Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

[Icefenix45560]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I love violent games and movies, yet I am not crazy. I do not feel brainwashed or anything. NFS actually got me more aggrovated than MoH did (****ing who's got endurance). To get to my point, a kid has to be pretty stupid to want to kill someone because he did it in a game, which could be triggered from movies, radio, magazines ect. Blame the moron kids, not the video games.

Well, though that may be true, jacko wont listen to kids who play videogames because "they will always take the videogames side, besides, the kids dont even realize they are being desensitized"

[Reach]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I'd personally like to know who these 'scientists' are that are bashing video games. Susan Smiga? Look at her areas of research and expertise. "Dialectical Behavior Therapy, adolescent depression and suicide prevention"


Obviously she's looking for reasons here to put the blame on something. There's no evidence in this article. OBVIOUSLY the brain is going to change when you're playing a game. The brain changes constantly whenever you're doing something different, and that will activate different parts of the brain and cause different emotions.

Does this even show a correlation with violence? Probably. I can't even begin to imagine how many confounding variables there are here though.

It's obviously bull political propaganda. I'm not sure what they're trying to accomplish here.


Adults are (should be) intelligent enough to differentiate between a video game and reality. If they arn't then they're ****ed up in the head to begin with...video games or no video games, it's not going to prevent their behavior. All of these people that commit crimes that play 'violent video games' have a lot of other problems.

[Shashmakito]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

That's bologna(boloni).

All that has to do is the whole different gaming genre you think different when you shoot people compared to driving.

Plus i like o curse at every fukin game.

And killing someone would be kinda kewl too though.

[Cavernio]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Well, what I've got beef with has already been mentioned, but I've just got to say it.
The article linked is written by a journalist, not a scientist. They go into no detail whatsoever about the experiment, nor does the article actually say that playing violent video games causes aggression. So I'm not really sure where this_noob_rocks got that the blurb that is linked is bashing video games. Even the quote from the researcher isn't saying that violent video games cause violence. All she's saying is that she knows of some kids (who knows what age they are, they could be 2 years old for all we know), who "have a hard time differentiating violence in those games from reality".
Also, to anyone who cares, the research is not studying changes in connections in the brain. It is simply measuring which areas of the brain are more active in terms of cellular respiration, since MRI's measure oxygen. They are not measuring brainwaves either. Those are measured by EEG, and pertain to the entirety of brain activation, and the term 'brainwave', by definition, cannot pertain to individual areas of activation. They've also not stated anywhere that the amygdala is being activated. I don't care what you've heard about Phineus Gage and getting a railroad spike in his head and it lesioning the amygdala, doesn't mean that the amygdala is the sole area that can be attributed to 'violence'.

As others have said, different video games affect brain activation differently. That's no surprise. Nor is it any surprise to learn that kids and people and animals can learn from watching things, and yes, I'm sure that a child who's never been exposed to the concept of a firearm will not go around pretending or in reality, shooting things.

BTW, I'm recently done research pertaining to video game usage and spatial ability. Lotsa benign, non-scapegoat research is done on a daily basis, its just that the media doesn't report it. You've got to go out there and find it.
Also, I've lamented somewhere how awesome it would be to research the processes involved in becoming a good FFR player. Hell, there's an entire system set up here already. Hmmm, scanning brains of people playing FFR, what a waste of an fMRI machine that could be used for medical purposes! If only someone were to give me a kick in the ass, FFR could become a research site, even without the use of brain scanning.

But please people, don't diss the researcher when you've not read what the researcher themselves has written, ok?


As well, any research done on violent behaviour and violence exposure including video games has been juggled back and forth in psychology for years, but I think the verdict is that they contribute to violence (although you can find studies which say otherwise, I'm aware.)
I'm talking on an individual level though. You sit a bunch of kids to watch teletubbies for a half hour, and you sit a bunch of kids to watch umm, I dunno, power rangers or something for half an hour. You then watch them play for the next 15 minutes. Guess which kids play more aggresively?

[meno_rocks123]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I don't find video games aggravating at all except

(****ing who's got endurance)

That is the most piss-you-off-race in the game.

If anything though, I go online and kill random strangers on CoD or other FPSs and that alleviates stress.

[talisman]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

As someone who has written a paper on this for my social psych class last term, I know that there is significant evidence that indicates that violent video game play is positively correlated to subsequent physiological arousal, aggressive cognition, aggressive behavior, and negatively correlated to subsequent prosocial behavior. The size of the effect is about r = .15 to r = .19. However, all of these studies have only indicated a short-term effect. No longitudinal studies have been conducted to date.

In television/film violence, several longitudinal studies HAVE been conducted that do reveal a positive correlation between viewing violent media and aggression later in life (and, importantly, a NON-significant correlation between aggression and subsequent violent media viewing). It's expected that similar results would be found in similar studies on violent video games, as games are similar to television, and have the (expected) intensifying factor that is their inherently participatory nature.

Let me see if I can get at some sources for you guys.

edit:

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: a meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12 (5), 353-359.

Sherry, J. (2001). The effects of violent video games on aggression: a meta-analysis. Human Communication Research, 27(3), 409-431.

Both of those are meta-analyses on the topic, essentially pooling together data from many different studies and indicating the short-term effects that DO exist as I mentioned earlier.

(I could upload these too if you don't believe me...)

[tsugomaru]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

The thing is, we all game right?

How many of us kill people?

No one, or else we'd post it on FFR.

The thing is, this is the easiest scapegoat for parents. They can't really think of any real sensible or plausible reason that might be causing their problems. Who they look to? None other than whoever or whatever their kid is doing.

I can say this from experience. At one point, I had a really good friend and I spent quite a bit of time with him, apparently he was the reason for everything wrong about me so they told me to stop seeing him. Of course this didn't happen.

I also read a lot when I was young. A lot as in I come home from school, I read till bed, woke up the next morning, go to school, and read all day. So now, reading just had to be the problem!

Now I'm using the computer, so clearly, whatever I'm currently doing is wrong.

Notice how in all my listed examples, we can all divide that onto two sides of a dichotomy, good or bad, where friends and reading is seen as good and quite possibly, computer being bad.

So it is not the fact that the computer is actually bad for you, it is because we use it a lot.

~Tsugomaru

[talisman]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

No one takes seriously the argument that playing violent video games leads to violent crime. Too many defenders of violent games use the same argument many of you have used: "Many people play violent games, yet not even close to all of them kill people!" No ****. I can't think of any rational critics who try to make that argument (that playing games necessarily leads to committing acts of violent crime).

What is claimed, and supported (albeit only in the short-term, for now), is that there's a link between violent video game play and subsequent aggression. The effect is not a huge one, but it is significant.

I noticed that squeek framed his paper around the contention that violent video games are linked to violence. While this may be the perception in the media and public, it certainly isn't the one adopted by the scientific community (as far as I've read) in dealing with this topic. Scientists are looking for links between playing these games and aggression, a term that can be quite rigorously defined and measured.

To sum up: all your evidence on violent video games having no negative effects at all is either A) anecdotal, B) uninformed, or C) misdirected.

[Chrissi]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

There is probably a trend, but it's not necessarily causal.

[TD_GenoCid3]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

ily car wash

[talisman]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Many of the studies control for almost every factor conceivable... the data highly suggest that the correlation is probably causal in nature (although causation is almost never "proved" just as nothing in science is ever "proved"). If you can think of other factors to account for the results the researchers found, be my guest.

Let me dig up some example studies...

edit: just a couple from my paper... there's more that we didn't cite (obviously), but I'm far too lazy to pull together those citations for you:

Ballard, M., & Wiest, J. (1996). Mortal kombat (tm): the effects of violent videogame play on males’ hostility and cardiovascular responding. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(8), 717-730.

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: a test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 (12), 1679-1686.

[Squeek]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

The real problem is that parents don't take responsibility for their children's actions.

Yes, video games are violent. That's why they're rated. M-rated games should not be played by children.

http://www.mediafamily.org/research/report_vgrc_2006.shtml

For example, most (73%) parents say they “always” help decide what games their children may buy or rent. However, only 30% of children say their parents do. On the opposite side, only 1% of parents say they “never” help decide, in contrast to 25% of children. This pattern of parents giving much more socially acceptable answers is consistent across several aspects, including responses to the following questions:

[tsugomaru]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

I guess you are right. I cannot say that because the world is into violent video games. And yes, that is a trend I'm following.

My original argument still holds, that currently, scientist are basing their facts on an easy scape goat.

I mean, there was once a time where smoking was accepted by society and they saw nothing wrong about it. At one point, people started noticing how smoking also correlated to death and BAM no one wants to smoke anymore.

Currently, there is no real evidence to this theory and the only thing backing it up is the fact that this is one of the scapegoats that is easy and readily there to use.

I mean sure, I do try to imitate some of the stunts I see in video games, but never to the point where I'd actually get up and do it. I'll leave that to the cosplayers and actors.

~Tsugomaru

[Chrissi]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

Many of the studies control for almost every factor conceivable... the data highly suggest that the correlation is probably causal in nature (although causation is almost never "proved" just as nothing in science is ever "proved"). If you can think of other factors to account for the results the researchers found, be my guest.

Let me dig up some example studies...

edit: just a couple from my paper... there's more that we didn't cite (obviously), but I'm far too lazy to pull together those citations for you:

Ballard, M., & Wiest, J. (1996). Mortal kombat (tm): the effects of violent videogame play on males’ hostility and cardiovascular responding. Journal of Applied Social Psychology, 26(8), 717-730.

Bushman, B.J. and Anderson, C. (2002). Violent video games and hostile expectations: a test of the general aggression model. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 28 (12), 1679-1686.

Isn't it always very possible that violent people who are likely to commit crimes are drawn toward violent video games? Am I missing something here? Is there really any way to show that it's the other way around?

[tsugomaru]

Re: Well, it happened again. Scientists are bashing video games.

It was once said that these violent games were an answer to solving crime, but that was a very, very long time ago. The thing is, video gaming is a way to release their anger in some ways.

~Tsugomaru