vortexgods said:
No, false, bad science, must I link to this again:
Grossman-ism:
Media Violence and
Mad Social Science
This.
Wow.
Wow.
Wow.
I'm honestly surprised and dismayed to see this here. What's interesting is that I live about four miles from RMC and have friends and colleagues in the War Studies programme there. This is very disappointing to see ultimately underresearched one-sided pseudo-science being upheld as material that we should "reasonably consider" without even a cursory amount of research into the numerous refutations of Grossman's points.
I deeply understand the desire to represent perspectives from across a spectrum of opinion, but what Grossman is doing, and what this article is doing, is destructive to progress in this discussion because it is so superficial.
Grossman's case is very unfortunate in that he is very well respected (I understand that he visited RMC recently, which I imagine precipitated this piece?) in the field of the effects of combat on soldiers. This does not even come close to making him an expert on the effects of simulated violence in a fantasy context on young people. And if we ask experts in THAT FIELD about this, we receive an answer directly at odds with Grossman's assumptions based on study in an ultimately vastly different field.
I emphasize again that I came at this subject years ago with the same intent in mind: we must seriously consider whether games can have a violence-inducing influence on the psyche. I am a game developer; on a professional level and on an ethical level with my profession I need to know whether I am harming people if I put violent content in the games that I create. I promise you that there is no one, NO ONE more concerned about this subject than game developers who are also parents. With Grossman and Thompson (Jack, how's that disbarring going for you, since you're around?) it is necessary to ask "cui bono?" ("who benefits?") -- and look historically at the degree of profit they are making specifically from raising controversy in defiance of the genuine researchers looking into these subjects. Grossman makes a majority of his living by touring and speaking; there is a marked point in his written material where he took a wild side track into addressing video game and media violence in order to sell more copy. Jack Thompson is quick to make the "cui bono?" accusation toward game developers -- his libelous demonization of the gaming community and developers is legendary, and his behavior is short to earn him the stripping of his license to practice law in Florida -- ignoring the obvious fact that he is trying to make his living off of ambulance-chasing fear- and hate-mongering in defiance of all scientific research. But bottom line, you shouldn't be asking any of us about this; you should be asking the psychologists who don't have a speaking tour and a book deal predicated on controversy.
On this subject there is a very basic point and logical error that anti-game advocates make: They conflate attraction to video games BECAUSE of violent tendencies with INFLUENCE of violent media CAUSING violence. In short: if someone has violent tendencies, they are going to be ATTRACTED to violent media. Sociologists understand this attraction; serial killers typically have an attraction to 1) real-life violence (television/newspaper coverage); 2) violent music (esp. violent lyrics); 3) media violence. That order is deliberate; serial killers, including school shooters, have an interest pyramid with real-life violence at its apex. But someone with a violent mind is naturally going to be attracted to violent media of all kinds, the same way that someone who likes dogs is going to watch a lot of pet shows. It's a natural correlation that has nothing to do with what is causing them to become violent, because obviously millions of people watch (and play) violent media who *don't* become violent. The causation question is very important and very complex, and the EXPERTS who study this are not certain of it with video games. According to Dr. Roger Mannell, Dean of Applied Health Sciences at the University of Waterloo, whose expertise lies in the study of the effects of media on children, and whom I interviewed for this piece [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_140/3007-Enhancing-Humanity] in the Escapist, the question for sociologists studying media and children is NOT whether causation can be found -- he thinks it can't -- but about what it is in a child's environment with *that minority* of children that are pre-disposed to violent behavior that actualizes their predisposition, and how that can be prevented and their behavior patterns modified before they reach actualization level.
*STUDIES* of killers, including the Columbine killings, have been done; Dr. James McGee -- authority on the "classroom avenger" -- studied 16 rampage shootings at schools by adolescents in recent years, involving 18 boys. In all 16 rampage shootings, only Columbine -- *one* instance -- showed a game connection. From Gerard Jones's _Killing Monsters_, which you are going to hear more about in a minute: "Most of the shooters showed no interest in games at all. Other elements were much more common to the eighteen boys: bullying by peers, hostility with or disassociation from parents, suicidal threats, and fascination with news coverage of earlier rampage shootings show up among all of them."
Robert, I understand where you are coming from on this in intent, but I am deeply disappointed in your decision to write on this subject with such a cursory level of research not even touching sociological, psychological, and clinical experts that have studied this field for years. Your intent may have been honorable, but on this very charged subject, rife with disinformation (it is a difficult thing to research; I do appreciate that fully), you are dead wrong, and harmfully wrong. I honestly believe that you need to retract this article, do your research, and apologize to the video game community if you ever want to be taken seriously in this space.
I'm including below some excerpts from
Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super-Heroes, and Make Believe Violence to get you started, and some links to material on this site on the subject.
"After a decade of these games being played by millions of kids, Grossman and other critics have provided no evidence of the effects they have predicted. Certainly video games haven't had any significant impact on real-world crime. 'The research on video games and crime is compelling to read,' said
Helen Smith, forensic psychologist, youth violence specialist, and author of The Scarred Heart. 'But it just doesn't hold up. Kids have been getting less violent since those games came out. That includes gun violence and every other sort of violence that might be inspired by a video game.'"
-- Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters, p. 167
"The peak of shooter-game play by teenagers was from approximately 1992 to 1995, by which time the games' sales had dropped, and they'd gone from being the fad of the moment to one of many genres in the industry. Violent crime dropped during those years. We've now had time for those millions of game players to reach adulthood, and the generation of 'killer kids' predicted by the games' critics has never materialized."
- Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters, p. 167
"Both her practice and her survey show that extremely angry and violent kids often show an interest in violent music, Web sites, and movies, but rarely in video games. 'I don't discount the influence some media may have on very hostile young people,' she concluded. 'But there just doesn't seem to be any connection with games.' "
-- Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters, p. 168
"Helen Smith's principal objection to theorists who try to link video games to real-life crime is the same as mine: 'They're not listening to the kids.'"
--Gerard Jones, Killing Monsters, p. 170
An Interview with Gerard Jones [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/insidejob/2752-Inside-Job-Voices-of-Sanity-An-Interview-With-Gerard-Jones]
Getting Real about Kids and Games [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/editorials/insidejob/2314-Inside-Job-Getting-Real-about-Kids-and-Games]
Fancy talkin' does not a rational or researched argument make, folks.