New Book Cuts Through Violent Video Game Myths 213
Terry Bosky suggests a recent interview from Game Couch with one of the authors of an upcoming book which fights the "myths and hysteria" surrounding violent video games. Dr. Cheryl K. Olson explains how many of the studies linking aggression with video games were flawed or misguided, and she discusses some of her own findings. Quoting:
"Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It's debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction. Also, the most-published researchers have built their careers around media violence. Their studies were designed under the assumption that violent video games are harmful, which dictated the questions they asked and how they framed their results. Media violence is just a small part of what we do, so we could look at the issue with fresh eyes and no agenda."
Maybe I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
great article - only the choir will read it (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
WHAT?!?! (Score:3, Insightful)
But seriously, folks, it's about damn time someone stepped up to the 'personal responsibility' plate and didn't get hit in the head by the ball (man, I pwn'd that metaphor). I grew up in the age of violent video games, as did most people here... come on, this website's name involves SLASHING people. My favorite movies growing up were Beverly Hills Cop and Aliens (I was all of six years old for those), and not once did I feel the urge to be more violent, or to shoot anyone. I thought "Wow, those movies are an awesome escape from boring reality. I'm gonna go read some Calvin & Hobbes now, maybe eat a cookie."
Yes, this is anecdotal, but if ten million people have (and apparently do) have similar anecdotal stories, that adds up, and this book is just the long-overdue sober second look at a popular, convenient myth.
PS: Jack Thompson needs to be clubbed with this book.
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
So more trustworthy for you to consider.
It's one of the things you really want to look for when folks start flinging studies around: who do they work for? Would you trust as accurate a study funded my Microsoft that says that 5 of 6 dentists prefer to use Windows, or would you be more likely to trust as accurate a study funded by some independent group?
An accurate sampling? (Score:2, Insightful)
I am not versed in acceptable survey sampling standards, but given the 100's of 1000's (if not millions) of gamer-kids all across the country, this seems small to me. Just an uneducated observation....
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
What about the programmers? (Score:2, Insightful)
People are always concerned about what the effects of playing violent video games might be, but nobody seems to question whether there are any undesirable effects of programming these games. I imagine that a programmer, stressing out to meet the game's shipping deadline in the face of a show-stopping heisenbug somewhere in the code, might be more inclined to do something violent during a particularly frustrating midnight debugging session, such as take the computer up to the roof of his company's 12-story office building and then drop it to the ground whilst yelling profanities at the top of his lungs.
I think there should be a law that people have to pass a background check before being allowed to program violent video games.
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
It is very hard to gague cause and effect (Score:2, Insightful)
If people who watch R-rated games tend to be more violent than those who don't, are the movies making them more violent than they otherwise would have been? Maybe, but determining a "yes" or "no" answer is far from easy and far from certain.
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
Its just something (Score:2, Insightful)
That gives lazy politicians something to do! Lets save our children from the violent video games! Instead of, oh, I dunno, managing tax reform, social problems, basically stuff you were elected to do.
Violent media has been around since the dawn of time, in the form of TV, books, sports etc etc etc. Its not going anywhere, kids, so don't worry about it. Wherever there is a market, the product will get served.
Re:I am a researcher in this field (Score:5, Insightful)
"Sure," says I, "When I get bacon delivered through my second-story window fresh off the flying pig."
Re:WHAT - conscious vs emotional urges (Score:2, Insightful)
When I got dumped several times, I didn't lash out.
When I got fired because someone ELSE was stealing money, I didn't even raise my voice.
When I got hit by a car, I didn't get angry.
Tell me again what my 'emotional brain' is learning?
Re:WHAT?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
That populist sentiment misses a lot of the point of that kind of research. It may not have much to do with "banning" anything at all, but, for example, giving parents information that will help them decide if and when to bring videogame consoles into the home, or whether someone who is having trouble with violent behavior should be advised to stay away from videogames. That research is worthwhile even if there isn't a direct public policy connection.
I'm all in favor of the more nuanced view of the topic of media effects on behavior, and I think the authors of this book are right on. But the old canard of "what about personal responsibility?" strikes me as anti-intellectual crankiness.
A word about studies and bias (Score:4, Insightful)
That's OK. that's why studies are done open, done many times, and looked at.
Certainly who sponsored the study is something to look at, but it doesn't automatically mean the study is flawed. It's especially important when a study goes against previous studies.
So stop with the 'study is biased ' crap. Of course it is. Look at the result and see if it skewed the data, or id the study used bad techniques.
For the topic at hand, It is clear that violent games have a short term effect.
Adrenalin, acting out violent behaviors are all common to some degree.
It will go on for as long as the adrenalin is their system, and/or until it stops being funny.
I think there can be a point where the game can cause problems. We're not there it technologically, but it doesn't mean we won't cross the threshold.
If someone had a holodeck, could playing war games cause someone to be shell shock? desensitize someone to violence? I don't know and i hope not. That doesn't mean we shouldn't study it.
Re:who cares? (Score:4, Insightful)
Between space invaders and today's 3d there has been the time where blood could be drawn but mostly wasn't. Designers weren't using random color as soon as xevious, around '82. Drawing blood was technically possible and in topic in commando or green beret. And it would have impressed people, because we were impressed by VG graphics. We were impressed by marble madness fake 3d, or pole position fast sprites. Also, Video games were politically incorrect at least with leisure suit larry. It's not a matter of "we would have done it if we could".
Do VG mirror society or influence it? I guess it's kind of a feedback loop.
Re:WHAT?!?! (Score:5, Insightful)
But how come it's only ever the "unpopular things" that are questionned as to whether they affect behaviour - fictional violence, video games, rock music, Marilyn Manson, porn?
No one questions the violence in religious texts when it turns out a murderer was obsessed with the Bible or killed someone because "God says so". Unless they're a pagan or satanist, in which case, it's back to the "unpopular things" which must be banned again.
I've nothing against providing parents with information, but note that people do use these claims to ban things, even for adults. I think "personal responsibility" is a valid response when the claim put forward is that media alone can turn people into violent criminals.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:who cares? (Score:1, Insightful)
Not quite. Big surprise to hear of a gross generalization on slashdot. Let me set you straight. As soon as we move the games to being life-like then people object. 3D and a bit of blood does not make a game life-like but those are properties of a life-like game. And maybe it's just my perception but we seem to have moved away from using aliens as targets and use humans more often in video games. All those different games based on war come to mind (Call of Duty, Medal of Honor and Metal Gear series). Using humans as targets intead of non-existent aliens brings the experience of the game that much closer to real life.
Of course, most children know it isn't right to shoot humans in real life but not all seem to realize that. Those who do I think are just brought up that way to not care about human life and video games are just another way to lash out at society and serve to only practice their shooting spree plans. Banning video games isn't the answer to that situation just like banning cars isn't the solution for minority of the population who drink a lot and on occasion decide to drink and drive and kill people.
On Killing (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe ten years ago, I read On Killing [amazon.com], written by a psych professor at Westpoint, the U.S. Army Academy. The book was not about video games: it was a study of how the U.S. Army had successfully changed its effective fire ratio from 10% in WWII to over 90% in the Vietnam war, and how those 80% who got psychologically "tricked" into killing people they weren't prepared to kill were the ones who got extremely ill after the war. These people were trained to easily go past the non-violence barrier that most people have.
There is, however, a short chapter near the end of the book where he warns that the elements FPS games are functionally equivalent to the training methods the Army used,teaching players to go across that barrier, too.
Whether you agree or disagree, he still knew a lot about war and psychology.
Re:On Killing (Score:3, Insightful)
That's David Grossman, a first-rate demogogue of the post-Columbine era. Essentially all of Grossman's points are refuted by simply looking at a graph of violent crime rates plotted against the release of major "violent" (sic) video games. My favorite illustration is this one [photobucket.com] (89 KB
It's as if I were arguing for action against global warming by showing graphs of reduced greenhouse-gas concentrations and a 100-year-trend of falling global temperatures.
Grossman was quite vocal when On Killing came out, but he's been almost silent since Jack Thompson stole the media spotlight from him. Just another fearmongering hack trying to get rich from Columbine, basically. Nothing to see here.
Re:who cares? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:On Killing (Score:5, Insightful)
The psychology of war has little to do with the physionomics of war. FPS games nurture the mental aspect attached to the physionomics of warfare - that's it. And while being an aspect of combat, it is far from the core basis of combat.
Psychology deals with the understanding of actions taken during war by the entities who participate. It addresses the mental state of participants pre, and post, participation in wartime activities.
Physionomics investigates how FPS games influence the mental awareness, and possibly the acuity, of recognizing multiple threat targets - and driving engagement until all threats have been negotiated.
The concept of how someone feels about killing another is distinctly removed from how someone recognizes an element they need to kill. Look at the psychology of serial killers.
risk of desensitization? (Score:4, Insightful)
Today, video games look pretty much like video games. You can tell you are not watching something real, though single-player COD is getting pretty photo-realistic. Flying bodies, spurting blood. But it's still cartoonish. Cartoonish enough that you know it's a game.
What happens when the game becomes indistinguishable from reality? When it becomes photo-realistic? We know that people can become desensitized to stimuli by constant exposure.
If we had games that simulated warfare like, say, a "holodeck", would there be any debate as to the harmful effects it would have on the psyche of the players? Would we not see traumatic stress issues?
If you agree that we would see such problems with hyper-realistic games, then I think it is reasonable to debate and discuss what happens as we approach that level of realism. At what point does the game become realistic enough to start being harmful?
Those are NOT the same questions! (Score:5, Insightful)
* Do you believe you have the right to tell a women whos been raped that she has to carry to term the resulting fetus?
There are lots of unborn children who are not being carried by rape victims.
The whole problem with the 'abortion debate' is that the extreme participants argue under the assumption that if you are not universally pro-life, you must be pro-abortion, and if you are not universally pro-choice, you must be pro-government-control of bodies.
That's not the way reasonable people think.
I think abortion is bad *AND* I think the government telling a woman what to do with her body is bad.
On top of that, I realize that not all abortions are equally bad - aborting a one-cell fetus is not even in the same realm of bad as aborting a 38-week-old fetus. And telling a woman who is pregnant as a result of sex she agreed to have that she can't have an abortion is not as bad as telling a woman who never consented to the sex that led to pregnancy that she can't have an abortion.
Now, there is going to be a lot of variance in where most reasonable people decide the 'badness' of allowing women to choose to abort their pregnancies is less bad than forcing a woman to carry a pregnancy to term. Most reasonable people are going to agree that the death of non-differentiated fetuses is a very small amount of bad. And most reasonable people are going to agree that the death of a fetus that is, but for a few inches of position, about to be a live birth as extremely bad. So most REASONABLE people support *BOTH* abortion *AND* limits on choice.
6 weeks pregnant because you were raped? Abort if you want.
38 weeks pregnant because you were raped? Sorry, too late.
A debate about whether abortion is OK or not is stupid. A debate about government intervention in a woman's choice is stupid. There is no debate - both are bad. The debate needs to be about at what point a woman's control of her body is outweighed by the interests of the fetus.
So back to your original questions:
#1) Sometimes.
#2) Sometimes.
Re:Maybe I read that wrong (Score:3, Insightful)
And then compare it to just one of our major cities...
It's freaking obvious to anyone who has paid any attention over the last 50 years... social darwinism. Launch the greediest of your society to the top (yay US!). That's just how the rules work in this country. Fuck your neighbor, and if anyone touches my useless shit I'll kill all you motherfuckers!
Sorry. But it's true. When I talk to people in some other countries, they see us as a bunch of gun toting madmen with wild staring eyes, having to always watch your back, etc... like you have to now in the streets of Baghdad (yay US!)
I mean hell, when you tell every single person living in the country that your freedoms will be taken from you in order to stop those that would injure America's "way of life" (see above), or that you must give 500 BILLION dollars from these asshats to go and kill a bunch of people [iraqbodycount.org] instead of using it (up to date) to build over 38 THOUSAND new Elementary schools, or to have been able to give away over 81 MILLION College scholarships. etc... etc... etc...
After a while you wonder why there aren't just random killings almost daily at regular old shopping malls and schools here... oh wait...