Hitting Is Natural Play

[manic_depressive13]

Wrestling or play-fighting a very common way for children to bond with each other or with care-giving adults, particularly in boys. Don't confuse it with actual fighting between siblings which is very different. The similarity with video game violence is that play-fighting also has a resemblance to actual fighting but harms no-one and is for the enjoyment of the participants.

Boys are socialised from a young age to be more aggressive than girls. It's not inherent, it's learned behaviour, and I don't think it's a good thing. While I don't doubt play-wrestling could serve as a way of bonding, I'm sure just playing normally with your child and giving them hugs would create an equally strong bond. I think it's silly to suggest, as the article seemed to do, that by discouraging play fighting in children you are potentially sabotaging their bonds and taking away a form of self expression.

 

[Farther than stars]

Sterling never wrote anything eloquently in his life; I don't have to open the link to know that was sarcasm.
But seriously, why is this article on the Escapist? This is a good* article, but everyone here already agrees with these arguments. If it's really to change the hearts and minds of people and contribute to the debate, it should be taken to a local or even statewide newspaper. There an article like this can really be put to good use.

* "Indicting innocent individuals" is a beautiful example of alliteration used to drive a point home. Although I do have one concern with the line "evil exists", because it introduces a philosophically debatable concept to the argument, which could weaken the article as a whole. Other than that, the whole article is a concise summary of the left side of this debate.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Spoiler: snip

You guys make good points. I know I'm not convincing any of you guys about how violence in games doesn't turn us into killers. But I'm hoping by spreading the word and making well-reasoned arguments the idea will somehow filter into the mainstream thought.

Greg

While you did make some fairly decent points, most of said points have been said time and time again already. This article is nothing more than preaching to the choir.

But really, I had a problem with your arguments as soon as you said this;

I've read all the arguments the videogame opponents throw out. "All that exposure to violence can't be good." "Studies show people are more aggressive after playing games." "My kids play too much dang videogames!" And you know what? They are all bullshit.

These are not bullshit whatsoever. Extensive exposure to violent media constantly is generally a sign that something is not right, studies have shown that short-term aggression increases when playing video games (or any other violent media for that matter), and if the kids are spending every day of every week playing games I'd say that's a bit too much video gaming or that the child is not getting something that he needs.

It's this dismisal of the opposing side of the argument that really ruffles my feathers. I remeber that you were the one who posted the article on the video game study months ago that I have criticized for being incredibly biased and self-righteous, and some of your arguments remind me of why it ticks me off in the first place. I'm more forgiving here as this is more of an actual editorial rather than a news story.

As was stated before, the use of an air-horn is a perfectly legitimate tactic in the use of scientific inquiry. Really think about what the use of an air-horn means, it provides a blaring, uncomfortable noise, and if someone plays or watches violent media and prolongs its use, that is fairly significant in regards to aggression. What ticks me off about your mention of this particular study is how you simply brush it off, as if you are qualified to counter scientific findings (which, again, I remember criticising you about in that new story months before). In addition, you are presuming partisianship from said study. Not every study that finds something negative about violent media is against said media, science has no bias, only scientists and even then said scientists from the study hardly cared about the politics of their findings. It simply is.

Still, despite my problems here, you do make some fair points, but again they have been points made a hundred times before. It's this simple brushing off of legitimate concerns, in some ways claiming that video games have absolutely no affect on people, that really bug me since of course games can affect us and infact they do. We accept that they can make us laugh, relieve us of stress, cry, feel terror. They can move us emotionally, physically, mentally, hell even sexually for some of them. Why is it so hard to understand that games, and in fact most violent media in general, can cause some negative side-effects for some people? It is what it is, and if we just brush off these sort of questions then we are only devaluing the medium as a result.

Yeah, I'd agree with that. Saying that "games did it" is of course rubbish. But saying "games have no effect on people whatsoever" is also rubbish.

Just because we enjoy something doesn't mean we have to ignore anything problematic about it.

I like the LotR movies (second half of the second one, not so much). But I recognise that Tolkien was a privileged man who wasn't particularly progressive for his time.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

[\quote]Still, despite my problems here, you do make some fair points, but again they have been points made a hundred times before. It's this simple brushing off of legitimate concerns, in some ways claiming that video games have absolutely no affect on people, that really bug me since of course games can affect us and infact they do. We accept that they can make us laugh, relieve us of stress, cry, feel terror. They can move us emotionally, physically, mentally, hell even sexually for some of them. Why is it so hard to understand that games, and in fact most violent media in general, can cause some negative side-effects for some people? It is what it is, and if we just brush off these sort of questions then we are only devaluing the medium as a result.[/quote]

Yes this, and the fact that when anyone sounds like this they are called ignorant. This was a very good response.

Remeber when games had no ratings? Thanks to Mortal Kombat we had to have the ratings. IMO, violence in games is purely window dressing and it usually doesn't serve any purpose within the game. If it's Resident Evil, or some thriller type game, that's different...but even in movies, Guillermo Del Torro has figured out how to scare you without graphic depictions of violence (gore etc). Jumplion's response was on the money - we all agree that games don't cause people to go on murder sprees, and that games are not the real problem. However, the violence within games is being ignored whenever we do make these arguments. Violence in the USA is a historic problem that certainly didn't start with gaming, nor will it end if someone gains enough power to shut games down. Again, great post Jumplion

 

[vortalism]

My CPU applauds you good sir.

This is exactly what I wanted to iterate to many a people who don't seem to understand that this has happened at least 5 times in our history counting the big names: Plays, Books, Comic Books, Film, Television and now with Video Games. Paraphrasing Yahtzee again "[You] can be consoled in the fact that everyone over 50 [won't be deciding what happens to our new media after 20 or so years]."

Although the concept of [squishy-organic] evil is debatable, your points are all so valid. Sheep go "bah", Cows go "moo" and old-people-who-don't-know-any-better-go "This is poisoning our youth!"

Captcha: whoopee cushion. [Aye lad, aye..]

Edit: I'd also like to make a mention Lord of the Flies, though I don't completely agree with it or find it to be very relevant, the kids in that book showed tremendous capacity for violence even without video games. Violence is a thing, we are violent, nothing has changed, only the format which it has been presented. [Although I recognise this book is a giant allegory]

 

[cikame]

We need to talk about raising awareness for the poor suffering parents of violent mentally ill children, but no one talks about it because it's a difficult issue, video games are easy to blame when most of the older, haughty taughty, ignorant politicians know bugger all about them.

Wish i was a lawyer for video games.
"Video games caused the crime!"
"Objection, video games don't cause violent mental illness"

Boom.

 

[Epic Fail 1977]

Hmm, yes, how "incomprehensible" it is that these shootings regularly occur in a country with more guns than people, the majority of whom require prescribed meds to remain functional.

 

[Living Contradiction]

First off, thank you Greg for articulating what so many folks seem to be ignoring and making another attempt to give our collective consciousness a solid kick.

To those of you who are claiming, "We've heard this song before.", yes, these points are old and timeworn and yet, despite being true, nobody seems to be paying attention to them in the long term. I'm not just talking about politicians or civic leaders here. Ordinary folks, parents of children young and old, agree that surrounding a child with violence is damaging. Yet, these are the same people who send their kids to football games, use televisions as stop-gaps, and get angry when their kids sass back.

Violence is everywhere and always has been. Conflict is life and it surrounds us at all times. During any form of conflict, from an argument to a sporting event to a bloodbath, people get excited and become aggressive. Blaming one kind of stimulus for making people aggressive while ignoring all other stimuli is bullshit. It's deceptive and it's foolish and it KEEPS ON HAPPENING!

Want to know what disgusts me? People who live in a society where hundreds of dollars get charged to those who want to sit/stand in a theatre while two men stand in a ring to beat the life out of each other. Those same patrons will condemn a simluation of the same content where control of the fighters is given to a pair of teenagers. Yet there are no pickets up to do away with Ultimate Fighting, the WWF/E, or the World Boxing Association are there? Instead, we have training facilities, gymnasiums and fitness outlets that will encourage you and teach you the most efficient methods of battering your fellow person.

Want to know what enrages me? People who enjoy a world where children are actively urged to join teams that gather on gridirons to run at each other in heavy equipment, causing pain, injury, and even death. These same people will state with straight faces that images on a screen should be censored because they trigger aggressive, violent, and lethal behaviour. We've got prime examples of publicly supported violence coming on the television in a couple hours. It's called the NFL (and if you don't like television, relax. For even more money, you can get in your car, drive to a game, and watch the action as it happens). People are going to paint their faces, jump up and down, scream their support, and rejoice in the incapacitation of players because of the delicious rush that goes along with just watching it. When was the last time you saw a protest against violence at your local football stadium? Answer: Never.

Only videogames must pay the price of condemnation. Only they could be responsible for wanton displays of destruction despite being carefully legislated to warn consumers exactly what lies inside them. With a videogame, there are no illusions about content. I'm not going to be playing something based on "My Little Pony" and then suddenly see one of the characters break her neck or be cut into pieces by a bloodspattered clown, because if that were to be a possibility, there would be a warning on the box: "Contains Violence". There is no warning on my television that says, "Someone in this competition might die during the proceedings and at least one player will almost certainly be injured." I don't receive a friendly reminder when I walk to the grocery store that I may, at any moment, witness or experience grevious bodily harm or death. Why? It is assumed that if you turn on your TV, leave your room, or are in any way exposed to the world in which we live, you will at some point encounter conflict and if the ones who raised you did their jobs, you'll know it and be ready to deal with that conflict.

We hold our fictions to standards we would never impose on our reality. Then, when our reality matches fiction, we blame the fiction for inspiring reality instead of seeing that reality is what inspired the fiction.

 

[bravetoaster]

You guys make good points. I know I'm not convincing any of you guys about how violence in games doesn't turn us into killers. But I'm hoping by spreading the word and making well-reasoned arguments the idea will somehow filter into the mainstream thought.

Greg

While you did make some fairly decent points, most of said points have been said time and time again already. This article is nothing more than preaching to the choir.

But really, I had a problem with your arguments as soon as you said this;

I've read all the arguments the videogame opponents throw out. "All that exposure to violence can't be good." "Studies show people are more aggressive after playing games." "My kids play too much dang videogames!" And you know what? They are all bullshit.

These are not bullshit whatsoever. Extensive exposure to violent media constantly is generally a sign that something is not right, studies have shown that short-term aggression increases when playing video games (or any other violent media for that matter), and if the kids are spending every day of every week playing games I'd say that's a bit too much video gaming or that the child is not getting something that he needs.

Are you referring to studies other than the two Greg previously posted about on this site (and linked to in this article)? If so, I'm genuinely interested in seeing them. The two aforementioned studies didn't show that people were more aggressive, that's basically just what the authors concluded. If your methods are crap, your conclusions can't be much more than crap, either, unfortunately.

The problem is, among other things--how do you test if video games (or any audio-visual media) contribute to real-world violence?

First, I'd want to know 1) if real-world violence is more often perpetrated by people who play video games (while accounting for factors like socioeconomic status, education, etc.) than it is by people who don't play video games (or than people who only play non-violent games), 2) what percentage of gamers have been seriously violent (i.e., done something that resulted in police involvement or any sort of legal documentation to demonstrate that they've been violent), and 3) some sort of gaming profile of violent and non-violent gamers (for instance, you could acquire approximate play times for most games they own, at least assuming Microsoft and Sony keep similar data to Steam... do they play primarily at a certain time? Do violent gamers play alone? Do violent gamers play more violent games more regularly [or more 'aggressively'] than non-violent gamers?).

...then you could at least start to examine the real question, if there was anything in all of that data to suggest that gamers (or a subset of gamers) might be more violent than the rest of the population. It's something worthy of study, but it wouldn't be cheap or easy to design, carry out, or come up with conclusive results (while still only performing broad analyses and ethical experiments). Hell, if actually done well, it could be pretty timeless/important research. Odds are very good that violent games do not cause violence, but do people who are more prone to act violently play differently than others? Does exposing young children to graphic violence (in games or other entertainment media) cause or contribute to problems later in life?

 

[gamernerdtg2]

@ Living Contradiction - Have you ever played football growing up? Have you ever trained in a martial art or in boxing? If you did, you wouldn't be so frustrated about these outlets. There are rules in football and boxing. There's a difference between what you're saying and street violence, or terrorist violence. You make no distinction, and I would gently suggest that this is not a good idea.

In typical fashion, people are blurring the definition of violence because they are annoyed with this issue. My point is that games have become progressively more gory, and no one cares. In fact, we like it. Can it be used as an outlet for frustrations? Absolutely. But this generation of kids playing games don't have the access to other outlets like I did when I was going to school. Music and art is being taken out of schools. Some parents are afraid to let their children go out and play with other children. So as a result, they sit for 20 hours in front of a screen.
If you're telling me that this has no impact on someone's development, I just don't believe it. At the very least it desensitizes people to gore. I'm going to clarify that when I say violent, I'm talking about gory, Connecticut violence. Mortal Kombat, Doom,etc.

 

[Jumplion]

Are you referring to studies other than the two Greg previously posted about on this site (and linked to in this article)? If so, I'm genuinely interested in seeing them. The two aforementioned studies didn't show that people were more aggressive, that's basically just what the authors concluded. If your methods are crap, your conclusions can't be much more than crap, either, unfortunately.

I'll message you the article if I can find it sometime, the search function on forums always seem to elude me.

The problem is, among other things--how do you test if video games (or any audio-visual media) contribute to real-world violence?

Most studies on violent media aren't about linking said media to real-world violence, they are about finding a potential like to aggression, and we to basically understand that some short-term aggression can occur. It is also equally likely that some of said media can be used to assuage and relieve stress. No ifs, ands, or buts, it just is what it is. If (non)game journalists want to politicize that, fine, but that's not what the science is trying to do.

First, I'd want to know 1) if real-world violence is more often perpetrated by people who play video games (while accounting for factors like socioeconomic status, education, etc.) than it is by people who don't play video games (or than people who only play non-violent games), 2) what percentage of gamers have been seriously violent (i.e., done something that resulted in police involvement or any sort of legal documentation to demonstrate that they've been violent), and 3) some sort of gaming profile of violent and non-violent gamers (for instance, you could acquire approximate play times for most games they own, at least assuming Microsoft and Sony keep similar data to Steam... do they play primarily at a certain time? Do violent gamers play alone? Do violent gamers play more violent games more regularly [or more 'aggressively'] than non-violent gamers?).

Again, these studies aren't about violence, just aggression. People tend to extremize these studies to use as either straw-mans or overexaggerated points for whichever side they are on. If the study finds some correlation with violent media and aggressive/violent behavior, it is instantly branded as "anti-media". If it finds some correlation with media and some sortof well being in the mind like increased comprehension, whatever, then people use it as some be-all end-all discussion on the matter. That is not the case.

...then you could at least start to examine the real question, if there was anything in all of that data to suggest that gamers (or a subset of gamers) might be more violent than the rest of the population. It's something worthy of study, but it wouldn't be cheap or easy to design, carry out, or come up with conclusive results (while still only performing broad analyses and ethical experiments). Hell, if actually done well, it could be pretty timeless/important research. Odds are very good that violent games do not cause violence, but do people who are more prone to act violently play differently than others? Does exposing young children to graphic violence (in games or other entertainment media) cause or contribute to problems later in life?

You are taking these studies to personally. No study has tried to find if "gamers" are more violent, or anything regarding violence for that matter, simply aggression. Slightly semantics, I know, but it is an important distinction that I feel many people do not bother with.

Your last few sentences are perfectly valid. It's unfortunate, however, that most people do not bother to ask these questions and simply brush them off.

 

[Living Contradiction]

@ Living Contradiction - Have you ever played football growing up? Have you ever trained in a martial art or in boxing? If you did, you wouldn't be so frustrated about these outlets. There are rules in football and boxing. There's a difference between what you're saying and street violence, or terrorist violence. You make no distinction, and I would gently suggest that this is not a good idea.

Tell someone with a concussion that his injury is better because the person who knocked him out laced his gloves the right way and didn't use brass knuckles. Tell an ER doctor that the patient with a broken shoulder took a legitimate risk when she got on the field and that it makes that fracture better than if she was attacked in an alley. Violence, no matter how we dress it up and tell it to behave itself in public, is still violence and its results remain the same regardless of the rules and structures we erect around them.

That being said, the gore you've noticed escalating? It isn't escalating; It has always been there (Mortal Kombat, one of the bloodiest franchises in existance, came out in 1992. Things have stayed pretty constant since then as far as blood content goes). The reason we notice it more now than we did twenty years ago is because, unlike back then, when something bloody happens today, everyone has a means of seeing it and reacting to it instantly. We're sitting in that means right now. With a few keystrokes, I can call up images of Abu Ghraib, the Valentine's Day Massacre, and the Tianamen Square protests. Bloody, gory, horrible events that can give any video game you could name a run for its money and all of which are years, even decades old. Those are just the ones that got photographed. Can you imagine the coverage if the Munich Olympic killings took place today? Or Kristallnacht? Or any one of a hundred different nightmarish spectacles that fill history? That's an ugly part of our past and present: the violent acts we inflict on one another.

I'm not condemning the violence; It is part of our lives and I accept it as an element of the world I share with everyone. What I condemn is the idea that it has a single source: video games. I condemn the notion that a video game, no other factor, makes people aggressive and pushes them to violent acts. That line of thinking screams its ignorance, both of the world we live in and the people who live within it.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

@ Living Contradiction - These three paragraphs corrospond with your three...

The person that gets hurt in the street will not be able to confront his attacker later on. The person who gets hurt in the ring or on the field has access to the other party, and there can be an emotional release that makes the physical healing process way easier. In the case of sports, legal action (fines etc) are imposed on the person at fault. In the street it's you or them and legal action may not be an option. The difference lies in the intent. You have an interesting way of lumping all violence together. I dissagree with this because it ignores how complicated we are. Again, the intent is very important. The art part in the martial arts comes from the self-knowledge that you gain if you take it seriously. That kind of "violence" (as you would call it) deserves a separate distinction.

It's very interesting that you don't mention American historical violence. Emmet Till. As an American, I feel that we have much to talk about regarding this issue within our own country. That's for another thread. Before Mortal Kombat, this kind of gory violence wasn't even an issue, nor were ratings on console games. That is quite significant to me. It wasn't in as many games as it is today. The violence in Ninja Gaiden II for the 360 is way more gruesome, and way more bloody than Mortal Kombat. I had to play Sigma 2 on the PS3 because I just couldn't deal with Gaiden II on the 360. It's non stop. There aren't as many games out there like Gaiden II, but my point is that it's gotten worse, and it continues.

Yes,violence doesn't come from one source. However, the perspective that lumps all violence into one thing is just as polarized as the view claiming that games kill people. We gamers are great at defending ourselves, but we're miserable when it comes to owning the flaws in our perspectives when it comes to the issue of violence in games.

Great response by the way. I can see that this website has very well written, thoughtful folk dispersed throughout here. Me likey.

 

[101flyboy]

Good article. Although I will say that, the truth is, although US violent crime rates are declining and in other parts of the world violent crime rates are increasing, the US in particular seems like a very high-strung, hyper-aggressive culture. No, aggressiveness isn't a bad thing but aggressiveness can turn bad quickly. There's aggressiveness and then there's recklessness. There is a major issue in the US in regards to........emotional and behavioral health. Banning violent video games won't fix that. But there is truth in the fact that kids who *are* in a vulnerable place and see the culture around them more or less openly promoting violence through video games and otherwise, will become violent themselves and given they're in a distressed mode, take it too far. Most things are best in moderation.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

Good article. Although I will say that, the truth is, although US violent crime rates are declining and in other parts of the world violent crime rates are increasing, the US in particular seems like a very high-strung, hyper-aggressive culture. No, aggressiveness isn't a bad thing but aggressiveness can turn bad quickly. There's aggressiveness and then there's recklessness. There is a major issue in the US in regards to........emotional and behavioral health. Banning violent video games won't fix that. But there is truth in the fact that kids who *are* in a vulnerable place and see the culture around them more or less openly promoting violence through video games and otherwise, will become violent themselves and given they're in a distressed mode, take it too far. Most things are best in moderation.

According to which statistics?
recklessness is a good distinction.

 

[Living Contradiction]

Great response by the way. I can see that this website has very well written, thoughtful folk dispersed throughout here. Me likey.

Heh. Glad I can offer you a surprise. I'm going to tear your argument apart though.

I can only assume you're being disingenuous when you say I didn't cite American violence. Who ran Abu Ghraib? Where did the Valentine's Day Massacre happen and who pulled the trigger? I threw Tianamen Square in there to demonstrate that bloody horrors are not unique to the U.S.

You argue that intent trumps physical outcome, that by ignoring intent I ignore the complexity of humanity. I counter that humanity, quite often, isn't all that complicated and that, for all our complexity, injury and death remain as they are: physical damage. We've struggled quite a bit to get to this stage of complexity, to where violent behaviour is something that can considered at a remove from what is "real". It leaks from time to time and we get sports injury and street crime, but by and large, violence is deemed to be in a cage in our society. Video games add one more layer of remove; Nobody gets hurt when someone rips into ninjas or mows down a small army with a machine gun in a game and there is no potential for injury beyond repetitive muscle strain or poor posture and the occasional epileptic reaction. Maybe the occasional head injury from a thrown controller during a co-op game, maybe.

I'll leave the blow-by-blow comparison of whether Ninja Gaiden II sheds more blood than Mortal Kombat for those that wish to fight it and I'll concede that we don't get pauses in the action that occurred in the days of coin-op play, which can make for a seamless and more intense experience today. Calling it worse though? You just discarded your previous argument, that intent changes the violence enacted, by ignoring the motivations of the characters. Gaiden II is a rescue story with shades of revenge and defense of the status quo thrown in. MK is a tournament-style slaughterfest that exists simply for its own sake. Which would you consider more violent, using intent as your yard stick?

Finally, I'm not trying to lump all forms of violence into one glob for the purpose of creating a polarized stance. I'm pointing to a truth that critics of video game violence go out of their way to avoid because it invalidates their arguments: Violence is everywhere and always has been. It has many forms and, as you've noted, many different motivations. Singling one form of violence out for persecution because it is violence, especially when it's already highly regulated and doesn't have pertinence to a given situation, is scapegoating. It ignores the problem that caused the situation and allows that situation to be played out again and again until someone speaks up and breaks the cycle of ignorance to point people in a new direction.

Is someone who pulls a gun on me for my wallet different from someone who cocks his rifle before shooting an enemy officer? Yes. If those guns go off, will the results be the same? Yes. When the motives are gone and you're left with the physical manifestation of a violent act, the body is still dead.

 

[bravetoaster]

Are you referring to studies other than the two Greg previously posted about on this site (and linked to in this article)? If so, I'm genuinely interested in seeing them. The two aforementioned studies didn't show that people were more aggressive, that's basically just what the authors concluded. If your methods are crap, your conclusions can't be much more than crap, either, unfortunately.

I'll message you the article if I can find it sometime, the search function on forums always seem to elude me.

Thanks--I hope you're able to track it down.

these studies aren't about violence, just aggression. People tend to extremize these studies to use as either straw-mans or overexaggerated points for whichever side they are on. If the study finds some correlation with violent media and aggressive/violent behavior, it is instantly branded as "anti-media". If it finds some correlation with media and some sort of well being in the mind like increased comprehension, whatever, then people use it as some be-all end-all discussion on the matter. That is not the case.

I get that they're looking at things that they are calling "aggression" or taking to be behavioral markers of aggression, but their methods are lousy and the results end up being kind of meaningless. Take the U of Missouri study--they used an EEG after having subjects play violent or non-violent video games and found that the ones who'd played violent games (for the study or a good bit otherwise) displayed less brain activity to violent images than the non-violent games group did. They then concluded that that was a sign of desensitization to violence. ...but it's not. They have a different response to the violent images, certainly, but there's a huge gap in the logic, there, between their results and that conclusion. Do people who've played violent games simply attend to different pieces of information? Have they simply learned, through their games, to process certain information more efficiently (thus requiring less brain activity to even think/feel the same thing that the other subjects thought/felt)? Those kinds of things are massive problems (but could be addressed/tested/evaluated using other methods... which I realize is always much easier to say when you're not the one having to set up and perform the experiments). Regarding the air horn in that study--that's an interesting (and kind of clever) test, but there are quite a few issues with it.

1) As far as I can tell (their methods section is woefully brief), they never tested subjects prior to their playing the games (to provide a proper control for the "aggression" [I use that word here just for simplicity's sake] of each subject) and without that, we can't know if their findings were simply the result of poor group assignment or not (granted, they're probably not, but not having good controls in your study is a serious problem)

2) Did all subjects have the normal/good hearing at the time of testing? If not, then you've got a potential problem.

3) Are the subjects who played violent video games "more aggressive" in non-competitive, non-game scenarios? That is, if people who play violent games are "more aggressive" when playing games, but not "aggressive" in any scenario, then... who cares?

Their results and conclusions may accurately reflect reality, but there are many issues with their research.

You are taking these studies to personally. No study has tried to find if "gamers" are more violent, or anything regarding violence for that matter, simply aggression. Slightly semantics, I know, but it is an important distinction that I feel many people do not bother with.

My argument, though, is that they should research whether or not games (or other media) might contribute to violence. As I think I said--it wouldn't be cheap or easy to examine, but it's something that is very much worth doing.

Your last few sentences are perfectly valid. It's unfortunate, however, that most people do not bother to ask these questions and simply brush them off.

Well said, along with the part above about people "overexaggerating points for whichever side they are on".

 

[Jumplion]

Snip

I will say, I am absolutely, 100% okay with you questioning their results and how they achieved them. Some of those concerns are perfectly valid, and it would be very interesting if someone could make a study or two that would address those concerns.

However, there are two major things that bother me with your post (not specifically because of you, more in general);

1. Just because there are some questions as to what these results really mean does not mean that people should toss these results out and completely disregard them, which is what tends to happen with any study that has some sort of conclusion that is percieved to be "anti-game".

2. If a study found some sort of positive correlation, as some have, absolutely nobody would criticize it in the slightest (not that I would expect them, really, it is a gaming site after all) and people would probably start cracking FOX News jokes, claim that "its just common sense!", and generally self-righteous pratts about it.

What I would really like is just some consistency in the criticisms. But people tend to just immediately go for one side with these kinds of studies and as a result it devalues any sort of discussion we may have about the topic of violence in video games, media, and in our culture in general.

 

[gamernerdtg2]

@ Living Contradiction - well thank you for that small education you just gave about Al Capone and US torture abroad. I appreciate it, and I certainly didn't know about those instances. I like surprises especially when they educate me.

You said that you're going to "tear" my arguement apart, which is proof of what I'm going to say here: No way can you say that violence is soley physical damage. Your language is violent, but it's not causing me physical damage. (and I will clarify that I'm not offended in any way.) In the cases where the physical damage can be healed, there are emotional and psychological repercussions that this polarized view of violence ignores. Words can also be violent.

One of my in-laws did Vietnam three times. He lost all his freinds. He told me that there are some video games that he can't even watch because the images will set off post traumatic stress. You're saying that violence is soley physical damage? No way.

None of the modern gamers are factoring in the long term effects that these images have on children because they aren't parents yet - the kids that are alive in Connecticut will never forget what happened to them, even though they survived. The survivors lost their friends. I wonder if they will play violent games after seeing what they've seen, heard, and felt.

We agree that people who oppose what's happening with video games aren't thinking their arguments through. Violence is certainly a part of life, but brutality is not always a part of it. Brutality (and the many shades of violence) in games has to be confronted honestly before it can be accepted - meaining that I have to decide if I can deal with the depictions on screen or not. Plus I have a family, and I don't want my kid exposed to something before he is mature enough to sort it out psychologically, and emotionally. The restrictions from the ESRB aren't stopping kids from having access to violent games anymore than the gun laws stopped that kid from killing his mother. I'm saying that we all need to be honest about how violence affects us. It's way more than physical damage, and I don't see how your philosophy of what violence is can be used to ward off the ignorance of these people claiming that games kill.

 

[bravetoaster]

Snip

I will say, I am absolutely, 100% okay with you questioning their results and how they achieved them. Some of those concerns are perfectly valid, and it would be very interesting if someone could make a study or two that would address those concerns.

However, there are two major things that bother me with your post (not specifically because of you, more in general);

1. Just because there are some questions as to what these results really mean does not mean that people should toss these results out and completely disregard them, which is what tends to happen with any study that has some sort of conclusion that is percieved to be "anti-game".

2. If a study found some sort of positive correlation, as some have, absolutely nobody would criticize it in the slightest (not that I would expect them, really, it is a gaming site after all) and people would probably start cracking FOX News jokes, claim that "its just common sense!", and generally self-righteous pratts about it.

What I would really like is just some consistency in the criticisms. But people tend to just immediately go for one side with these kinds of studies and as a result it devalues any sort of discussion we may have about the topic of violence in video games, media, and in our culture in general.

Regarding point 1, I absolutely agree and am sorry if I said or came off otherwise (if the former, I was simply wrong; if the latter, I was unclear). Science is slow and incremental and it's extremely difficult to reach grand conclusions with a single experiment (or even several experiments, usually). This doesn't mean their experiments aren't potentially valuable, but it does mean that people ought to hold off on making grand, definitive conclusions from this and similar experiments.

It's entirely possible that violent entertainment media can have negative effects on people (or certain subsets of people) in the real world, but this data doesn't show that. It might serve as a small piece in the overall puzzle, but there's a good bit more research that ought to be done before we can make a reasonably accurate guess as to what (if anything) is really happening--that's all I really mean to say. Admittedly, it's probably mostly the reports about these studies that are overstating things, but that's still a bad and dishonest move--the fact is, right now, we don't know. (Maybe that's the thing that gets me bent out of shape about all this--we don't know, and that's okay. We need to not assume that violent media cannot do any harm or that we should start censoring our art and speech without having a good reason to do so. In other words: I don't think violent video games, movies, or television are genuinely harmful, but I'm open to the possibility that they can be (or are).)

Regarding point 2 and your last paragraph: You're awesome. No, seriously, it has been delightful reading your responses and you make wonderful (albeit depressing) points. I tend to fall into the camp of "defending games/entertainment" as a reactionary thing not so much because I think they can't possibly be harmful, but because the 'opposing side' tends to argue for blind censorship or to dismiss entire artistic media. Basically, I'm open to the possibility that entertainment can be harmful, but, until there's reasonably strong evidence of how, when, why, and/or to whom it is harmful, I'm going to oppose censorship of it (and if we do ultimately find that fictional violence is harmful in some manner, I'll support addressing that issue). That puts me in a strange position when confronted with someone who has a genuinely reasonable attitude on this kind of subject, because I fundamentally agree with you (at least from what I understand of your perspective), but start off sounding more defensive than I'd need to be and, as you put it, that really does devalue the discussion.