set to make everyone learn to be competitive in the ever more competitive real world? Because add in human instinct, and competition means trial to the death at most fundamental parts of the human psyche. Even if that causation were to be made, you can bet it would be ignored and quieted, as linking competitiveness to violence upsets the status quo. Blaming Doom does not.
If you're going to use correlation to prove things: Star Trek fans are statistically more likely to be spousal abusers. There's a fun thread!
@brunojenso "I know that if I expose myself to a visceral fighting/shooting game for a long period of time I'm definitely a bit more 'edgy' in my interactions for a while after. That's my personal and fully verified life experience - not a 'study'."
(Edit: Wrong paragraph was inserted here originally and was part of above reply)
That has nothing to do with the game being violent or a shooter. That's adrenaline from a stressful situation. An intense firefight in a game will do that, but so will an intense sports match or even intense rushing for the deadline, keeping up with the dinner rush, etc. in the workplace. Tetris would be as bad a culprit. Of course if we're going to go with "stress induced adrenaline" makes one violent, yes, yes it does. And video games while capable of producing that effect are probably the least significant ones producing that effect compared to the real world, as video games are in controlled time planned situations as opposed to being blindsided by unpredictable events. But as the current world thrives on delivering as much stress to people as possible and rewarding how well they can take it for however long they can take it, I can only see the problem getting worse, video games not factoring into that at all.
There's a reason that mass shootings were routinely called "going postal" after a string of US Postal employees committing mass shootings. And there's a reason: It's a high stress environment moving at fast speeds, and the never make any headway, there's always more than you started with no matter how much they do. That kind of stress day in and day out for however many years will absolutely erode the psyche. However where that becomes different than the game is, the game is still a game. Someone without a preexisting problem is going to be playing the game with a sense of disconnect, and for someone with a preexisting problem then clearly the game is not a cause. Whereas that real-life stress is a direct threat to ones actual survival. With the workplace getting ever more "competitive" (read ever greater stress, ever greater threat to survival), even if we remove video games entirely from Earth, do we believe this problem will increase or decrease? And do we have much if any reason to believe that video games are a specific factor in the results? Similarly
Back on this topic again, eh? Some people have loads of time on their hands.
Seriously though - testing kids who are still learning what to do and what not to do in the wider world, and then teenagers who are struggling with their identities and puberty and you expect them to come out completely unaffected? Has this study focused on movies as well? Or is this just your 'run-of-the-mill-bias-against-video-games' study?
Only thing I'll add (and have said it before) is that this is bigger than violent video games. Of course, most gamers aren't gonna go out to hack people up with a sword after playing Zelda. But to dismiss that it doesn't play some part in our violent culture is absurd. Again, its one piece in a much bigger issue and discussion. But that seems to be the elephant everyone doesn't seem to want to address
@ArcanaXVI
Perhaps it needs my attention as well. At present I have the following questions that need answering from that study:
1) What were their control factors
2) what was the data on test subjects:
Such as their state of mind before the tests
How does this compare to repetitive frustrating activities.
3) What is the basis of the hypothesis they were testing and how did they go about testing it.
etc.
I find a lot of studies leave a lot of factors out and just throw a sample pool into a room without trying to understand the data they are getting back. Then retesting based on that information and observation.
Statistics are fun, but if not used correctly they can identify non issues and lead to false presumptions instead of careful analysis and determining actual correlation. With the way things have been executed these days I have to honestly put everything to scrutiny, even if said thing could be career ending, it doesn't seem to stop people from making career ending moves and declaring Vaccines are some super high risk killer of children.
@Vepra Parents absolutely have an influence on an individual (I assume we are referring to teenagers in this discussion). It might not results a young person may exhibit initially. It's like any influential adult. You may not see the fruits of your labor (bad or good, intentional or not) until much, much later. But parents absolutely do have an influence.
Is it 1999?
Okay, so I’m a human development major and one of the classes I need to take is research methods in psychology. That being said, I’m familiar with the way that the article for this study was written - it’s very deliberate and is supplemented with exhaustively researched statistics.
This isn’t a tabloid journalist’s article. This is empirical data, and well worth the read. My only critique about the study itself is that it gathered data based on reports without active observations of said behaviors taking place, but to be able to perform those kinds of observations would require constant supervision of individuals for any instances involving aggression - minor or otherwise - and with how small research teams can be: It’s just not feasible.
Other than that, this is definitely something to think about and not just toss aside as a gossip column.
As pointed out, biased in initiation.
Quick analogy to explain - for instance, milk makes you criminal. Looking in jails, 99% of convicts drink milk. Milk is heavily correlated with criminal behavior.
There, now watch others provide context that has clear parallels with such an analogy.
There are three types of lies, I guess.
Something few people talk: It became a standart in sports games, especially soccer games, to see team supporters fight each other, sending themselves to the hospital, and sometimes even killing each other, all because of love to a soccer team.
But I never heard of PlayStation, Xbox and Nintendo fanboys to actually fight each other in real life, leading to injuries and death, but soccer is not getting blamed for violence, videogames are.
Wow another study that reveals that playing violent Videogames makes you violent . What a shock
Well, considering Mario is one of the worst serial killers in gaming history we should all return our Switchs? Mario knows that all those blocks are transformed Mushroom Kingdom innocents every time he smashes his way through them for money.
I'm 40. Been playing games since the Atari 2600. I play just about every genre... whatever. I've never been arrested or done drugs. I've been in ONE fight in my life and that's cuz I tried to defend a girl in the 4th friggin grade. Dude spit on me for tryin to help her and I clocked him. We were broken up and that was it! Games had nothing to do with me trying to defend a girl. The guy kept grabbing her was and she kept telling him to stop! Any way, this study is Bulluigi. Not all people are weak minded enough to let a game influence them into violence imo.
@Yorumi In general I agree. But I don't think you understand what I mean by a clear mind. A truly clear mind is rare indeed - but it is the only thing that is completely reliable. In fact the reliability of a completely clear mind is itself a well documented and proven scientific experiment. Most scientific methods are generally only ever reliable to a point - until new information reveals itself.
Anyway all I was clumsily saying, is in terms of our daily experience, we know if we are being negatively affected by something, and that it is possible. Being aware of the affect the world can have on our mind and actions is the basis of whether we are a wise person or not.
I do agree that in general our experiences are not to be trusted and I'm sorry because I didn't explain that badly.
@mist Well said And I'm sorry - my post was rude.
@Yorumi
(long post, sorry, lol!)
I think it all depends on how the study is done, and how open those responsible for it are. I admit I haven't looked in details at the study. But the way I understand it (if it has been reported correctly) they found a small statistical fact present in various enough settings (countries) to warrant further studying. Finding that statistical fact in a single pool of data doesn't mean a thing. But the repetition of that same fact in various pools (different cultures, different countries, settings) might be a lot more significative.
In one book I've read some time ago, which was about statistics (yeah, I like to read strange things, lol!), there was a strange example I liked a lot. First, it was about abortion in the U.S., which many knows is quite a controversial topic. The study demonstrated that, strangely, in all states that legalized abortion, there was, about 20 years later, a drop in criminality. Now this doesn't mean a thing, of course. But now consider that the drop was similar in percentage in all states that legalized it, and the drop happenned in the same order as when it became legal in those states, with the same drop not happenning in states that didn't legalized it. Truth is, a single stat doesn't mean a thing, but when correlations keep popping up, the more it backs the fact that there might be a link because there is less and less chance of that being randomness.
I won't go into the explanations the authors tried to come up with to explain this. While it ended up making sense, it was still only a theory, although one based on the stats on hand.
Now, where I'm going with this, is that if this study found the same small indication in not only one pool, but in many, it lends much more credibility to the idea that there MIGHT be something that links these games to higher aggressiveness or foolish behaviors. A small statistical incident doesn't mean a thing when alone. But the SAME small statistical incident happening in all the different pools you studied might be indicative of something.
Now, playing violent games and having bad behavior might both be linked to a third factor that may be independantly linked to both. Who knows? And since its a small statistical incident, it may imply that this only affects a minority of people as well. Who knows?
Truth is, we can't really discredit numbers. What we can discredit, or argue about, is the conclusion people get to when trying to analyze those numbers.
We also live in an era of fake news, and people twisting facts and numbers to suits what they want to say. A study could say it hasn't found any link, and then you'd have headlines saying "Study proves there's no link", which isn't what the study said (absence of evidence isn't evidence of absence). And then people reading this believes it, and repeat it ad nauseum.
So let's not discredit studies like this. It's mostly the media who balloon these studies into something they're not. Media spin these studies into what they want them to be. And I'm sure most gaming websites (like this one) and their followers will do all they can to turn it into an anti-gaming propaganda of some sort.
Thanks for reading.
@NEStalgia Sure - very good points, and yes stress is a bugger. I would say though that my mindset is different after a shooter vs and intense sports game. Yes the adrenaline is part of it - but there is more going on and aggression could be induced by one and not the other. But definitely, as you say, it's not the same as real life stress/attack on your person.
While I don’t think video games alone cause violence it is short sighted to dismiss that they don’t contribute to the desensitization that makes violence seem like the best response at the time.
At the same time not all effects are violent. I got into chess/shogi and martial arts from playing fighting games. I got into fighting games to channel anger from being bullied as a kid.
Nothing exists in a vacuum. It would be impossible to conclude that banning violence in video games would stop violence in society. However on the other hand like I said one can’t ignore that it like any other stimuli has an effect on people. Perhaps we should look at why humans glorify violence/cruelty in general.
I think the people "investigating" it, never had childhood or dont have children themselve.
When i have a long day at work and come home, put on my console or PC. Play a fighting game or a shooter or a stealth game, i enjoy it fully. Agression not for me.
i shoot people fulltime in GhostRecon wildlands, in my opinion one of the best stealth co op games. Playing ot together with my brothers ia ao much fun. Investigate that. Lol
@Yorumi
I understand all of this. My point was only that we shouldn't negate and dismiss these studies based solely on the conclusion they came to, a conclusion we may not like (which I suspect a lot of people are doing here). If, like you said, that specific study goes to extreme and ridiculous lenght to "prove a point they were already convinced of from the start", then of course, that's bogus and should be dismissed.
Problem is, that same behavior, that same attitude of doing studies to prove a point, is also used by other people out there that no one (or very few) will try to discredit. Like, for instance, I'm all for the environment, but I've seen my fair share of environmentalists using (or displaying) statistics in a way to make it worse than it is, or cherry-picking facts to suit what they wanted to say. And I hate this because it doesn't help the cause. Doing this actually give minution to all those climate-change deniers out there, the same way the study mentionned in this article might give munitions to paranoid parents thinking their kid will mass murder people because he played Fortnite.
I'm all for highlighting bogus studies. I'm just wary when people outright disclaim them as fraudulent in an aggressive, nondescript manner devoid of any logic. Like saying to someone "Man, you sure are an overreacting person" and then getting "What? F*ck You" as an answer. This is kind of not helping make the point accross, you know?
If we know why we can call a study BS, then call it like it is. But blatantly calling it BS because a study attacks what we like is a bit stupid.
I mean, I love gaming, so does my kids, but I can consider without a problem that some games experiences might affect us more than others. Both in a positive or negative way. It wouldn't be unreasonable to think that some games, in some situations, might condition people to act differently. This is not unbelievable. For instance, if you take "Life is Strange", this game affected me a lot more in game form, than that same story would have in novel or movie form. Us players taking part in what happens in game is not something strange to this.
Anyway, nice discussion. Cheers!
Ahhhh I wanna kill someone. I just came 3rd because of that damn blue shell.
Load of bollocks
Looks like this article should have been prefaced with a trigger warning...
I think Alex summarized things quite well and worded things better than I could have. The problem with a study like this is that biased news sources (I'm not really pointing a finger at NL here, but at a lot of mainstream news) tend to construe wording to suit their beliefs. Instead of something like "Study looks for possible correlation between violent video games and aggression", it'll likely be warped into something like "Study finds correlation between violent video games and aggression".
The problem with studies like this is that they tend to ignore other potential factors...too many for me to bother listing right now.
Also, congratulations are in order to those who are dragging politics into an article that made no mention of the sort. You're now all going to be consequentially ignored.
Honestly, I think it's a case by case basis. There may be a correlation but I don't think there's causality.
How about it's that violent people are more likely to play violent games? I've played countless violent games over the course of around 30 years of gaming and I've never hit anyone
I'd love to hear about the group that commissioned this study and where they get their funding, plus how they did their control group and the specifics.
Because it should clear to everyone scientific studies can be manipulates to say whatever the money funding them wants them to.
@Emperor-Palpsy I would like to point out that I have been reminded by political parties and other parents it's not my place to raise their kids or to object to anything they do. It's not the governments either.
Parents who push this narrative also typically push for censorship for all instead of monitoring the media their children take in. At the end of the day, it's not on me to make sure children don't play violent games, I, as you point out, didn't choose to be a teacher and my children don't behave that way.
I'm not going to allow myself to have options taken away to make it easier on people who aren't going to parent anyway to pretend like they care about their children. I don't have a problem with the issue being looked into, I have a problem with a vocal minority pushing for censorship as always becomes the problem here.
I would go further and say that I don't support censorship at all. Parents should parent and if they can't, they should no longer have children.
Violent games are great, you just have to be a responsible parent and keep them away from autistic/special children.
If video games made people violent, then we would all eat mushrooms, break bricks with our hands, jump down pipes, jump on helpless animals and save the princess.
Bottom line: video games do not make people violent. Violence makes people violent, bad parenting make people violent, and some people are just violent.
Sounds like it's mens fault right kotaku? oh wait wrong site... but surely looks like you're following their example.
Sure video games make you violent, just like eating mushrooms make you twice as tall, or that you can control time with a magic flute.
The conclusion could be that aggressive people are more drawn to violent video games.
@ryancraddock
1) The premise of the article is trash. It’s disappointing and irresponsible to propagate this garbage here, of all places.
This issue has been studied extensively for well over a decade, with no significant correlation between the two visible in heaps of research.
2) I’ll give you $20 if you can go a full month without fanboy plugging the word “Fortnite.”
well cod does bring out the worst out of people especially with all the trash talking and other crap that goes on.
This research isn’t blaming video games directly, and the article’s title is quite misleading and obviously was chosen to attract clicks and create controversy (like seems to be the norm here as of late).
The research points that violent video games seem to have an effect in a number of individuals. It’s just ONE more of the multitude of violence that surrounds us everywhere, from movies to video games and even the news. There’s violence everywhere, and that affects us (to some people more than to others) whether we realize it or not.
I’m not against violent video games. I love violent video games and think that their effect on people is marginal at best but, for starters, age ratings should be respected. A 9 years old kid shouldn’t be playing Wolfenstein or even Fortnite for that matter (which is basically a mass murder simulator).
There are some things that aren’t apt to young minds yet, and violence is one of them. That we’re introducing violence to them too early and making it seem normal and common even from a very young age is something that should concern everyone.
Remember people: correlation does not equal causation.
@FlimFlam
Yes, you can show causation (or something that's very likely causation) if you
1) control for all of the possible confounding variables
2) have a control group that shows the opposite outcome
3) show the effect is time-ordered dependent, so its not backwards-causation.
The social sciences generally suck because it's quite hard to do all of these with large populations of people.
If video games are age rated then youngsters shouldn't be playing these games.
Violent games doesn’t make people violent.
People who assume that obviously can’t differentiate fantasy from reality and last I checked, that’s a definition of insanity.
Correlation studies don’t cut it anymore. These games are so widely played now that your study has to also focus on the brains of those players who will NEVER show criminal aggression, and explain why there’s no development!
Said the same thing when mortal kombat came out.I mean the very first mk game lol
If you can't discern the difference between reality and fiction, you have problems that are bigger than video games.
I would like to see a study that compares the impact of "violent" video games to similar forms of other media, like movies, music and books. I suspect that the correlation this study has found has little to do with video games inherently, and is more broadly related to people consuming ANY fictional materials that portray violence.
correlation is not causation. Has the researchers presented their limitation of data? What are the backgrounds of the samples that the researchers obtained? Family history? Social history? Prior military or occupation history? What about the behavioral assessments before and after the trial?
The data without these factors seem incomplete and the researchers decided to call it a day before saying 'there is a correlation but not really.' There has been numerous studies done concerning this. I just wish these researchers would delve deeper rule out more factors. Because if this is all it's ever going to be, then it's better to let the neuropsychiatric, pediatric and family medicine doctors do more in-depth research into this study moving forward. There are still a lot of factors to consider before we can conclude a definitive causatíon.
I've been playing video games for 30 years. I've restrained myself from getting into fights, have never struck someone in anger, have never smashed something out of anger, and refuse to own or even handle a firearm though I love using them in video games. How am I an anomaly?
Yeah sure, the presidents respond violetly to other countries menaces, or just attack for any reason and the videogames are the reason why kids are violent, tipical.
Soooo, ifall things equal. All we need to do is make all the violent people play happy silly games all day and they will become less violent 🙃
Seems like after x many years this nonsense needs to pop up again
@Tempestryke
I see, but I think we don't know nearly enough to underwrite a broad statement like ...
"Violent media isn't responsible for extreme violence anymore then masturbation caused mental illness, or rock lead to people making sacrifices to the devil."
... with any confidence. Hence I find myself unable to disregard any research into this field out of hand.
I do have personal feelings about this, maybe even educated guess based on my personal experience and background knowledge, but that is about it. It simply not good enough a foundation for me to judge the impact of a new technology on something as complex and varied as the human psyche - not by a long shot if you ask me.
@NEStalgia I'm not advocating blind trust in studies. A study like this is a fact finding mission paired with an interpration of said findings. Social research only very, very rarely if every finds itself able to do actual experiments, mostly we are stuck with one or the ex-post-facto research design.
Any such study can be attacked then on multiple grounds, and in fact, as a strong believer in Popper's approach, Ì believe it must be attacked.
That attack needs to be at least as specific and scientific as the subject you 'seek' to falsify. That's the crux. Blowing hot air about the general state of (social) sciences is not valid, as it is neither a specific nor scientific attack on the subject, but rather a broad and philosophical one.
As such I am with you in opposing the "[...] science theatre to justify a desired outcome." That's not all science though, and most importantly, if it were, it more-or-less easily falsified and debunked, because that approach kinde of demands bending reality (by one means or another) to your will. And if it is actually the case, there are still benefits here. We can learn about the world by falsifying theories after all. One less wrong way to explain what is going on - so to speak
I do not share your confidence in comparing reading to gaming though. There is a distinct difference. We have a pretty good idea for instance, that people react differently to different stimulations, so like an image can have a different impact than just the describtion of the image. To that extent videogames are seperate from books already, but then there is the fact that videogames do what no other medium can: they create a state of (limited - depending on various variables) let's call it mental agency. You are not just an observer of change, you are yourself an agent of change.
What does that mean for games enabling people to act out violent fantasies? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. That's about the only thing here I feel I can say with some confidence
As for your very macro-level view of the issue of violence, I'd say that I see no reason to assume that videogames are in any way shape or form a key factor here. Still, as far as the 'prominent form of violence' in the developed world goes (like mass shootings for example, schools nor not), I can no longer with confidence uphold that statement. No one is probably shooting up schools JUST because of some videogames they might have played, but does that mean videogames were less of the factor in said shoooting than say the access or exposure to guns (like e.g. having parents that are legal gunowners). That's where macro-level viewpoints don't do us anymore good, I fear.
And yes, it's absolutely possible that videogames combined with the right mixture of other elements could definitely have an impact, because again, we simply do not know yet how the human brain reacts to this kind of stimulation. For instance, research has shown that some games can boost spacial awareness in subjects ... well, does that suggest that videogames could under no circumstances boost violent tendencies for any subject? I'd say no
We need to know more for own sake, that of our kids and our society - especially with technology rushing ahead in terms of VR/AR that will further manage to blend reality and fiction together. If the human mind proves susceptible to this, we NEED to know.
@Ralek85 I'll start by saying of all us text wallers on this site, you're the only one that can outmatch the rest of us As such, much as I'd like to debate more points with your replies more often, I tend not to not because I don't actually wish to, but because it's largely impracticable to do so, as text wall replies tend to yield only larger text wall replies, and a conversation between two text wallers is a terrible thing to witness So I will try to stay brief, and skim points...I apologize!
"What does that mean for games enabling people to act out violent fantasies? I don't know. I don't think anyone does. That's about the only thing here I feel I can say with some confidence "
That's a point of starting with a false assumption of the nature of video games. The core appeal of even violent video games (GTAV excluded perhaps, more on that later), is in fact not one of acting out violent fantasies, or at least until a few recent examples has not been. The core appeal of most of said games (and most of the ones typically cited in such studies) is quite the opposite, it's an empowerment fantasy of being someone in the position, the expectation and the ability to be a hero or savior. That's the primary attractive trait of most of the "violent" games to the vast majority of players. Players want to be heroes, want to save the world, want to defeat the bad guys, the demons, the Nazis, the Peloponesians, the Red Legion and save their squad/nation/planet. That's the fantasy the companies sell, and the fantasy consumers buy. For the same reason superhero films lead the boxoffice, Cannes be darned.
People who are playing these games to act out violent fantasies are the ones who before video games were burning ants with magnifying glasees, tearing wings off butterflies, bullying/beating up/abusing others, and those really horrid few that go into the military because they want to kill. They are a minority of which there was already clearly a preexisting problem. Then the debate becomes not about games themselves but about whether for such individuals the ability to act out such fantasies in a non-harmful environment is beneficial or detrimental. But that's a completely different conversation about not a medium but of individual cases. It can be framed as "the influence of video games" on them, but for such a person, video games are far from the only influence that's going to affect them, and we can't say if the effect of video games makes their actions likely to be worse or actually provides an outlet to enact those thoughts without bringing real harm. But again, that's a whole separate debate for psychologists within the framework of violence prone individuals, not across games as an overall medium. (Such people probably should not be subjected to competition of any sort for that matter.)
Now I will make a counter-point to my own arguemnt. GTAV does not represent any sort of heroic purpose. It represents criminality and worse, with Trevor, I'd say sociopathic criminality. There's really not much room for heroics there. Thus my question regarding that title is who actually is drawn to such a game? Not me. I own a copy, I played it about 75% through....I found it remarkably unappealing on many levels even though it was indeed well made. Similarly the TLoU2 trailer at E3 is what someone here dubbed "torture porn"...that was pretty uncomfortable to watch....I'm not sure exactly who is drawn to that or would want to actually play that experiences of remarkably visceral realistic violence. It will sell amazingly well, and that perhaps is distressing. Ellie is perhaps a hero of sorts but that was not zombies she was slaying there. Maybe they were "bad men" of some sort of oppressive organization, but that kind of reveling in manual execution sill seems very out of place and doesn't play much into an empowering hero fantasy. In my own personal anecdotal viewpoint I wonder if everyone that buys and enjoys that game is fairly deviant....but of course it will sell in mass quantity somehow.
However typically the titles referenced by such studies are indeed "hero" oriented games in one form or another. If there are those playing it to "act out violent fantasies" we return to: A pre-existing problem prior to engagement with the game. If the individual was seeking a medium in which to explore violent fantasies, then we're back to correlation, not causality. A medium in which most play to be heroes, they seek to revel in harm. And that's an issue that applied outside of video games for a long time (sadistic hunters, soldiers, cops, even doctors, etc.)
It's a problem of looking at the wrong end of the issue. Blaming causality on something because on the surface it fits the theme, when that's merely an association-for the wrong reasons- of the people in question.
Stepping back from that and into the last paragraph, video games are an easy target because they depict "violence", and the correlation is an easy logical leap if not looking deeper. I.E. it's digestible for the media to discuss for the masses. However your last paragraph perhaps accidentally hit on a real bigger problem. The pace of technology. Not because it will more realistically portray violence, no, I don't believe that for a second. The more serious issue is the almost permanent steady-state ostracizing of individuals. Individuals of all but the most advanced abilities are becoming irrelevant and replaced by machines, having the money to keep up non-stop with constant technology refreshes every other year for every branch of technology is ever more important, while social media pressures everyone to keep up, and even employers expect everyone to keep up, the pool of basic life locked into subscriptions and falling behind means you lose all you put into it, the end of everything you know is always one misstep away, and that pace is getting faster and faster. Now THAT is ever more rapidly going to become a powder keg. An angry, bitter, stressed population that has been demoted from having any actual value or purpose in society, continuously reminded of their status of outside the social order, does not end well (consider the Knights Templar, no, not the Assassin's Creed Abstergo variant but the real ones, only with all the stress and adrenaline inducers of the modern world and the tremendously larger population, and a total lack of security and stability for a tremendous portion of the population, only accelerating rapidly) And when that blows, worldwide, it will make the first two wold wars look like dress rehearsals.
If you're looking for the mental health crisis that will reshape the world, there it is, coming soon to a public space near you, you can thank me later.
Finger wagging at video games can wait. VR heroics might be the only way to keep the raging population contained at some point in our lifetimes. By then it might even include us.
(Edit: See this is why I end up ignoring replies to other text wallers....this is what happens )
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