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

[talisman]

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.

I agree 100%... ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the parents.

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

No, it really doesn't. Scientists are basing their facts on solid research. You have no evidence to support your claim.

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.

What "theory"? It seems like you're still talking about video games necessarily causing violent behavior. That's not a widely held nor supported theory. Scientists claim that playing the games is linked to increased aggression, not violence. And there is plenty of evidence to back them up.

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?

For video games, not yet. For television (which is expected to be similar to video games, for obvious reasons), yes. As I said before, longitudinal studies have found a positive correlation between watching violent television and acts of aggression later in life but have found NO significant correlation between aggressiveness and preference for violent television. This means that the effect is not simply generated by the more aggressive people watching the more violent shows and thus being more likely to display aggressiveness. Like I said, though, no such studies have been conducted with video games to date, so theoretically the jury is still out. But I highly doubt any such longitudinal study would come up with something different than what has been found for television.

Sourcewise, see huesmann et al 2003 and eron et al 1978. I don't have the full citations on me, unfortunately.

The thing is, video gaming is a way to release their anger in some ways.

This is one of four (I think) theories explaining what happens when we play violent video games or watch violent media, and is referred to as the catharsis hypothesis. The idea of catharsis was popular in the 1950s, and children were encouraged, for example, to beat their pillows to get out anger and frustration. It turned out, of course, that this wasn't solving any problems at all, and was in fact increasing aggressiveness (in the long run). And for that reason I doubt that catharsis really applies to video gaming.

[MixMasterLar]

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

I agree 100%... ultimate responsibility lies in the hands of the parents..

The thing is no perent takes responsibility for there kids, regardless of anything

What "theory"? It seems like you're still talking about video games necessarily causing violent behavior. That's not a widely held nor supported theory. Scientists claim that playing the games is linked to increased aggression, not violence. And there is plenty of evidence to back them up..

Aint that the truth. Here agian, perents should only allowe kids to play games for a short time each day. When my lil' bro was getting too wired playing Army Men (lol Army Men, talk about going crazy) that's what my mom did and it works.

This is one of four (I think) theories explaining what happens when we play violent video games or watch violent media, and is referred to as the catharsis hypothesis. The idea of catharsis was popular in the 1950s, and children were encouraged, for example, to beat their pillows to get out anger and frustration. It turned out, of course, that this wasn't solving any problems at all, and was in fact increasing aggressiveness (in the long run). And for that reason I doubt that catharsis really applies to video gaming.

I think it does, but not as much as everybody thinks.
I know that when I am tiss at life, playing Tekken helps me out, the problem here is that when inmature kids try it they dont know when to say "ok that was a fun game now lets go on with life" Here agian, perents need to keep a close wacth on there kids

[Reach]

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

r = .15 to r = .19

That's it?

For all those that don't understand r values, that is basically insignificant. Does that even count as a valid correlation? I don't think so. Even .3 is a pretty f'ing low correlation. I'd say R should equal atleast .5 before you take seriously the relationship between the two. .65 would be a significant correlation, and .8+ would be highly significant.

Essentially what that means (r=.19) is video games account for less than 4% of the variables in children-videogame violence. Wow, talk about significant. What I take that to mean is essentially video games have nothing to do with violence other than changing ones mood in the moment.

You can think of this like a movie making you feel sad if the movie is really sad. Big deal.


What I'm getting at here is that low correlations (under .5) shouldn't be taken very seriously at face value. Here are some examples why.

You can correlate head size to IQ score by about .35, even though head size shouldn't matter much since there's a lot more in ones head than just brain, but it still does correlate.


IQ and religion r = -0.886. IF that was true then essentially the more religious you are, the dumber you are, and that if you're religious you're almost guaranteed to be stupid, but we all know highly intelligent religious people. The problem here is a confounding variable, in most cases. (though this correlation often in itself stirs up trouble.)


Confounding variables are always a problem in correlations. I could correlate ice cream eating to deaths in the water. Wow! The correlation is pretty high too. Why do they correlate? Because more people go swimming in the summer...

[talisman]

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

The authors claim the values to be small, but significant. Keep in mind n = 4200 or so for one value and 2800 I think for the other. These were meta-analyses across a lot of studies.

And really, values larger than that are not to be expected. If r were .90 or something that would mean that nearly every kid who played a violent video game would be significantly more aggressive.

You'll have to read the studies themselves to get a better handle of their statistical measures, but in both analyses the authors do say that their findings are significant, and I'm inclined to believe them (being published in peer-reviewed journals and all).

[Reach]

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

They're definitely small. I think small is an understatement.

Again my argument would be that r=0.19 only accounts for less than 4% of the variability. It's too insignificant to be taken at face value as evidence for this really.

R=.9 is extremely high, yes, I wouldn't expect that. But r=0.5 (25% variability accounted for) isn't unnecessarily high, especially if you want to come out and say that two things are linked.


I'll read into it further.

[talisman]

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

what one of the authors says:

"We used the correlation coefficient, denoted by r, as the effect-size estimate. According to Cohen (1988), a small r is + or - .10, a medium r is + or - .30, and a large r is + or - .50. Fisher's z transformation was applied to the correlations beforet they were averaged, weighted by the inverse of the variance (i.e., n - 3). Once a 95% confidence interval was obtained for the pooled z score, it was transformed back to a 95% confidence interval for the pooled r, denoted by r (sub +) (Hedges & Olkin, 1985).

...

"Is there a reliable association between exposure to violent video games and aggression? Across 33 independent tests of the relation between video-game violence and aggression, involving 3,033 participants, the average effect size was positive and significant, r = .19. High video-game violence was definitely associated with heightened aggression.... Indeed, this effect of violent video games on aggression is as strong as the effect of condom use on risk of HIV infection (Weller, 1993)."

[Cavernio]

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

Ok, while I know p values don't *really* hold up for correlations, I'm assuming that for the 2 meta-analyses you've read, that p <0.05?

Also, reach, maybe I'm wrong here, but I'm pretty sure that r = .19 accounts for square root of .19 percent variability, which is actually more than 4.something % variability. You probably meant to write this for r = .15.
Plus, I agree, r = .19 IS small, but lets face it, that's pretty much par for the course in psychology, especially social psychology. Which is a very good message to take away, to anyone who's not going to study psychology, that just because something found is significant, doesn't mean its meaningful.

[talisman]

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

Of course... the quote I just pasted even mentioned obtaining the "95% confidence interval."

Honestly, I trust the authors of a paper in a peer-reviewed journal to decide the degree of significance more than you guys... It's worth noting as well that both studies cite work by Cohen in reporting their statistics (as evidenced above).

[Squeek]

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

The thing is no perent takes responsibility for there kids, regardless of anything

Can you back that up with proof?

My mom took responsibility for me. I was not allowed to purchase or view R-rated movies until I was of age. I was not allowed to buy "Parental Advisory" CDs until I was of age (and by then I grew out of American music anyway). I was not allowed to purchase or play M-rated games until I was of age.

IT IS NOT HARD TO DO.

[tsugomaru]

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

I guess you are right, I do have nothing to back my sources. These are things I've read on the Internet and magazines I recieve at home, the question is not whether or not if the information is right, but where does the informationg comes from.

I'll try to research into this a bit more, this topic made me think. =[

~Tsugomaru

[slipstrike0159]

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

The thing is, video gaming is a way to release their anger in some ways.

Although you may be right in a way about that, think about anything else that can be classified as an addiction. Say you smoke once, say you think its alright and it makes you feel good, well then you smoke again until you are up to 1 pack a week, and it keeps feeling good so you smoke one pack a day, and then even thats not enough so you keep going. Do you see how with these specific stimulations come a desire to have more? Sure it is a way to release anger, but if you keep playing it, soon you are going to want something thats a little more violent, and then a little more violent, until you want to act violent cause its better than watching it happen on a screen. Although it doesnt happen very quickly or it doesnt climb to that kind of extreme very often, it does happen and because of the stimualtions you want more. Not like i am defending the side against violent games, i am just pointing out an obvious string of events that happen quite often among other things of similar trends.

[tsugomaru]

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

Although you may be right in a way about that, think about anything else that can be classified as an addiction. Say you smoke once, say you think its alright and it makes you feel good, well then you smoke again until you are up to 1 pack a week, and it keeps feeling good so you smoke one pack a day, and then even thats not enough so you keep going. Do you see how with these specific stimulations come a desire to have more? Sure it is a way to release anger, but if you keep playing it, soon you are going to want something thats a little more violent, and then a little more violent, until you want to act violent cause its better than watching it happen on a screen. Although it doesnt happen very quickly or it doesnt climb to that kind of extreme very often, it does happen and because of the stimualtions you want more. Not like i am defending the side against violent games, i am just pointing out an obvious string of events that happen quite often among other things of similar trends.

I realized the error in my statement when I posted it. I did not edit it out because of lack of better things to say.

~Tsugomaru

[MixMasterLar]

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

Can you back that up with proof?

Im not saying that all perents dont, Im happy to say that mine did and Im happy to see that yours did, too. what Im saying is that seeing mothers buy GTA for there 7 year olds is commen in my town. 4 year olds seeing R movies is even more so.

I have no solid proof that genarel perents dont take responsebility for there kids. but I see it all the time. Mabey what I should say is in my town they dont, but I challege you and every body else to count how many do and how many dont in your town and see what the bigger number is.

[Squeek]

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

When you say "all", it's a word that means "every single one"

Why did you say "all" if you even had a personal example proving it's not "all". There's a word for this kind of situation. It's "most".

[lord_carbo]

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

I love how they put all this propaganda crap on television and everyone in a forum for a Flash game site is just tearing it apart lmao.

Thanks a lot, I don't have anything to contribute now