Critical Miss: Gamer Science
- Thread starter The Wooster
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Oh, I agree with you. And so do many psychologists. Which is why the tag line is usually "They will only have a chance of influencing someone if that person is already mentally predisposed to do something." My original point was more about gamers acting with maturity when topics like this are brought up.TheMaddestHatter said:
Unfortunately, the majority of these "studies" don't say, "Violent video games may remind violent people they are violent." They say, "Video games create violence! BAN THEM FOR THE CHILDREN!!!!"RedEyesBlackGamer said:
Even the studies that do stick to the facts seem unnecessary to me. We can't understand that violent people are going to be attracted to violent things, and then may commit violent acts?
On the subject of gaming promoting violence:
For me, it always decreased violence. It gives you an alternative, safe outlet where you can do whatever, without anyone (but FOX) caring. I believe it's pretty common to need an outlet of anger, and to have an entertaining, harmless one is even better, I would believe.
And there is a difference between familiarity and action. A huge one.
That said, why wouldn't violent movies promote violence?
Made me laugh, though.
For me, it always decreased violence. It gives you an alternative, safe outlet where you can do whatever, without anyone (but FOX) caring. I believe it's pretty common to need an outlet of anger, and to have an entertaining, harmless one is even better, I would believe.
And there is a difference between familiarity and action. A huge one.
That said, why wouldn't violent movies promote violence?
Made me laugh, though.
Wow... I honestly didn't expect anyone to actually reply to what I say. Typically i'm used to the forum here for commenting on largely popular videos (Extra Credit for example) to basically get flooded rapidly by comments, praise and far too many ideas to be discerned by most save the few who scour through the various page with deep interest in the thoughts of all within the society that built itself around these forums and this site...SyphonX said:
But yeah. There's a lot of needless desire for opposition, as if the world can only exist in shades of black and white with no middle ground. Even in philosophy, there's a lot of "Let's have two different views go against each other" where I always sometimes see that both have their place and that their ideas are not so disjointed that they can't be combined together.
No, that is news outlets. I can't find it (so take this with a grain of salt, sorry), but there was a survey that reached a conclusion that 50% of women cheat on their spouses. So said news outlets. In reality, the scientific community had dismissed it because it had a return (people who answered it) of 2%. That part the news outlets forgot to mention. They do it all the time. Whatever it takes to generate hits. In fact, meta-analyses often take into account "publication bias".TheMaddestHatter said:
This kind of attitude actually quite irritates me.Ian Caronia said:
Believe it or not "common knowledge" is not viable scientific evidence. At one point, it was "common sense" that the earth was flat and light came from the eye. Common sense was wrong.
You could argue that violent media is likely to make mental people more mental or you could argue that providing people an outlet for their aggression could possibly be beneficial. Both of those conclusions are fairly reasonable and both are supported by "common sense."
Studies are often repeated because a single study represents a miniscule cross section of the population. Different studies allow for different geographic age locations, age parameters etc.
I'd tend to agree. Generally these studies are talking about the effect on children (to which our response is "well children shouldn't be playing x game" but they most definately are) which are much more mutable when it comes to behavior or they're talking about sessions far in excess of the average gamer's playtime.cynicalsaint1 said:
The issue, to me anyways, is that most of the anti-gaming studies try to show violent games can TURN you violent. Sort of a Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde thing. The nicest person can suddenly become a mass murderer by playing Call of Duty.
Now, if more studies actually said stuff like the first panel I could go along with it. Basically games won't turn you into a killer but if you already have stabby and slashy tendencies games will make you use a bigger knife. But so too will movies, music, books, and television.
Now, if more studies actually said stuff like the first panel I could go along with it. Basically games won't turn you into a killer but if you already have stabby and slashy tendencies games will make you use a bigger knife. But so too will movies, music, books, and television.
Negatory, I like to think that I myself have elevated above reading too much into these studies unless there is some real interesting brain stuff. Behavior studies are fairly open to interpretation and there are so many variables usually not considered.Mysnomer said:
He also has much more prominent sideburns then I can really grow... mine are more or less wispy.
Sorry Grey. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myth_of_the_Flat_EarthGrey Carter said:
But you have to admit that there are a lot of ignorant people blaming games when they should really be looking at themselves.
Perhaps we don't have the most mentally balanced bunch here, but look at who we're up against:
There's no gamers that I know of that even rival this level of ignorance and implied violence.
Personally, I take one experience in college as proof enough that Violence in video games may incidentally translate to some real world violence.
The story: I was playing marathon sessions of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and during my playtime, pretty much any time I saw a cop car my instinct was to RAM THE SHIT out of it. One night, me and buddies had decided to go get pizza at Little Caesars and I pull up to a stop and see a cop car crossing my path. Without thinking, I put my foot on the gas and start to accellerate before I realize that YES, smashing cop cars is BAD and hit the brakes again.
Realisticly, it translated to about as much as me stopping, jerking forward a little bit and stopping again. No harm done, but it scared the shit out of me that I had allowed my driving in game to effect me out of game. Since then, I have ALWAYS tried harder to make the distinction.
The story: I was playing marathon sessions of Need for Speed: Most Wanted, and during my playtime, pretty much any time I saw a cop car my instinct was to RAM THE SHIT out of it. One night, me and buddies had decided to go get pizza at Little Caesars and I pull up to a stop and see a cop car crossing my path. Without thinking, I put my foot on the gas and start to accellerate before I realize that YES, smashing cop cars is BAD and hit the brakes again.
Realisticly, it translated to about as much as me stopping, jerking forward a little bit and stopping again. No harm done, but it scared the shit out of me that I had allowed my driving in game to effect me out of game. Since then, I have ALWAYS tried harder to make the distinction.
The sad reality is that this kind of thing is common across the "news" spectrum. Note that there's actually very little "news" about gaming --- instead, there's "commentary". Which isn't subject to journalistic standards, because it's merely someone's opinion.
Agreed.Grey Carter said:
There are some things about that study that I think should be investigated further (like whether the competitive nature of a game has the same "I hit you with big sound" impact as the violence allegedly has)... but there are points made that have value. Perhaps the study over-assigns that value, but it is certainly greater than zero.
When we overreact to these things, we just play exactly the role "they" expect: the immature, stubborn kids upset about someone not liking their toys.