Do Videogames Really Cause Violent Behavior?

[Therumancer]

There is always a scapegoat for human nature. Truthfully I'm not even entirely convinced that violence is a bad thing and that it's a tendency we should be curbing as much as we do... for reasons I will not go into here.

Basically, people blamed rock and roll, heavy metal, dancing, motorcycles, cars, comic books, television, movies, and just about anything you can think of for violent, sexual, or "immoral" behavior at some point. One thing is defended, another takes it's place. It's not the media that does this, it's us.

Oh sure, there are societal factors that can make violence, sex, or any other behavior far more probable, but games and such are not one of them. They might be a REFLECTION of society on some levels, as artwork always is, but they are not the central cause.

That said, there will ALWAYS be a scapegoat, and that is why it's important for scapegoats to defend themselves. Once you allow this kneejerk reaction to successfully tear anything down it will NEVER end...

 

[Xanadu84]

1) Experimenter bias, but I will let that one slide on benefit of the doubt.
2) No, you did not increase violence. You increased loud noise. You cannot correlate a fundamentally harmless prank with physical violence.
3) This shows short term affects. Nothing about programming or turning a person. It's about behavior in certain circumstances.
4) Absolutely no basis, nor control, is established. You fail at experimental conditions. It would be entirely legitimate to interpret this event as being that Myst calms people down, and makes them less violent, while a violent game has no effect whatsoever.
5) I assume random assignment took place, but that skews the data as it is. You're saying that a person who might have no desire to play a violent game who is then FORCED to play a violent video game becomes more violent? That's not the game, that's coercion, and it renders the study illegitimate
6) If your asked to do a "Violent" act after playing Wolfenstein, its pretty damn clear what your doing. Subject Bias effect immediately destroys the study.
7) No, it doesn't examine video games. It examines Wolfenstein 3D. Which is NOT necessarily representative of gaming at large. Correlation is not causation, and there is a million other possible explanations. Possibly Nazi symbols increase aggression? That's reasonable, and we certainly shouldn't censor Nazi symbols from our history books.
8) Increased aggression compared to what? What would be the numbers on loud blasts, assuming that the person, instead of playing a video game, watched a basketball game? Played a Basketball game? Watched a War documentary? Listened to a political speech? Just exercised? Had a bad day? I'm betting the effect would be much greater. In which case, the study would (Yet again) be rendered meaningless.

I could probably go on, but there are the fatal flaws I can pick out on a cursory reading. Come on, even the researchers HAVE to know there dealing in junk science. It's bloody Psych 101 here.

 

[Lazy Kitty]

No, violent behavior causes videogames.

 

[Arbitrary Cidin]

I'm exactly not sure why Escapist content is in the Escapist News...

 

[sumanoskae]

If you're fucked up enough to kill somebody because you saw it in a video game then you're beyond help. You would have bin fucked up weather or not you played Ninja Gaiden

 

[CrysisMcGee]

I remember the Columbine argument. I knew it was load of bull when I heard it.

In High School, I did a lot of research on it, and a few English projects. I found that, like all media, it never created violence. It just release violence that was alread there.

It really is a case of circumstance. People imitate what they see when they are in an emotional state. If they were watching Rambo, they might imitate while emotionally frustrated.

Video games have proved to be an outlet for violent behavior, not the cause.

Violent videogames exacerbate existing problems, in the same way any other media could. The people who perform terrible things were not 'converted' by violent videogames, the problem already existed.

Yes, I agree.

 

[Zer_]

Do Videogames Really Cause Violent Behavior?

Videogames are often the scapegoat for any adolescent violence that makes it onto the evening news. However, are these "murder simulators" truly the reason behind teenage violence?

Videogames have often been linked to teenage violence - especially in cases of Columbine or other senseless, adolescent shootings. Various activist groups have claimed a correlation between violent videogames and the rise of violence amongst adolescents, but does correlation imply causation? In Issue 153 of The Escapist, Michael A. Mohammed examines recent studies of videogames and violence and draws his own conclusions.

[blockquote]
To establish causation, researchers must rule out these "other factors" by performing a lab experiment. For example, Anderson ran an experiment in 2000 that had college students play a violent game (Wolfenstein 3D) or a nonviolent game (Myst). Then each subject played a game in which they could punish a student in another room with a blast of noise - though the game was rigged and the other student did not exist. The subjects who had played Wolfenstein chose longer blasts of noise than those who played Myst.[/blockquote]

Was this study a positive finding of videogames causing a quick and sudden rise in violence? Read more in "Monkey Play, Monkey Do [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_153/4958-Monkey-Play-Monkey-Do]" to find out, and share your own opinions on the matter with us.

Permalink

No no no no... There were school shootings throughout history, long before videogames even existed. The only common denominator between young violence across history is the fact that these kids are troubled.

 

[BloodRed Pixel]

I´d sign the above two statements totally,

and yes: being forced to play MYST would make ME totally violent.

 

[theultimateend]

Do Videogames Really Cause Violent Behavior?

Videogames are often the scapegoat for any adolescent violence that makes it onto the evening news. However, are these "murder simulators" truly the reason behind teenage violence?

Videogames have often been linked to teenage violence - especially in cases of Columbine or other senseless, adolescent shootings. Various activist groups have claimed a correlation between violent videogames and the rise of violence amongst adolescents, but does correlation imply causation? In Issue 153 of The Escapist, Michael A. Mohammed examines recent studies of videogames and violence and draws his own conclusions.

[blockquote]
To establish causation, researchers must rule out these "other factors" by performing a lab experiment. For example, Anderson ran an experiment in 2000 that had college students play a violent game (Wolfenstein 3D) or a nonviolent game (Myst). Then each subject played a game in which they could punish a student in another room with a blast of noise - though the game was rigged and the other student did not exist. The subjects who had played Wolfenstein chose longer blasts of noise than those who played Myst.[/blockquote]

Was this study a positive finding of videogames causing a quick and sudden rise in violence? Read more in "Monkey Play, Monkey Do [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_153/4958-Monkey-Play-Monkey-Do]" to find out, and share your own opinions on the matter with us.

Permalink

Two straight years and 30 thousand dollars of college fees all came to a single conclusion on this topic.

No. No they don't. No positive connection at all. At most there is a negative correlation with real world teen violence dropping as games become more violent.

The 'aggro' that people demonstrate after video games, television, sports, or at least two dozen other stimuli that all existed for tens, hundreds, or in many cases thousands of years, exists extremely short term.

The worlds worst school shooting, the US's worst school shooting, the worlds worst genocide, and every other worst violent or most prolific violent event ALL happened before Video games were even a twinkle in the eye of a sperm in the testicle of a man with a twinkle in his eye looking at the busts of a nude woman.

 

[nonW00t]

I want to kill you because of this article title! Time for more UT3.....

 

[Numb1lp]

What about the people like me who play violent games but don't shoot up schools?

 

[dukethepcdr]

Nothing causes violent behavior except the violent thoughts of the people committing the behavior. Violence has been around ever since Cain killed his own brother Abel. They didn't have video games, movies, magazines, comic books or any of that. Humans have been capable of having evil thoughts and committing evil acts almost from the very beginning.

Even if you shielded a kid from every description or depiction of violence, he or she would still have violent thoughts. The only things keeping most of us from acting out the violent thoughts we have are self-control, a sense of morality and concern for the well-being of other people (and animals for that matter). It's not that the stuff that kids are exposed to is getting more violent (try reading some of the old myths and fairytales in their original forms before they were candy-coated by the likes of Disney and you'll read some really violent stuff), it's that kids these days are being taught how to exercise self-control, to have an understanding of what's right and wrong and to care about someone or something other than themselves, less and less.

We shelter kids from experiencing meaningful consequences for bad behavior all during their childhood (let's face it, there are some kids who are not fazed a bit by 'time out', lectures, trips to the psycologist etc.), then we wonder why their bad behavior just keeps getting worse and more serious as they get older. They test the boundaries and find they can get away with it, so they try something even worse next time. Next thing you know, the kid is shoplifting, beating other kids to a pulp, and, yes, stealing (getting out Dad's gun without permission is also stealing) and going out and shooting people.

It's not the fault of games, movies, TV, books etc. It's the fault of the children themselves (no one forces these kids to do these things), parents, teachers and other adults in these kids' lives that the kids are committing violent crimes.

Games are just a convenient scapegoat for people to use so they don't have to face up to their own responsibility.

 

[SinisterDeath]

How do you know those in the 'violent video game' section aren't already pre-disposed to violence, and the 'myst group' isn't?

But then again, if you've ever PLAYED myst, clicking a buton 300 times is probably funner then holding it down.

Also, look at wolfenstien.
Shooter, pray and spray. Hold down the clicky button!
Myst? You click arrows to walk around, why bother 'holding' the button down?

Perhaps they should re-do this experiment.

HL2 vs Portal group.
Violence vs non violence.

 

[Eric the Orange]

Lauren, you've been linking old articles to the news room a lot lately. I have to wonder why.

 

[axia777]

No and no. It is a proven fact that violent crimes among the youths of today have gone down sine past decades dramatically. Anyone can go Google the facts. Parents and politicians are just blaming video games for violence when they should all really blame themselves as to how they raise their own kids. It is just like then Dungeons and Dragons was blamed for Satanic violence. That was crap. Then it was Heavy Metal. That was crap too. Then it was slasher moves. That too was a pile of steaming crap. These people will NEVER stop.

 

[Stormeh5]

I don't think video games make people violent, but maybe feed the already-there violence in some people.

Also in such cases such as Columbine, video games taught them HOW to shoot. (Read "Give a Boy a Gun" and you'll know what I am talking about.)

In other words, video games do not induce violence but may attract naturally violent people.
How do I know? I've been basically raised by video games and I am one of the calmest, sensible people in my school and I've never been in a fight nor come close.

 

[zidine100]

To many unanswered variables in this experement, for example the backgrounds of the students probably were different, and therefore some of them have already been preconditioned to violence, and the amount was not mentioned, so im assuming that it was a low ammount of people which makes the test somewhat subjectable.

 

[TurtleBlob]

I feel that the biggest problem with the experiment is that it simply observes aggression, not tendency to commit violent acts.

Aggression will rise after playing almost anything tension inducing. This includes real life sports - I bet if they redid the experiment and had one group play chess and the other a moderately competitive sport (I.E. nothing already violent) the chess group would show less "violent tendencies".

 

[Booze Zombie]

Did they stop and look at what type of personallity these people had, if they were known for violent behavior previously...

It's really quite hard to make a "valid" test at all.

 

[MONSTERheart]

I hope by now we have all seen the video of the guy who has his WoW subscription canceled. Maybe that would answer the question.