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Games Science

Ten-Year Long Study Confirms No Link Between Playing Violent Video Games as Early as Ten Years Old and Aggressive Behavior Later in Life (gamesage.net) 95

An anonymous reader shares a report: A ten-year longitudinal study published in the Journal of Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking on a group in early adolescence from as young as ten years old, investigated how playing violent video games at an early age would translate into adulthood behavior (23 years of age). Titled "Growing Up with Grand Theft Auto: A 10-Year Study of Longitudinal Growth of Violent Video Game Play in Adolescents" the study found no correlation between growing up playing video games and increased levels of aggression ten years later. This particular study utilized a more contemporary approach for analyzing its data, known as the person-centered approach. Traditional studies use a variable-centered approach whereby researchers treat each variable, or characteristic, as related to another variable. An example would be that exercising is related to a reduced incidence of heart disease. This has been particularly valuable when comparing groups. In a person-centered approach researchers combine various algorithms across variables to determine how these variables compare among individuals. This approach provides a more accurate depiction of how variables relate to the individual.
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Ten-Year Long Study Confirms No Link Between Playing Violent Video Games as Early as Ten Years Old and Aggressive Behavior Later

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  • by Hadlock ( 143607 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:12PM (#60882898) Homepage Journal

    We were all playing Street Fighter II and Mortal Combat in the 90s until our eyes would bleed, later games like Counter Strike, Quake I/II/III and the crime rate has actually dropped precipitously (50%!) in that time

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_drop#:~:text=In%20the%20United%20States%2C%20for,the%20early%201990s%20to%202010. [wikipedia.org]

    First Post

    • My grandfather would come into the room and either say, "You lose!" or "That guy would have bled to death already." when I was playing these games.

      • by cusco ( 717999 )

        I want to take my nephew out shooting the next time they visit so that he can see what an **actual** gun sounds and feels like. He and his sister shot the BB guns the last time, and he had no idea that you actually have to place it against your shoulder to aim.

    • The prime-crime years are 15 to 25.

      If boys in this age range are at home playing videogames instead of out in the street, then obviously crime rates will go down.

      • by rtb61 ( 674572 )

        The question is though are those drawn to violence less likely to play video games, preffering actual crime and violence. When you stop to think, you would expect future criminals to be drawn to violent video games, especially PvP pay to win varieties but I suppose, if you are drawn to violence and crime, than actual violence and crime will be preferred over games. Actual violent criminals find no pleasure in pretending to assault others, preferring the actual real world violent crime over a gaming version

    • Part of the problem is that boomers have an entirely false recollection of the reality of crime/society when they were children but they remember all too well the spike in crime that happened from the late 70s to the 90s, i.e., when they were raising their own children and therefore have a lot of inclination to be paranoid about the safety of their progeny.

      Another part of the problem is that crime overall gets a lot more attention than it used to because of the Internet and the dreaded 24 hour news cycle.

    • and I rode my bike to the grocery store where the machines were ... alone ... without cellphones... or cameras covering very conceivable inch of the trip...

    • by NFN_NLN ( 633283 )

      > We were all playing Street Fighter II and Mortal Combat in the 90s until our eyes would bleed, later games like Counter Strike, Quake I/II/III

      Fake post. No mention of either the original Doom or Duke Nukem 3D.

      • > We were all playing Street Fighter II and Mortal Combat in the 90s until our eyes would bleed, later games like Counter Strike, Quake I/II/III

        Fake post. No mention of either the original Doom or Duke Nukem 3D.

        Probably the confounding variable they missed.

    • Well counter point: I spent my youth playing Battle Toads only to go out in the evening with a cricket bat or golf club an kill actual Cane toads.

      Then I gave up and started playing Mario and to this day I still eat mushrooms for breakfast to give me energy.

      Mind you at university I rediscovered both Pacman and LSD pills at the same time.

      Coincidence? Possibly.

  • by BLToday ( 1777712 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:14PM (#60882902)

    When the demons from hell shows up, then we’ll see if there’s a link between video games and violence. There are millions of gamers trained to kick butts and chew gum. And they’re going to be out of gum.

    • by LenKagetsu ( 6196102 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:26PM (#60882940)

      Demons from Hell is Doom, Kick Ass and Chew Bubblegum is Duke Nukem.

    • "Use the Force. Harry!", Gandolf.

    • The dude in Kenosha, WI will get his day in court to plead self defense as he is claiming.

      "2nd amendment" people have commented on how coolly he killed two people upon either being pushed or falling on the ground and maimed a third without wasting a shot.

      An account I heard is that he was just handed an AR upon volunteering to stand guard at a gas station. He is just an earnest young man, not some person who owned such a weapon and spent hundreds of hours shooting live ammunition practicing for what ha

      • ... become comfortable doing what ended up happening ...

        Are you suggesting we give guns to people who are uncomfortable with holding a firearm?

        Alas, most gunshot wounds in the USA aren't caused by trigger-happy thugs. They caused by the Oscar Pistorius-es of this world panicking, by people playing with their, or someone else's gun, by sheer negligence. Remember Dick Cheney shooting his friend and not being arrested. That's not rich-man's privilege, that's how gun ownership works in most of the USA.

        We like to blame the choices people make: He played video

        • I am suggesting that people who are uncomfortable holding a firearm, either by way of not having trained and practiced with a firearm, or not having simulated training and practice playing FPS video games, won't volunteer to stand guard at a filling station during a protest-leading-to-a-civil-disturbance, where someone hands that person an AR.

          I am suggesting that a person who has received simulated training and practice shooting other people (I guess "monsters" or "bad guys") playing FPS video games may

          • ... where someone hands that person an AR.

            The shooter failed to recognize his limits and a by-stander was killed. The shooter could have fired into the air, so he's at-fault, twice. But the real problem is the someone handing an AR-15 to a stranger without checking the recipient knows how to 'safe' the weapon, without asking for prior experience in firing a weapon. People have died at gun-ranges, when a beginner was handed a sub-machine gun. An AR-15 isn't automatic but there's much less discipline on the street, making it just as dangerous.

            ... either being pushed or falling on the ground ...

            Whi

      • "Someone here go ahead and tell me he didn't become comfortable doing what ended up happening on account of playing video games"

        Here we go, the old "Doom caused Columbine" fallacy.

        People do stupid things. People often have giant egos without the brains to back it up. And some people think that watching a movie, or playing a game, or watching daytime babble on TV suddenly makes them a fucking expert on whatever subject the piece of media was about.

        Gi-Moron was likely bullied in school, all of

  • by zenlessyank ( 748553 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:24PM (#60882934)

    You don't have to kill in real life. It's therapy actually.

  • Know what causes aggression? PVP and rankings. Find me a game that has ranked PVP and isn't a festering cancer of a community, digital or board.

    • Find me a game that has ranked PVP and isn't a festering cancer of a community, digital or board.

      OpenRA, at least it was true about 2 years ago, in recent years I've been playing it less because it hurts my hand too much.

    • I agree with the wrong angle part, but for the opposite reason. The problem with video games is not that they cause violence, but that they are addictive and can cause apathy. They are living room casinos. Ray Bradbury saw it coming.

    • by lpq ( 583377 )

      ^^ yep. Tie domination in competitive online games to prevalence of sociopathic and psychopathic personality traits like ability to lie, manipulate and deceive w/o remorse and completely fool 'lie detector' tests.

      Violence against NPC's....no prob, but those who have a need to win over others...those are the real problem.

    • Find me a game that has ranked PVP and isn't a festering cancer of a community, digital or board.

      Don't recall that sort of problem in DAoC back many years ago. Of course, RvR isn't quite the same as PvP, even though they both involve doing in other players....

  • by lucasnate1 ( 4682951 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:27PM (#60882950) Homepage

    The link between computer games and virginity or not leaving the house.

  • by Waffle Iron ( 339739 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @02:55PM (#60883040)

    Even after 40 years, I still suffer intense guilt from allowing billions of innocent civilians to die in thousands of cities, all because I failed to stop the incoming ICBMs in Missile Command.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by dunkelfalke ( 91624 )

      You jest, but some games do make one feel ashamed for playing. Spec Ops the line for example.

      • Shadow of the Colossus was the best example I ever saw. It actively tries to guilt you into putting the controller down and refuse to win.

      • by _merlin ( 160982 ) on Thursday December 31, 2020 @09:18PM (#60883886) Homepage Journal

        He might not be entirely joking. Missile command was developed at the height of the cold war, when people really were worried that all life on Earth could be wiped out by a nuclear exchange between the USA and the USSR. The game is designed so you'll inevitably fail - you can't prevent the destruction, only delay it as long as possible. All the designers and developers who worked on it suffered recurring nightmares, as did some players.

        • Really? I have played missile command during the cold war (while being on the other side of it, no less, on a smuggled Atari 2600 clone). It was IMHO way too abstract.

    • I appreciate your empathy. I for one am far more apathetic. I built cities for millions of people on the coastlines, and I felt nothing as I opened up the disasters menu and clicked on "Floods". Am I a bad person?

  • I would have expected some sort of connection, on the grounds that people who play such games might be violently inclined to begin with - from what I have seen, it takes a steel stomach to go through some games, especially now that graphics and animation have attained very high levels of sophistication. My hypothesis may still be true though, in that violent individuals use those games as outlets for their violent impulses - which would imply that such games are a good thing.
    • It's also worth mentioning that the vast majority of people are not violent, so it's possible they completely missed the actual violent segment of the population, and whether these mentally ill people were affected by video games.

      For normal people, video games do not seem to have a huge effect.

    • We also used to see the dead in our families before disposing of the corpses, and butchers and fishermen cleaned their goods in front of customers. Not seeing death and dismemberment has been a privilege of the very wealthy. Boy Scouts used to learn to clean game that they caught as part of their basic outdoor activities. I was sad to see such hands-on familiarity pass out of ordinary Scout activities in my youth.

  • ..because, as a species, we are so violent, no amount of digital reinforcement could make any appreciable difference. Luckily, we also have some modicum of moral discernment. Which is why I didn't jump out of my vehicle today and behead the dicktard in front of me, in the drive-up lane at the bank. Everyone got their shit done, and we got to hear some great hits from the '80s as well. ha, it's all good
  • ... spending their lives playing video games aren't going to have the stamina to be violent. They'll just have a heart attack. The only risk to others is if they fall on them.

  • Everyone knows that. Almost every rapist has, at some stage, viewed porn.

    And nobody that tries to use fancy statistics to prove otherwise is going to last long in any organization that I run.

  • The ones that bore zero resemblance to the reality.

    No doubt this sort of study on video games is similarly grounded in an alternative reality.

  • They still 100% cause sexism and racism though.
  • Of everything I've read over the years, the only interesting thing I found was the case of the unsafe handling of firearms. The gist was: people who had experience using firearms inside of virtual environments (video games) were more likely, when presented with the opportunity to handle one in reality were more likely than others to handle it unsafely.

    As I typed that, I just realized that it's most likely the Dunning–Kruger effect, but it would still be interesting if they took another look at it.
    • by cusco ( 717999 )

      As I noted in a post higher up, my nephew had no idea that the BB gun had to be held to his shoulder to aim it. Waving it around didn't even occur to him as a dangerous act.

  • Yeah fecking bullshit.
    A step-grandson was a gamer and used to extreme virtual violence,
    I used to watch him play online, he was really good.
    He very violently attacked a workmate who took the piss out of him, arrested, charged and convicted.
    His answer to a minor confrontation was to go in unexpectedly, immediately, and really hard.

  • ...but its still not a good idea to stare at your screen and do it for hour on end.
  • What percentage of test subjects died of obesity before age 20?
  • Next they'll be telling us they've found no link between kids play fighting with sticks & violence in later life.
    Or that there's no connection between kids living in a war zone & violence later in life.
    Or telling us that the young men heading out to war, full of bravado & lust to 'fight the enemy' and those who made it home, don't go on to be violent after.
    Or that nature isn't full of creatures attacking other creatures, that violence isn't all around us every day.

    Sure, there are people predispo

  • A more important study would be the relationship between girls given princess costumes and being told their princesses and narcissistic, self-centered behavior later in life. :-)
  • Was it the video game industry or someone else?

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