Views on Violence in Video Games 626
CBS News' GameCore site is running a series of articles discussing the ever recurring debate about video games and violent behavior. They start with prominent anti-gaming lawyer Jack Thompson. From the article: "The heads of six major health care organizations testified before Congress that there are hundreds of studies that prove the link. All the video game industry has are studies paid for by them, which are geared to find the opposite result. Lawyers call such experts 'whores.'" Tim Buckley, of the webcomic Ctrl+Alt+Del, had the chance to put forth an opposing viewpoint on the subject. According to the site there will be more coverage on this topic next week from other gaming community members.
Lawyers & Whores (Score:3, Insightful)
Violence (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:5, Insightful)
The overly simplistic comment threw me off (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's ban golf, shall we?
Wow, how witty. I completely saw past the simplisticness of the allegory there. My mind sure is made up after that comment! Now just throw in a catchy slogan, and I'm hooked!
Age is the key (Score:5, Insightful)
Much Worse then TV and Movies (Score:4, Insightful)
When I watch a movie it is a fairly passive activety. I sit back, enjoy the flick without much involement. When I play a game though, such as grand theft auto or the like, that is a very active thing. I look for pedestrians to run over, I look for police to beat up. Now, I don't think that this nesassarly translates into violence in real life but it is definetly worse then what you see in tv and movies.
Perhaps they should quit attacking the authors... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:2, Insightful)
Hundreds of studies? (Score:2, Insightful)
With millions of people like myself who play violent video games, why aren't we all mass murderers?
Health Care Orgs are Even *More* Biased in This (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:violent games (Score:5, Insightful)
You are always going to have people who cannot distinguish between make believe and reality. We should commit these people, not punish the sane people.
Utterly Ridiculous (Score:2, Insightful)
American football is basically gladitorial arena combat (which makes it neat), but nobody complains about the violence it induces in our children.
To the Media: Stop the perpetuation of unfounded fear! It's almost as though they want to keep humanity in constant fear...oh wait, they do.
Moot point (Score:2, Insightful)
An exaggeration, but still... people need to take some personal responsibility for how their children behave. Linking violence in games to children's actions is beside the point when they should not be playing M-rated titles to begin with.
We are a silly nation (Score:3, Insightful)
Right. And there were no evil corporations before Microsoft, no lawsuits before that lady spilled coffee on her lap at McDonalds, etc.
Personally, I think there is a link to violent behavior and how we as a society have come to accept it as "normal". Video games are a part of that culture, but they are by no means something you can point at as a single cause. We have a US President that is a war monger. You can see people getting killed all over television, but show a bare breast and the entire country freaks the F out. Over the last 20 years or so, we have been propagating the message that violence is normal and OK. We are a very silly nation.
Re:violent games (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Age is the key (Score:4, Insightful)
You made the causality error. The question you have to ask yourself is which came first - the violent tendencies or the games. It is without question that people that enjoy violent games usually grow up to be more aggressive/violent than people that do not enjoy violent games. It is even without question that people that like those games act more violent within an hour after playing them. But despite MULTIPLE attempts, not a single study has ever conclusively demonstrated that if you expose a person to violent games/tv, they will become a more aggressive/violent person.
You are right that violence is like porn, but both porn and violence are also like dancing. When you see someone dancing in a movie, you think about dancing for a couple of minutes, maybe try out a few steps. But the movie will NOT turn you into a dancer, nor will it make someone that does not really like dancing start to like it.
There is no reason to outlaw or regulate violent games, anymore than there is to regulate porn - only the people that dislike these things try to stop others from enjoying them.
P.S. I don't play ANY video games. My porn colletion is none of your business.
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:5, Insightful)
Ooops... could it throw off their theory/lame hypothesis etc etc.
Problem is Internal, not External (Score:5, Insightful)
Francis Schaeffer once said "Art reflects culture". The fact that so many people buy and play violent video games (which is an amazing art form) tells more about who we are as a culture than will the history books. To blame the manufacturers isn't getting to the root of the problem.
I don't know what the answer is. I think there probably is some link between people being desensitized to violent and playing violent games, but I also don't think laws will do anything more than to fuel debate and make lawyers wealthy.
Re:Age is the key (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:violent games (Score:2, Insightful)
Video games can be a catalyst...like anything else (Score:3, Insightful)
Sure, they may play Grand Theft Auto and shoot at people. But they could just as easily get inspiration from the latest 50 Cent album or even a TIME magazine article detailing the Columbine massacre. Hell, there are enough wackos blaming their crimes on God speaking to them, shouldn't we point the finger at religion too?
The bottom line is that you never know how the mind of a sociopath is going to interpret something - so video games hold no more blame than anything else.
Re:There was no violence before video games... (Score:5, Insightful)
Whores? (Score:3, Insightful)
I challenge anyone to name a single industry which doesn't conduct "studies" which favour itself.
Nothing's as bad as the pharmaceutical industry. Or how about the world of financial analysis at the end of the 90's? Those were some pretty screwed up "studies".
And now we've got characters like David Lereah (head of the Association of Realtors) on TV everyday screeching "There is no housing bubble" (although he's sounding very depserate lately [freep.com]).
Using the media, the legal system, the court of public opinion, and analysis/forecasting is *how* business is done today. We live in 'spin land'. If you're going to start calling people whores than apparently we're living in one big giant brothel.
Hey... how come I'm not getting laid?
Re:Violence (Score:5, Insightful)
I love violent games, I've been playing them as long as I can remember. I've boxed, wrestled, competed in jiu-jitsu and submission wrestling tournaments. Those may be sports, but they're as violent as sports get.
I just love the visceral feeling I get when I blast an imp that jumped out of the shadows and scared the crap out of me. I get a similar visceral feeling when I land a nice punch or tap out an opponent.
All of that being said, these are just games. Repeat after me: "IT IS JUST A GAME".
I absolutely detest "real" violence. Every time they showed people in the comforts of their middle-class existance cheering as bombs went off in Iraq I felt sick to my stomache. I am not desensitized whatsoever.
If people didn't have games to blame things like this on, they would just find something else.
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:violent games (Score:3, Insightful)
Look, to prove the concept you have to do the following:
One take a random selection of at least 100 people, divide it into two groups of at least 50.
Force, and I do mean FORCE one group to play violent video games for a period of however long you think is neccesary to make them violent. 1 year, at 1 hour a day seems reasonable to me. If they don't enjoy playing the game, tough. They have to do it.
Prevent, and I do mean PREVENT one group from playing violent games for the same period.
Compare both groups violent tendencies, IQs, etc. etc. with the people deciding who is "violent" etc. having no idea which group the subjects belong to.
Such studies have been done before. They found ZERO, NADA, NO increase in violent tendencies.
So of course the fools claim "you got the age wrong" or "You didn't force them to play enough" etc. etc. etc.
Not a single study has demonstrated causality. I personally think this is because there is NO causality. People that like violent games grow up to be violent. People that watch violent games think violent thoughts for a short period after (24 hours is the max tested). But neither of those things means that watching the games makes you act violently.
Video games vs. movies... (Score:2, Insightful)
The problem, of course, is that you can make it absolutely impossible for kids to buy these games and they'll still get them, because the average parent is too damn stupid to know that GTA may or may not be appropriate for their 10-year-old. There is this idea that the over-40 set has stuck in their head that *videogames are automatically for kids*...same way cartoons are automatically for kids. They can't grasp the idea of either one being made with adults as an intended audience. I was working at said video store when GTA:III first came out. I told every parent whose kid convinced them to rent the game for them, whether they solicited my advice or not, that it might not be appropriate. Most were like, "what, is there some swearing or violence in it?" I would reply the same every time: "You can beat hookers to death with a baseball bat to get back the money you gave them to have sex with you in the back of the car, which you stole from an old man who you also beat to death with a baseball bat."
Nine out of ten put it back. Parents just don't get it. Maybe if the game industry had paid whatever the MPAA was more than likely asking to use their ratings scheme it would sink in a little better...parents see an "R" rating and they think 16 or 17 and up. They see "M" and they think 10 or 11 and up. Because again, videogames are just for kids, right?
My opinion is that violent movies can have nearly as much effect on kids as games, but you don't see a push to ban violent movies. It's not hard to figure out why this is, of course...lawmakers actually watch violent movies. They don't tend to play games. I think ten years from now when the videogame generation starts getting elected to office (if they get up of the couch and run, that is!), maybe this will finally become the non-issue it should be...because the people in office will actually understand that videogames aren't much different from movies, and that violent players are the rare exception, not the rule.
On a final note, I am so damn sick of hearing video games being blamed for Columbine. Nobody seems to think that maybe the way kids treat each other, combined with general lack of give-a-damn from parents and faculty, combined with relatively easy access to guns that led to that incident. The video games were just an excellent scapegoat.
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course the most common /. argument is always "well I play violent video games and I'm not a murderer" and yes, of course that's true for majority of the population as well. But violent acts do not always have to be as drastic as 5-year-prison-term felony. Have you ever cut someone off while driving? Have you ever snapped at someone for no reason other than you've had a bad day? Ever yelled at a member of your family or a friend? All of those constitute violent acts, although to a mild degree. The point is not that you'll become a hardened criminal from playing these games but that your behavior will become more violent than it would have been otherwise (had you never played them).
Just my $0.02 on the subject.
Re:The overly simplistic comment threw me off (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes that was a rather simple flippant comment. However the point made before about competative sports was not.
Simple observation of the behavior of amateur and professional atheletes suggests to me that perhaps further studies should be done to determine if there is a causal link between sports, especially contact sports and violent behaviour.
Violence is not just condoned in some sports but is often actively encouraged, even outside the degree of roughness that the rules allow. What's a hockey game without a few fists flying. Hell even baseball players will get into it. This kind of thing would get me arrested anywhere else, but in the virtual world of these 'games' it is fine. While I may occasionally want to punch someone at work, it's been a long time since the last office brawl had to be broken up.
So how about a study to see if kids in competative sports show any 2% or so increase in aggessive behavior outside of the game. If they do than maybe some should be 'adults only'.
Re:Violence (Score:3, Insightful)
Other Studies: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's why it's the parents responsibility to keep them out of their hands, not the governments nor anyone elses.
THINK OF THE CHILDREN!
When I have one I will think of them, and being the huge gamer I am I know there will be many games my kids won't even see untill I think they're at the age where they can handle them.
I'm just so god damn sick and tired of lazy parents pointing the fingers everywhere else.
They make no attempt to prove Causality at all. (Score:5, Insightful)
Take a random selection of at least 100 people, divide it into two groups of at least 50. Force, and I do mean FORCE one group to play violent video games for a period of however long you think is neccesary to make them violent. 1 year, at 1 hour a day seems reasonable to me. If they don't enjoy playing the game, tough. They have to do it.
Prevent, and I do mean PREVENT one group from playing violent games for the same period.
Compare both groups violent tendencies, IQs, etc. etc. with the people deciding who is "violent" etc. having no idea which group the subjects belong to.
Such studies have been done before. They found ZERO, NADA, NO increase in violent tendencies.
So of course the fools claim "you got the age wrong" or "You didn't force them to play enough" etc. etc. etc.
Not a single study has demonstrated causality. I personally think this is because there is NO causality. People that like violent games grow up to be violent. People that watch violent games think violent thoughts for a short period after (24 hours is the max I have seen tested). But neither of those things means that watching the games makes you act violently.
Modern day parents (Score:2, Insightful)
All of the parents who I know who are similar in age to me (mid-30's) played (or had high levels of exposure) video games as children, and violence in gaming isn't something really to get bent out of shape on. The sex still bothers this same group of people to varying levels, but the violence does not, which illustrates our unfortunate Puritan heritage...
Re:They can debate this to death... (Score:3, Insightful)
There is enough money in the industry to pay off any politician who wants to seriously restrict smoking though.
Video games make big money too, but they don't kill one person for every two players...
Nevertheless, how long till we see the minimum age for gaming raised above smoking?
I have to say this!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Some background, first. I am a 15-year-old male video gamer. I started playing M-rated games approximately the same time my family got internet access, around the time I was 8. I've had parental permission to buy most M-rated games since I was about 13, although I had to convince them on a case-by-case basis. I've been able to play GTA3, as well as the sequels, since I was 14. I first watched Pulp Fiction when I was... 11, I think, and I own both volumes of Kill Bill, which I watch regularly. Here's the secret: I'm seriously one of the least violent people I know.
I have one friend who's almost completely sheltered by his parents. As a result, he's obsessed with guns and violence, and completely resents his parents. And he has (and knows how to use, which scares me) a butterfly knife. He's the one that's going to kill someone someday. I have another friend who was brought up Christian, and he's far more violent than I am. It's not video games and movies that cause violence.
Here's my appraisal of the situation. Violent people, being violent people, would naturally be attracted toward violent video games. Therefore, all studies would show that people who have committed violent acts have, almost uniformly, played violent video games. The stupid media would misinterpret that as "videogames cause violence" because they have brains that aspire to be the size of a pill. Then, a whole bunch of assholes on the other side would feel self-righteous and say, "I don't allow my child to play violent videogames", and, "You have to raise your child and be involved with what they're doing". Bullshit, you're both wrong. I play as much or as little of any violent video game I want, behind a closed door, in my room. And I'm pretty much the least violent guy that I know.
So I've come to the conclusion that, if you kill someone, chances are you're fucked whether you had violent video games or not. I knew, from the time I started playing violent video games, when I was 8 (and I'm talking about Marathon and Pathways into Darkness), that killing people is wrong. This whole idea that young children don't understand this is a crock of shit. The reason we don't hold children to the same standards as adults criminally is not because they don't know their actions were wrong, but they couldn't see the consequences. That doesn't mean they didn't know it was wrong in the first place. Stop making excuses for crazy, fucked up people, who just happened to play video games. I think you'll also find they drank milk at some point: could that be the problem?
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:1, Insightful)
Except there's no "increased violence."
In the US, violence in youth has been on a downward trend over the past twenty years or so.
What, exactly, are the problems that we're trying to solve? Things like Columbine were isolated events. You only want to make laws to address consistent problems.
Re:violent games (Score:0, Insightful)
Important consideration (Score:2, Insightful)
Aside from the base issue "Does violence in games make kids violent," we need to look at another important issue: Is it a BAD thing to expose children to some desensitizing violence?
Think about the word "innocence." It's used to describe children, and used to justify hiding pornography and violence from them. If you expose a child to sex, he's no longer "innocent" because his mind has been "tainted."
So the little girl is "innocent" and knows nothing about . . . uhh. Man parts. A 15 year old comes up to her after school and messes with her head a bit, gets a hard-on, she sees it in his pants, he offers to show her. Hey, 9 year old's never seen it, sure! Now any social engineer will tell you that innocence and naiivety will give you an easy, direct, and predictable manipulation path; and there will very soon be manipulation. Of genitals. In some 9 year old's mouth.
Imagine this child has been lectured by her parents and explained to what sex is, the basic concerns, moralistic ideas, health, etc. She's been explained why people want it and how they deal with it. Now she's informed enough to make her own decisions. The parents insert into her mind what THEY want her to do. 15 year old approaches her, and . . . "I NEED AN ADULT I NEED AN ADULT!!!" Oops! Kernel panic!
In the same way, if you're shielded from all exposure to violence and depictions of violence, you don't know how to handle it emotionally. It's disgusting, even if you're sadistic it's emotionally distorting until you get used to it. Somebody attacks you or a friend, threatens to stab them, what happens? Do you hide? Do you crawl under a desk somewhere?
Long ago, people used to fight. A lot. Someone tried to kill the man next to you, you didn't beg for your life; you stood up and kicked his ass. This is the world we need to live in, the world we'll always need to live in. If we try to run away from it, then the cutthroats and thieves will rise up and take this world down.
You can't clense everyone's minds and make them zombies, because the same ability and experience that desensitises you to violence is what makes you a leader. When you can stand up and beat the crap out of someone because you know they're bad and they want to hurt people, you're able to lead. When you're afraid of violence, then you're afraid of conflict, because it can lead to violent emotions (anger), which can lead to violence.
If you fear conflict, you do whatever anyone says, just to avoid it; and there will always be somebody who will take advantage of that. It's the nature of everything, and we as humans aren't "better" than animals because we're perfect, God-like beings. We have the same flaws as every lower lifeform on this planet. We have to kill to eat (even the protein suppliments vegitarians get come at least partially from animals; far too expensive to extract from plants, unless you want to pay $300 for a bottle of 30 pills), we have to fight to defend ourselves, and we're infested with people who will cut your throat because they know you won't fight back. Face it, and get over it.
Think about this argument when you think about if violence is bad. Think about it when you think about abolishing the death penalty. Think about it when you're in a martial arts course and your sensei makes you spar with someone 3 belts above you, who leaves you beaten and bruised. Think about it and try to figure out why these things are here and what would conceivably happen if we removed them. Thus is the path to enlightenment.
Re:violent games (Score:2, Insightful)
As mommy and daddy dearest buy lots of luxury items to combat the guilt of not being around with their now combined six figure salary, they teach their young a very important lesson: Stuff is free. Binding that with their other life experiences, including the strong make it to the next round, and when a guy calls you a l053r, you go out of your way to make his gaming experience a lot less enjoyable, coupled with the fact that there is no punishment for rude behaviour (How's that guy going to kick your ass physically, when he doesn't even know where you live?) then what you've done is create a breeding ground for social miscreants. And these miscreants do not have the social skills that other violent parasites who festered in the hate inducing, parent screaming sports-culture have. At least Jocks have had their asses handed to them physically once or twice.
It's not the violence of the video game that causes it, it's the lack of life experience and extended boundaries that allow already mentally unstable psychopaths to flourish until they are old enough to do some damage, or to scrape up enough money to buy a gun.
You can blame video games all you want. You can blame the parents all you want. You can blame bullying all you want. You can even blame pornography. It is not any one of those that make a killer, but a random combination of factors that press upon a child until it twists his reality, presses on his psyche, and warps his view of the world. Removing one factor may break the chain, but it also creates room for the other factors to press harder and harder.
And if people cannot see this, if the "psycologists" (a bunch of fucking quacks that couldn't make it through Jungian theory) cannot see this, if society cannot see this, then, I fear, that all is lost. We have become an irrational, reactionary, backwards society, far from enlightenment.
And you can quote me on that!
Re:violent games (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:violent games (Score:4, Insightful)
One day, while out with "the crew", two of the guys decide its a good idea to steal a couple of handguns from a small mom'n'pop gun store we were driving by. Sure I listened to violent music, had an odd fascination with pimps and ho's, and all that shit, but as soon as it came down to these guys ready to steal a couple of handguns, my better instincts took over.
We all listened to the same music, so by this logic we all should have been piling into that gun shop stealing what we could. Instead, only 2 guys did, and the rest of us got the hell out of there. I attribute this to good parents that gave me the right tools and skills to handle random situations in life (and I am eternally grateful). It was plainly obvious to me even then that those two guys came from some severely f'cked up homes.
I wish parents would do more to take personal responsibility for their kids, instead of trying to place blame elsewhere. I know I am.
Game from Bible (Score:4, Insightful)
*Not this is not really true but what if someone said that.
** This game does not exist but if it did then it would contain more violence than most movies. If, "The Passion of the Christ," the game came out, that depicts torture, though it was for "good" reasons. Would playing that be a factor? Is it because it is real? Because it is religious or Christian? What about a game where Christians fought back against ancient Romans in the 100's AD? You try to kill as many Roman guards to allow you religion, Christianity, to flourish.
Same old line: parents ultimately make this work (Score:4, Insightful)
My 11-year olds saw at least one R-rated movie years back. "Waiting for Guffman" was rated R (thanks to the totally surreal fundie/Catholic world of the MPAA's ratings board) but I thought it was watchable for them. Tonight we've got a copy of "The Big Night" from Netflix, and it also has an R, probably for language. I have no trouble letting them see that.
The limits on games right now are advisory, and stores sell according to them basically in order to keep their reputations. That's the way I want it. The power in this situation is with the parents if they will only exercise it. That's as much as we can really hope for.
(In general I think tons of social problems in the US today come down to economic pressures that force both parents to work without giving us as much flexibility as we need to raise families. Nothing against women working, it's not a gender thing -- but kids need adults in their lives, and it's just plain a bad economic situation when there's this much pressure drawing the attention of adults away. Personally, as someone who's benefitted from it, I think flex time is a much more effective solution to a variety of social ills than most of the "scary problem!" legislation that gets suggested.)
Re:violent games (Score:5, Insightful)
This is a term in psychology where basically, bad things that happen to me are attributed to external causes, and good things that happen to me are attributed to internal causes.
For example, if I do well on a test, it was because I studied hard. If I didn't, then it's because the teacher failed me or didn't like me for some other reason, or because I was tired.
Being a parent myself, one of the last things I would want to do is admit I'm a bad parent. If my son went off and killed some people, it would be very difficult for me to admit that it was my bad parenting that caused it.
Because I tend to be more open minded then the average Joe in America, I think I would admit it eventually.
But someone like Jack Thompson is just another ambulance chaser. He just aggrivates the situation the parent is going through by telling them that their kid killing some people isn't their fault, it's the video games' fault. Everyone is prone to Fundamental Attribution Error, and Jack Thompson is just helping that process along. When you're in a state or mourning, it's easy to not see the truth clearly.
Re:Wrong (Score:4, Insightful)
Or, if the group that had NO previous history of violence had a rate of engaging in future violent behaviour higher than the control group, then that would be meaningful.
The most interesting thing to know would be how they selected the two groups. If there was any self selection involved, it's just as likely that those with a latent tendancy towards violence will tend to self-select to play video games at a slightly higher rate than those without the tendancy. Do you have a link to the study?
Other factors could also come into play. For example, kids with less parental interaction will be more likely to sit in their room playing video games. It could just as easily be the parental interaction that matters.
Given that it's an 8 year study, I imagine that the two groups were, in fact, self selected.
Re:Age is the key (Score:3, Insightful)
If there is no causal relationship between violent games and violence, then restricting the games will do nothing.
Actually, we have no reason to believe that. It could easily be the case that the games act as an outlet that prevents a less appropriate violent acting out. Consider the following scenerio for the study which is intirely possible:
Start with 100 kids. 50 of them choose to play video games. 25 have latent violent tendancies. 6 of them for various reasons don't like games. The other 19 kids play games. Of them, 11 get it all out of their system. Then 6 non-gamers and 8 gamers go on to be arrested for assault.
In that scenerio, eliminate the games and the total rate of assault arrests goes from 14 to 25.
What problem? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that violent crimes, and even violent crimes by young people have steadily declined as games have become both more violent and more realistic proves that any possible pro-violence effect of games is statistically negligible relative to other social and cultural factors.
The possibility that violent videogames actually decrease real world violence cannot be excluded, and is consistent with the data (although one can think of many other explanations--perhaps the decrease in violence is due to violent movies, rather than violent games, or to easier availability of pornography, or liberalized abortion laws).
Experimental studies that attempt to correlate "violent behavior" with gameplaying (or violent TV, for that matter) are pretty much crap. I've read a number of these studies, and they either confuse aggression with serious violence (a boy pushing or hitting another kid is not the same as a serious attempt to kill or maim) or fail to properly control for overall excitement (there would have to be a control stimulus that is equally exciting, confirmed by heart rate measurements--a sports match, perhaps).
Studies that track kids and try to relate their violent behavior with their taste in media are also pretty worthless, because they are not randomized (that is, they don't pick a bunch of kids at random and force them to play games several hours a day whether they want to or not). As a result, you can't distinguish between the hypothesis that kids with a propensity for violence like violent entertainment and the hypothesis that violent entertainment causes real violence.
Re:English (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not sure I'd say the existence of the intersexed means there's "more than two sexes," but I suppose that's something of a semantical quibble. To me, it seems that to qualify as a seperate sex, one needs unique sexual traits not found in either males or females. Otherwise I'd argue that the person is part male, part female.
Broadcast media newsrooms will ALWAYS slam games (Score:5, Insightful)
Their newsrooms hype every study purporting to show a connection between violence and games (while simultaneously burying any making the same connection between violence and TV). Ditto between anything else bad and games. (Low test scores, low income, alcoholism, etc.)
Their made-for-TV movies have main plots or subplots slamming games. Their sitcoms have episodes on games. Their commedians make cracks about games.
They did it to RPGs and the did it to video games. They do similar things to home computers, computer programming, and a number of internet activities (blogs, news outlets, mailing lists, online entertainments, file swapping, social contact facilitating 'ware of every sort, etc.).
Why do they do it?
Because it's their COMPETITION!
Video games and RPGs compete for eyeball time against their shows. This costs them advertising revenue. Online entertainment ditto. Social networking also takes time away from viewing, AND may lead to other non-TV-watching activities far beyond the time spend in front of a screen.
Network news outlets and news-related blogs scoop theirs regularly and expose their errors and malfesance. This reduces both their audience-related revenue and their effectiveness as a political tool.
TV networks are part of media conglomerates. So online "content" production/distribution tools (in addition to the "piracy" issue) pose a threat to their own offline operations.
And so on.
So when you hear them claim things are bad you need to consider the source, and dig down to the underlying meat, to discover whether there's anything behind the hype - or whether it's just something that either matches their current templates for an eyeball-attractor or promotes their own interests by slamming their opposition.
Which is, of course, what we're doing here. B-)
Re:New Study, More Time (Score:3, Insightful)
No. The question is: Did your extremely thorough, and well planned psychologically effective training in the military desensitise you to violence enough to lower your self control and cause you to commit violent acts in normal social settings?
If not, then why are you willing to ascribe the lack of self control and tendency for violence in children who have not undergone nearly as psycologically intense and focused training on their gaming?
If your training and deliberate desensitisation isn't causing you, or your collegues, to be more violent in social situations where it is not called for, then why would densensitisation affect adolescents that way? Or are you admitting that your training has caused you to be more violent in normal societal situations? If you ascribe the knee-jerk response, of, "Well they aren't being taught resposibility to go along with it," then you are saying exactly what the pro-game side is saying. That it isn't that the games cause adolescents to commit violence, it is the lack of social training and proper upbringing that causes it.
Re:violent games (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely disagree. There is a huge difference between viewing simulated violence and real life violence. I have been playing so called violent video games for a long time now. Yet a while back I witnessed the direct aftermath of a horrible accident on an expressway that turned my stomach. A guy on a motorcycle wiped out after a car had side swiped him. The sight was one that I cannot forget. The blood pouring out of him like the Nile River only made the hunk of ground meat that used to be his head stand out from his white undershirt now half soaked with blood. And I can tell you there is a big difference between virtual bloodshed and the real thing. If I was desensitized to violence and bloodshed don't you think I would have just shrugged it off? And have you ever been in a bar and a fight breaks out? Witnessing someone getting cracked in the face and smash there head on a tile floor and convulse from the concussion is very unsettling. Think about it, how real are GTA/Quake/Doom/Half-life etc.? Even with the half-life 2 physics engine a shotgun blast to the head doesn't shred it to bits splattering brains, skull fragments and blood all over with real life detail. Go to rotten.com and look at what real life violence looks like. No matter how much counterstrike I play those pictures still disturb me.
And my good friend just returned from Iraq just a few days ago says he doesn't even think that all those hours spent playing quake 2 online help one single bit. The shit he saw there doesn't compare to what we see in movies or games. One thing that disturbed me was his recollection of an incident when a rebel popped out from behind a building holding an RPG. He was on the gunner's position of a hummer with the m240 bravo 7.62MM machine gun. He says it was slow motion as he paused and squeezed the trigger of the gun and lit the guy up. The blood spray and spatter from the bullets punching holes through the unarmored rebel was less disturbing then the guys' actual body motions as he danced around with about a dozen holes in him then doing a 180 and dropping like a sac of potatoes to the ground. That guy was his first kill.
Violence in movies can almost compare to real life but still its fake and you know it. Seeing the real thing is a whole different experience. And there is no other like it, you can't simulate it.
Re:violent games (Score:2, Insightful)
I don't understand the irrational thinking that the mere mention of guns so often triggers. I learned how to file a rifle at a young age, but was taught proper discipline at the same time and to this day I feel uncomfortable if somebody even points a toy gun in an unsafe direction. If anything, teaching people about firearms makes them less likely to do stupid things with them, just as better drivers are less likely to kill pedestrians.
The problem is with people who actually want to kill, and that desire is rooted deeper than a little bit of training.
Re:violent games (Score:2, Insightful)
Parents and society can only do so much, and at some point a child is going to make their own choices. Blaming the parents is as knee-jerk a reaction in some cases as blaming video games.
Great parents, teachers, etc., can often make a difference, but assuming bad parenting when seeing bad kids denies the role of the child in their own poor decision making.
Violence Dendrites?!?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Of course, as you actually grow neural pathways called dendrites that enable you to perform more easily the physical acts of violence.
Um...I'm not a neurologist, but doesn't that have to do with muscle memory for things like learning to ride a bike? Or, for example, learning how to move your mouth to make certain syllables? I mean, even if you did play a game long enough for your brain to be hard-wired like this, it seems like those pathways would dead-end if there wasn't a controller in your hand.
Re:violent games (Score:2, Insightful)
For example, I got picked on more than others.
Not that I want to kill anybody over it, but it happens.
In conclusion, you're wrong. And, I envy you if you actually think that getting picked on is something that everybody goes through. It means that you've never gone through it personally.
-random autistic slashdotter
Re:violent games (Score:3, Insightful)
So how about combat flight simulators ? Gratuitously destroying lives by being better at dynamics and balance than your opponents ?-)
Also, in very few violent video games killing is truly gratuitous. They are, with very few exceptions, about protecting the gameworld from some horrendous evil. You aren't going to some innocent beings and "destroying their lives"; you are defending yourself against horrible monsters that are trying to kill you. Self-defense is about as good a reason for killing as there can be.
Last, but not least: here in Finland we have a conscription army. That means that almost all the males (and some females too) get to learn how to hit targets with real weapons. However, there's very little gun violence in Finland - for the simple reason that there's very little guns on the streets. Nor have I ever had any desire to shoot anyone, despite being pretty good shot in the army.
People have a dark side. It easier to blame it on books/comics/movies/television/video games/Internet porn/whatever, than to admit that it's inherent in human nature, because if we admit that, we also have to face the fact that we too have it, and not just those psychopaths who kill people. We might not do so, but the capacity is always in us, and it frightens us, and so we go to any lengths to blame something external for human evil. Video gaming is just the newest victim in a long list of scapegoats.