New Study Which Made 90 Adults Play 'GTA' or 'The Sims 3' For At least 30 Mins Every Day For 2 Months Finds 'No Significant Changes' in Their Behavior (arstechnica.com) 193
A new, longer-term study of video game play from the Max Planck Institute for Human Development and Germany's University Clinic Hamburg-Eppendorf recently published in Molecular Psychiatry found that adults showed "no significant changes" on a wide variety of behavioral measures after two straight months of daily violent game play. From a report: To correct for the "priming" effects inherent in these other studies, researchers had 90 adult participants play either Grand Theft Auto V or The Sims 3 for at least 30 minutes every day over eight weeks (a control group played no games during the testing period). The adults chosen, who ranged from 18 to 45 years old, reported little to no video game play in the previous six months and were screened for pre-existing psychological problems before the tests. The participants were subjected to a wide battery of 52 established questionnaires intended to measure "aggression, sexist attitudes, empathy, and interpersonal competencies, impulsivity-related constructs (such as sensation seeking, boredom proneness, risk taking, delay discounting), mental health (depressivity, anxiety) as well as executive control functions." The tests were administered immediately before and immediately after the two-month gameplay period and also two months afterward, in order to measure potential continuing effects. Over 208 separate comparisons (52 tests; violent vs. non-violent and control groups; pre- vs. post- and two-months-later tests), only three subjects showed a statistically significant effect of the violent gameplay at a 95 percent confidence level.
Wrong testing methodology (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not concerned with video games changing peoples' behavior, turning normal people into psychopaths.
What I would like to see studied, is the potential for video games to make psychopathic and sociopathic people more efficient in their anti-social abilities.
For example, I don't think playing ultra-realistic first person shooters will necessarily make anyone want to go out and shoot someone, but it seems to me, if you're a psychopath and you're into those games, they can train you to be a much more efficient psychopath when it comes time to assaulting a school or public place.
Re:Wrong testing methodology (Score:4, Insightful)
That is quite honestly ridiculous. Most video games are not based on real world physics in part because real world physics is boring. Who wants to play a game where you have to carry all the bullets you fire? Nobody wants to reload that often.
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That is quite honestly ridiculous. Most video games are not based on real world physics in part because real world physics is boring. Who wants to play a game where you have to carry all the bullets you fire? Nobody wants to reload that often.
You sound like a person who hasn't actually played a FPS game in at least two decades.
FPS games today thrive on realism, from the weapons used to the world maps modeled to exacting standards of accuracy. Movement is not as accurate (people don't run and jump everywhere) but there's more realism than you think.
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While you may learn tactics from video games you won't learn to aim or reload. When it comes down to it you'd be better off with paintball for learning tactics and learning to drive a dumptruck if you just want to kill people.
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The data suggests that it's not the jihadis that are the problem, and it's not those darn "liberals," it's the nazis and the KKK who are more effective at killing Americans than anyone else.
The REAL Danger of Video Games (Score:3)
Trying to play GTA on a sub par machine with glitchy internet connection resulting in missed scores, choppy graphics and terrible audio.
Now THAT'S enough to turn someone in a Mass Shooter.
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Trying to play GTA on a sub par machine with glitchy internet connection resulting in missed scores, choppy graphics and terrible audio.
Now THAT'S enough to turn someone in a Mass Shooter.
Yes, but they'll turn into a mass shooter that's easy to stop because they will freeze up for a few seconds once a minute.
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You're not being very honest here, as you're not exactly taking account the scale of the groups you're comparing.
There's 200+ millions christians in america, against just 3.3 Million Muslims, which many could be actually fully integrated, unlike the ones in the Muslim mass immigration you're having in europe, where terrorist groups can (and do) easily infiltrate their combatants.
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What's a "per capita?"
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The realism of aiming with a mouse or worse yet, a joypad.
Even in Oculus touch games that have you actually 'aim', generally there's a lot of auto-aim going on.
No, the games are designed for people to have fun and *feel* like they are better than they are (because requiring the same precision as real world would just be tiresome).
They are designed to *seem* real but not at all be useful.
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
FPS games today thrive on realism
lol. Good one. Yeah, in real life, the best way to make the enemy miss you is by jumping up and down.
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Not quite realistic though. The physics and graphics improved but you almost always play a superhero space-marine bullet-sponge with near perfect aim and no issues of bodily function, exhaustion or ill effects from environment, exposure or combat.
A true combat simulator would be boring and 99% of people wouldn't make it 5 minutes into the first fight (if one even popped up). Unlike what most people believe, firing a fully automatic weapon is hard, expensive and requires a lot of training, even a handgun is
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Unless, of course, they decided they were too close to retirement to bother.
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Or instructed by superiors not to interfere in order to further a narrative.
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Well, there was that infamous opening scene in a Call of Duty game that invited you to gun down civilians in an airport as an undercover agent who had infiltrated a terrorist group.
I really hated that scene, not just because it was tasteless, but because the game prevented you from doing the right thing and saving those people - shooting any of the terrorists would fail the mission. And the terrorists would uncover your identity and kill you at the end, no matter what you did.
The entire thing felt like a ch
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May I introduce you to the game called "Postal" sir? :D Have fun!
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They are anything but realistic. Go check the war videos out on Youtube. Most times it's people firing at someone they can't see cause they are hidden and too far away and you have to call for fire support to smoke them out.
No one ever runs around shooting like in FPS games
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I don't know what the training is like these days. However I know Green Beret training used to include and entire squad emptying their magazines on full auto as rapidly as possible in the event of an ambush. Apparently doing that elicits a strong impulse in your enemy, the ambusher, to seek cover. Then you do a rapid reload and start looking for actual targets to pick off with semi-auto or burst fire. An M16 on full auto will empty a 30 round magazine in under 3 seconds, so yeah using full auto outside of v
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
Almost all FPS games are categorically *not* sims - they don't attempt to model loading characteristics of weapons or the act of actually shooting. We aren't talking flight sims here - which *do* attempt to accurately cover the process of flight and specific aircraft - after all you're fiddling with a keyboard and mouse or a game controller. The sad reality is that if you want to learn how to shoot, in the US at least you go out and buy a gun and start shooting. How anyone can suggest playing an Xbox someho
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
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Its not he physics, its the p ushing someone close to the edge over it.
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You do realize the military uses FPS games to train soldiers?
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They don't use off the shelf games, they have games specifically designed for their training which are nothing like what you'll find on steam.
Way back in the day they had a rifle simulator based on the NES. More recently, Full Spectrum Warrior and F2C2 are both games which were developed from training tools (and used as recruitment tools.)
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Full Spectrum Warrior is based on squad tactics, so I honestly don't know where you're going with this. It's also 14 years old and never managed to sell many copies.
It's a violent game which is highly similar to an actual military training tool, from which it was directly developed. That's where I'm going with that. I didn't think the narrative was that hard to follow. There are TONS of games with realistic ammunition limits and ballistics.
Re:Wrong testing methodology (Score:4, Interesting)
I have never ever heard of gamers who play 30 minutes a day, I have heard of gamers who would play 30hours a day if they could. 30 minutes a day of gaming does not a gamer make. I would start at about 4 hours per day as a minimum, at least 3 days out of 5days. Than compare the differences in physiological state between playing GTAV mulitplayer and Sims 3 casual. I would defy researchers to not come up with huge differences in psychological state, between deep exposure to the two.
Want realistic tests, do eight hours a day for a month and then check the difference for during and after, psychological and physiological, this with a controlled diet.
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I also heard that real Scotsmen only take off their kilts to shave their nuts, and sometimes not even then.
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Most video games are not based on real world physics in part because real world physics is boring. Who wants to play a game where you have to carry all the bullets you fire? Nobody wants to reload that often.
I am currently waiting in the queue for Armored Warfare, a Free-to-Pay game in which you drive nominally realistic armored military vehicles around and shoot at other vehicles. Your ammunition loadout and reload times are realistic, if nothing else is... The last game I was very good at was Tactical Ops, a terrorist/counter-terrorist mod for Unreal Tournament. In both of these games, there are realistic ballistics physics including drop and lead. And before that, it was Mechwarrior IV, where you not only ha
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First test for armour training, put you inside one and bash on the hatch and see if you are claustrophobic. A toy one you play with is nothing like the real thing that can kill you if you are stupid, is cold as bitch or hot as hell and noisy as fuck, and most surfaces will hurt like bitch when you bump them and it sucks hard after a week. APCs are better than tanks as long as you don't have to share them with grunts, then you have much more space. A game like the real military, hmm, boring as fuck most of t
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A toy one you play with is nothing like the real thing that can kill you if you are stupid
What war games have taught me is that war is shitty because even when I am kicking ass I still only win about 80% of the time. That last 20% is a bitch when it kills you.
A game like the real military, hmm, boring as fuck most of the time, putting up with douche bag failed jockstraps all of the time, with intermittent periods of life or death depending upon how fucking murderously crazy your government, woohoo, what fun.
My father was a marine ATC in Korea. He told me in no uncertain terms that he regretted signing up, and that I should never enlist. Much of his advice was bullshit, but that part seemed pretty good.
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
My father was a marine ATC in Korea. He told me in no uncertain terms that he regretted signing up, and that I should never enlist. Much of his advice was bullshit, but that part seemed pretty good.
My dad was trained by the NSA for the Air Force and although he was only enlisted, he impressed the right people and it opened doors for him; a net positive experience, presumably.
He also told me unequivocally to never enlist.
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My Father served as a Medic in Vietnam and only ever told us kids the funny stories regarding his time there. Then was outraged when my brother invited a Marine Recruiter over for dinner one night, still didn't bother giving voice to his misgivings. Myself and my brother both ended up enlisting, and came out of it pretty well with no combat time. We only learned after the fact that he was terrified the whole time that we'd end up dead on foreign soil fighting for some commercial interest.
My Dad has never be
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I doubt games alone could alter most people's behaviour significantly, but along with other things...
Have a look at some of "The Golden One's" videos on YouTube. While games are only a small part of his journey, along with fantasy novels and bodybuilding, it's hard to ignore the fact that he fantasises about murdering people he dislikes, enacts those fantasies in the game world (see his Skyrim videos), then goes out into the real world to pose like the characters in the games and books, and finally ends up
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Further, tho I'd probably find being required to play GTA at least somewhat relaxing.... if I had to play the Sims every day, by the end of the first week I'd have committed a violent act upon the testers.
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It's not only that, it's testing a claim no one is making.
The question that we need to ask ourselves is if violent video game playing by young children and young adults affects their development. And there's a lot of signs that it does: that it desensitizes them to violence, that it makes them more willing to hurt and kill.
And, as you point out, there's also the open question of how violent video games affect people with mental illnesses.
This study is meaningless. It answers a question no one asked. With th
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With the explosion of school shootings, we should be asking ourselves "what's changed?" and one of the obvious answers is the increasing violence and realism of video games.
I think you mean: with the DECLINE in school shootings [npr.org], we should be asking ourselves "what's changed"? and one of the obvious answers is that video games give kids, and especially troubled kids, an alternative outlet.
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The nature of school shootings has changed. Used to be more disputes between individuals ending with someone getting shot, now there are more mass murders by people with severe mental illnesses.
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:3)
With the explosion of school shootings, we should be asking ourselves "what's changed?" and one of the obvious answers is the increasing violence and realism of video games.
ShanghaiBill does an excellent job of debunking the idea that school shootings are on the rise, but, even if we were to pretend that they are actually on the rise in the USA, your conclusion is retarded. Violent and realistic FPS games don't magically stay confined within your borders. People all over the world play them. Unless you're claiming that school shootings are on the rise around the globe it's idiotic to conclude that games are the reason.
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Pretty sure there's a video game called "Real Life" that does even more desensitization, especially in sections where children get forced into violent situations, and getting punished for it. If only said game received the same type of regulations that conventional video games receive.
Actually no there isn't (Score:3)
Actually no there is no evidence of such a thing. Please cite your evidence. My evidence is that in spite of having so many violent video game over 20 years, violence among young adult and kid either reduced or stayed stable. e.g. https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/... [statcan.gc.ca] in this case totasl youth crime in canada sink quicker than general crime https://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/... [statcan.gc.ca] if violent video game had any impact, you would expect a rise
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The other interesting question that is being largely overlooked is if gamer culture is being used as a gateway to extremism.
If you look at a Venn diagram of hardcore gamers, incels, red-pillers and the like there seems to be some overlap. Leaked emails from Brietbart show that Milo Yianoppolis was groomed for that role, before he self-destructed.
There has been some study of it, e.g. the book Kill All Normies.
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Good. So, you're only worried about that 1% of the population that are psychopaths.
You mean becoming CEOs of corporations?
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That's a strawman argument as well as a false dichotomy. I said no such thing.
But you illustrate in your misdirected reply, the problem with these studies, as others have pointed out. They provide an answer to a question, a premise that virtually nobody buys into -- an extreme position that suggests merely playing a FPS can turn somebody into a psychopath. I don't know anybody making such claims. Nobody thinks playing GT
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I find it amusing that, for example, it's considered inappropriate to say "fuck" on tv or show someone genitals -- because presumably that might influence certain types of people in an anti-social way, but you can shoot someone in the head and spew a catchy one-liner and it's no big deal?
Psychologists have been saying that it won't hurt a child to see genitals on television for a long time, but people write angry letters if they see dongs and they don't write angry letters when they see guns.
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They should have done a study where one group was required to write angry letters about silly stuff, and the other group went on to live their lives. Then see which group acts crazier after that.
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The real deeper issue is, do these ultra-realistic games de-sensitize people to inhumane and immoral behavior?
In a good way or a bad way? I mean obviously seeing the goatse guy for the second time doesn't have nearly the same shock value. Spend a week on 4chan and you'll never be fazed by anything on the Internet ever again. Either that or you'll have ripped your eyeballs out of their sockets. But I don't think a paramedic is nonchalant about causing trauma, gore and death even though they've probably seen more than their fair share of it, in fact I think it's quite the opposite. I'm totally desensitized to shootin
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
There is no therapy for the antisocial personality disorder.
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The real deeper issue is
Says you. Why? What are you seeing that makes you look at video games for an explanation?
ultra-realistic games
The point of a game is that it's not realistic. People play games to explore a different rule set. Knowing that it's a game will see people exhibit behaviour that they wouldn't outside the game. You imply but don't argue or support a contention that as realism increases so does the impact or influence of the game. I'm not aware of any research or study that supports this although it's been a while since I went looking.
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remember when the Cell phone companies cited research after research that proved that texting while driving was no less dangerous than listening to the radio?
Why dont they do the same research on 300 15yr-olds playing for 5hrs per day? How many people play call of duty for just 30min a day? My martial arts instructor was telling me, just two weeks after that 'swatting' incident that resulted in death, his own 26yr old son (we wont go into why he lives at home but its not entirely uncommon) getting into an o
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Here I can talk from personal experience since I've attended soccer matches in the past and was greeted by some more radical fans of opposing teams and their flying cobblestones as we made our way to the train station. For
Probably not that good for training (Score:2)
The closest 99% of them will get to the weapons they've "trained" on is an AR15, and an untrained (by real live practice) civilian is going to be laughably bad with it. For example, the Dark Knight shooter illustrates the point. Out of like 80 rounds fired before being captured, he mostly wounded and only got like 15 fatali
What I'd like to see are studies on gun violence (Score:2)
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I've seen numerous such studies since the 1980's back it was said the violent TV shows were making kids be violent.
I don't know why anyone would spend money on looking at changes in adults for these kinds of things.
The studies that I find are meaningful look for changes and differences between individual children rather than average changes for the groups as a whole.
Correlation studies of groups of people for this topic are not interesting because it's the aberrant individuals that are the problem, and the
totally irrelevant due to.. (Score:2)
..actual military training being available.
you have a basically open for all applicants as a right military training that pays money. you could also go play airsoft or paintball.
playing gta or call of duty has little effect on your skills to perform in said task in real life.
americas army game even doesn't have that much effect, it's mostly about squad tactics.
a much more sane response but not so popular would be to ban gyms - they would have a much higher effect as regards to training. maybe, just MAYBE yo
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
Suppose that there is a correlation. And? Ban video games because some potential killer might become 10 percent more effective? What if he goes to the gym? That would also make him better killer. Hey, the best strategy actually is to join the army. They train you to kill for free and even give you money! Hmm...dificult discussion this is.
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I'm not concerned with video games changing peoples' behavior, turning normal people into psychopaths.
Absolutely. I'm vastly more concerned about Donald Trump and Faux News turning normal human beings into violent psychopaths.
Re: Wrong testing methodology (Score:2)
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I'm not concerned with video games changing peoples' behavior, turning normal people into psychopaths.
What I would like to see studied, is the potential for video games to make psychopathic and sociopathic people more efficient in their anti-social abilities.
For example, I don't think playing ultra-realistic first person shooters will necessarily make anyone want to go out and shoot someone, but it seems to me, if you're a psychopath and you're into those games, they can train you to be a much more efficient psychopath when it comes time to assaulting a school or public place.
There are "normal" brains and "psychopath" brains. A violent video game isn't going to turn a normal well-balanced individual into a psychopath. Quite the opposite, it's going to give them an outlet to get the aggression they might have out of their system in a safe, sanitary way. Now, if someone has a bit of an abnormal brain, not your average Joe on the street, but a potential future school-shooter, and they play a violent video game; rather than be a safe way of relieving aggression, might it cause th
Flawed study? (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm not saying violent games lead to violent behavior, but their study seems kind of flawed in that the idea behind the claim is that violent games during childhood development desensitizes the child to violence, leading to them being more inclined to resort to using it down the road. That's nowhere near the same thing as claiming fully developed adults playing violent video games will start becoming violent themselves.
Re:Flawed study? (Score:5, Insightful)
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While it's not a substitute for an actual study to understand precisely what type o
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behavioral changes (Score:5, Funny)
When I played GTA V, it took a lot less than 2 months for me to start acting like my hero, Trevor Philips. I don't know what it was about that guy, but I found him a rather touching tragicomic character.
The scene after he gives Patricia Madrazo back to her Mexican gangster husband after kidnapping her and he's driving away from the exchange and "If You Leave Me Now" by Chicago starts playing in the car had me laughing and crying at the same time. Except for the credits sequence in Saints Row IV, I don't think anything in a video game has ever affected me so profoundly.
https://youtu.be/bPADGxsf8a8 [youtu.be]
Apart (Score:2)
i play GTA 5 often (Score:3)
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Nice sentence but not long enough for a Slashdot headline.
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well as a grown adult you have a better prefrontal cortex that is capable of predicting the consequences of your action. To claim that they have no effect on younger kids would be to undermine the entire ESRB rating system. There is a reason why these games have ratings. IMO the problems we see is that shitty parents ignore these ratings and let kids play games way outside their age group. Letting 12yo and 13yo play M+ games its not the same as letting adults play them. Unfortunately I have seen numbers as
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Proxy vs actual behavior (Score:2)
This study found the truth because it looked at actual behavior instead of proxies for negative behavior.
The problem with looking at proxies (besides their being no need to measure them when you can measure the real stuff) is that Video games are proxies for real life.
So when you try to see if a proxy for violence results in the presence of proxies for violent behavior, surprise surprise. Fake sugar tastes sweet but does not have calories. That is why you use sugar substitutes. Same thing for video game
Of course, not. Duh! (Score:2)
I'm old (Score:2)
I've honestly never played GTA anything.
You want to know what makes me want to kill people using my car?
Idiots in rush hour driving back and forth to work.
I've seen so many road rage incidents around me that I just got to the point where I just leave a huge cushion of space between me and the person in front of me, waiting for them to do something totally stupid and unexpected, like 4 lane swerves, jamming their brakes on for no reason...
Don't even get me started about when weather conditions become less th
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Thanks for providing that extra cushion space. I'll make sure to pass you so I can get one or two car lengths ahead to be stuck behind the person ahead of you. Eventually, if I cut off every single person I'll get home 15 seconds sooner while producing a massive wave of braking behind me. Please don't freak out too much though - I have a Baby On Board bumper sticker!
Flawed Study (Score:2)
I mean, both games are about as equally violent. Have you ever played The Sims and turned the fridge backwards? Or let your Sims go swimming, then remove the ladder so they cannot escape? Or when the house catches fire, simply remove the front door? That game is violent as fuck y0!
Re: Flawed Study (Score:2)
You sound like a budding school shooter right now ...
Proxy for Culture of Violence (Score:4, Insightful)
Pointing the finger at violent video games/media is really shorthand for a broader concern: a culture which excuses or promotes violence. This culture is so pervasive in the USA (even outside of media) that a little extra exposure likely makes no significant difference, particularly since most violent games have little or nothing to say on the value of violence in society.
I suspect a larger effect would be found if subjects were made to either listen to NRA Radio for 30 minutes every day for two months, or to listen to a comparable anti-violence media source (sorry can't think of a good one right now) the same amount. I'm not putting the blame solely on the NRA, it's just a good example of a steady drip of new info that can be consumed for 30 minutes each day; a gangsta rap Spotify playlist might have the same effect.
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True! When I visited the US it was more "normal" to carry a gun around town than to go to a movie that flashed an exposed boob.
<flamebait>I wonder what it says about a society when it is more ok to own tools for killing than to acknowledge that sex is a very natural thing. But hypocrisy seem to be integrated with the culture.</flamebait>
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Yet over the last few decades violence has decreased, not increased. The same arguments were used in the 80s about television and before that about radio and before that about books. The thing is, what sets of a psychopath is more about years of environmental issues that lead up to it (bad parenting, being a target for bullying, incompetent and insensitive school administrators) than what they used last week as entertainment.
It's easy to point the finger and blame something you don't understand than taking
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I was talking more about gang-bangers than mass shooters; no psychopathy is required. Insisting that psychopathy IS required, and normal psychology means someone is nonviolent, contributes to the problem. Indeed violence has gone down, but that's apparently a regression to the mean, with a prior outlier created by TEL pollution. Presumably, intelligence improved in the lowest percentiles, which I suspect led to increased resistance to the culture of violence. If the culture creates an impulse to commit viol
Two problems: Adults and 30 minutes (Score:1)
This seemed like one of those studies that is paid by a corporate sponsor to come up with the desired results. First, adults are the wrong people to be testing. They have already established that the logic part of the brain doesn't fully develop until later in life. It should have been tested with teenagers. What anti-social teenager only plays for thirty minutes per day? It is more like 4 to 6 hours per day.
Dupe (Score:2)
This study is so good they did it twice..
https://games.slashdot.org/sto... [slashdot.org]
GTA and... Sims 3? (Score:2)
Is the Sims 3 violent? Or was there a parallel study checking whether diamonds would start spontaneously appearing over people’s heads in the real world?
The questions.. (Score:2)
1) Does being forced to play violent games make a random mature person violent? I don't think anyone was thinking it would, but this study suggests what most people believe.
2) Do people who have an inclination toward violent behavior also tend to like these games in any useful indicator? Probably not, the sample size of video game players is so high compared to the actual violent offenders. While it may be the case that violent people like these games, there are so many more non-violent people who indulg
This contradicts my own findings (Score:1)
Max Planck is normally pretty serious science... (Score:5, Insightful)
...but it's hard to take this one seriously.
Sample size of 90.
Adults.
Playing 30min/day for 2 months?
Jesus, you could probably smoke CIGARETTES for 30min a day for 2 months and not see an impact.
Or was this 'study' intended to disprove the videogame/behavior link?
I really hate to say it...that's 3% of millions (Score:3)
3 of 90 is over 3% of a very huge population of millions and millions and millions of gamers. It the study's anywhere near predictive, that's a lot of damage.
I hate to say it because I spend a lot of time playing violent video games. And hey, no one's accusing me of very overly calm or patient. I'm certainly sexist, and I'm certainly not whatever interpersonally competent is.
Do I get to blame the games?
I've always wanted to be a member of the 1%. I suppose being a part of the 3% is pretty close.
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Yeah, I read that, but the thing is that I don't believe the control groups are control groups if they are all people who would volunteer to be a part of such a study.
I've got a problem with measuring aggression and lack of social-ness of individuals who contribute their time and patience to research studies -- which by definition are helping other people (i.e. the researchers).
So I completely disagree with the 10%, and hence I also disagree that 3% is noise.
I think that if a person would volunteer to be a)
Adults, 30mins/day, 2 months? (Score:2)
30mins? (Score:2)
Wow... Not what I would have expected.... (Score:1)
Have you ever played The Sims 3? I'd expect that being forced to play that game daily would increase homicidal behavior substantially.
I wouldn't make it two weeks.
This is a useless study (Score:4, Insightful)
Let's say that there's a genetic contribution to the issue of game violence affecting people. Let's say 1 in 100 are affected. A study of 90 people has an excellent chance of only looking at those who wouldn't be affected.
Let's say it takes 8 hours gaming a day - fairly typical for serious gamers. Half an hour will show nothing.
No, you start by finding those who purport to be affected, then look to see what makes them abnormal, neurologically and genetically. You then create a hypothesis that some permutation of these factors is relevant.
You then conduct a study to determine rarity, then a third study of sufficient size to guarantee a statistically significant number of interesting people are present.
In this study, you measure traits, then assign each person a UUID. It has to be double blind. They don't know what you're measuring, the observer doesn't know who had what traits.
Your hypothesis is that those who are vulnerable will show neurological changes as predicted. You do not rely on self-reporting other than to get the initial candidates, nor do you ever rely on psychology.
This is how you tell who is affected, how and why.
It's expensive, but you do this once and not once every few weeks. This strategy of producing the illusion of work actually costs more in the long run and answers nothing.
Meanwhile (Score:2)
Another study made 25% of the subjects play King's Quest, 25% played Space Quest, another 25% played Police Quest and the last 25% played Leisure Suit Larry.
Those who played King's Quest saw no change.
Those who played Space Quest saw no change either.
Those who played Police Quest also saw no change.
Those who played Leisure Suit Larry haven't called back yet.
OTOH, "Pokemon Go" makes people violent (Score:2)
Well, it may not be violent games then. Perhaps it's casual games like Pokemon Go.
Men reportedly attacked by man with tire iron over 'Pokemon Go' [katu.com].
This just in... (Score:2)
I don't believe I've ever seen the claim that it changed adult behavior... you know, that's why we have a rating system that makes certain things unavailable to certain age groups (movies and games) so it seems kind of stupid that they only tested it on adults.
Also, others have made the comment but I'll just agree here: 30 minutes a day doth not a gamer make.
Wait, what? only nongamers need apply? (Score:2)
"adults chosen, who ranged from 18 to 45 years old, reported little to no video game play in the previous six months and were screened for pre-existing psychological problems before the tests."
So, only three (3) out of ninety (90) NON-GAMERS who were mentally strip-searched before entry had violent tendencies after playing games?
No Shirt, Hemlock!
(bowdlerized for your viewing comfort/sanitized for your protection)
Better still, even after being "subjected to a wide battery of 52 established questionnaires in
30 minutes != addiction (Score:2)
Would you call a person who walked for 30 minutes a day addicted to walking? Nope. Gym rats who spend hours in the gym every day are addicted. Not being able to forego a workout while on vacation is indicative of an addiction. This study doesn't look deep enough. Furthermore, they questions they should be asking is whether or not players of violent video games have altered their value of human life.
Oh good. (Score:2)
See, the problem with large numbers is... they're large.
Only 3% showed any change? Great. One snag: there are 50 million students in the U.S. 3% of them = 1.5 million.
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/... [ed.gov]
(To say nothing of the other flaws in the study that others here have pointed out.)
Still very dangerous to children (Score:2)
Notice they said "adult". Not children, whose brains and personalities are still developing. I would exercise caution before assuming that video games have no negative effect on childrens behaviour. There is a lot of evidence that it does. For instance, there have been cases where stabbings had occurred over a fight over a video game among children.
Re: (Score:3)
This should now be the canned response from the media whenever there's a school shooting:
"This mass murder is not statistically relevant given that so many other kids are not shooting up schools."
Re: 1 in 30 at risk (Score:2)
So, about 3% of people can have effects from consuming violent media... so only 10 million Americans are at risk.
That's not how that works. 3 subjects showed an increase in violent behvior, whereas statistically we would expect 10. The linked article erroneously claims that their increase in violent behaviour was due to the video games, while the study does not draw such a ridiculous conclusion. On the contrary, the data shows that the increase in violence is lower than what would be expected of a representative sample who didn't play any games at all.
Re: (Score:1)
Pfft.. That's like, the first day of play...
(I have two computers.)