Do Videogames Really Cause Violent Behavior?

[hebdomad]

There has been allot of studies like this... Some even dating back to the 1960s...

Unfortunately none have relay been reliable, and have easily been rebutted.

Do violent people prefer violent content? or does violent content make violent people?

I would ague both. However this is only if video games are the only influence the person receives... So the notion that video games cause violence alone is absurd.

 

[axia777]

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.)

If you really think ANY video game can teach ANYONE how to shoot a real gun you have never fired a real gun. Go shoot some real guns and then come back to tell me how much a FPS prepared you for shooting real weapons of any kind, even a .22. To put it bluntly that is a load of crap. Sorry to say it like that but it is so true.

That's not what I meant.
Like I said, if you have read the book I was referring to you'd know EXACTLY whatI mean rather then making assumptions.

Ok, I read the synopsis. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Give_a_Boy_a_Gun

But the heck does that have anything to do with guns and video games?

"Also in such cases such as Columbine, video games taught them HOW to shoot."

No, a video game cannot and does not teach anyone how to shoot.

 

[Doug]

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.

Why the hell is this news now? That article was written in mid 2008!?

 

[Cid Silverwing]

Video games are never once guilty of violent behavior. It's the stupid kids that get their ideas from the games, invariably coupled with bad parenting from overweight soccer moms.

 

[Doug]

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.

Indeed, I call bullshit on that - http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/168812/detail/

 

[Master_Corruptor]

can't say that any of my videogame habbits have borked me up in the head.

playing carmageddon as a 13 year old and diablo 2 shortly after... then followerd my loads of soldier of fortune didn't do much to me...

I allways percieved these games to be to brutal/inaccurate to be anything close real life...

 

[slackbheep]

So being more aggressive in a nonviolent situation, means you're more violent? Riiiiiiiight.
Thanks for the late breaking news guys, I bet NO ONE had heard of that nine year old study before. Less filler articles, please?

 

[Alarid]

It is a simple conclusion - the ones who play video games are more comfortable with violence, and therefore more comfortable expressing, or releasing any emotional rage. Which was not the case for any of the shooting or similar. These suspected were reported to be calm and withdrawn - AKA they were not expressing their fustrations and allowed them to develop and grow into something dangerous and volatile.

While people who play video games, go paintballing, etc are more prone to a larger quantity of violent acts, but each is to a much smaller extent.

 

[Gaderael]

No, violent video games do not 'cause violence. Say it again and I'LL KILL YOU!

 

[Mr. Grey]

Of course it causes people to kill others, I mean... I just killed a hobo in my area, took his alms and sent word the area is clear for another hobo to come around. God I love fishing.

As for this, all I can say is I disagree. And this scientist - Craig Anderson - should defend to the death my right to say so, in fact... he should go do that right now, until he is dead.

Okay, seriously now... I strongly disagree with him about that experiment and its results. I'll leave it at that before I start ranting.

 

[KiKiweaky]

There's a slight difference between bringing a gun into your local school and playing a loud blast of noise at somebody.

Maybe they were just playing so long their fingers were feeling tired?

 

[Spacelord]

Research about 'priming' like this article has already concluded that violent stimuli lead to more violent behavior. For instance, in one experiment, people that had to listen to a list of words associated with the elderly walked slower afterwards than those who didn't. Evidence is abundant that violent imagery makes people less sympathetic.

But the difference between punishing a person with a loud noise a few seconds longer and going on a psycho shooting spree is a pretty fucking big one.

 

[Billy Sastard]

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.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAmen!

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

I'd say they do cause an increase in short term violent behaviour. For maybe an hour. Overall I'd say that video games have a cathartic effect, relieving tension and stress.

The only way I'd even pay attention to this argument would be if it was someone who played violent videogames to a dangerous extent, but if someone does that, I'd argue that they have other problems which are more likely to contribute.

Also, it's due to a rise in adrenaline that shooters etc cause, so you'd have the same effect if you had a group of people who read for an hour versus a group who played rugby for an hour, but no one's going to do a study like that, because it would prove the vg=evil theory wrong.

So yeah, the test is really flawed, because if they had let the people who played the games cool off for an hour, the results would have been drastically different.

 

[JoshGod]

you insulted mee! ill fight you to prove you wrong!!
lol jk

seriously
they'e just a scape goat
ive played an 18 at 11 and im one of the least violent people in my whole school

so no

well with me but it varies from person to person

 

[Computer-Noob]

Gotta love how no one ever assumes that the nut that goes on a school killing spree was mentally unstable to begin with.

If video games caused violent behaviour, wouldnt this site not exist? Wouldnt we have all gone on killing sprees somewhere, making this and other websites have no population?

Hell, people at the Escapist play games. This site wouldnt have even been made.

 

[Tharticus]

No. If a person who has pent up rage in their minds. You can't shield children away from danger anymore because they simply can't tell the difference between realism vs. fiction. Besides from that, children are ticking time bombs in which the government has to step in to protect the children due to irresponsible parents.

I played Wolfenstein 3D when I was age 8. Jolly good times and it didn't turn me violent.

But there was much more violent behavior way, way, way before video games existed.

 

[WickedSkin]

Conspiracy people! It's a conspiracy!

 

[kronoset]

"Videogames have often been linked to teenage violence."

I could get into a whole discussion about the inaccuracies of polls and how utterly simple it is to manufacture data to support an argument (also, many such polls are conducted by organizations that are actively seeking to portray games in a negative light), but I won't. I don't need to.

You know what's also "linked" to teenage violence? Drinking, drugs, household abuse, mental disorders, victimization by peers, angst, gang-culture, inability to communicate, stupidity, ANGER. Rather than arguing about the legitimacy of the connection of games to violence, don't these aforementioned causes seem more obvious and fundamental causes? Maybe people should deal with these root causes instead of trying to figure out more causes for violence. What's the point of creating more problems when you haven't solved the initial ones?

On another note, after I was playing Protoype yesterday, I got the irresistible urge to run outside and unleash my critical mass in the neighbor. I then realized that I couldn't eat people, couldn't reach critical mass, and could jump on a helicopter and surf it into a building.

 

[Aptspire]

I have but 1 term for Anderson: Control Group
if he did not ask for a group made up of the average age that hadn't played either game before taking part in the test, then I cannot accept his findings as scientific