New Study Dismisses Link Between Violence and Videogames

[TheDoctor455]

This is not a new study. This is a summation of old studies and things we already knew.

P.S. Thanks

P.P.S. Besides, in two weeks, someone will have a new study that confirms the link between violence and video games, and two weeks after that it'll be disproven again.

This is what we call a 'Meta-Study'. As in, it looks as many other studies as possible and analyzes their findings, as well as reviewing their research methodology.

Granted, this one has basically only confirmed what a lot of us already suspected about anti-videogame studies, but still. Progress is progress.

A Meta-Study is useful for finding out what the generally accepted conclusions are, as well as identifying holes in research being performed.

 

[ThatLankyBastard]

newsflash: Link found between video games and the sudden increase of farmers found!

some say it's just a video game, but players of the ever popular Farmville had taken their fictitious green thumbs and put them to the real world. "I would sit in front of my computer every day planting virtual crops, so that trained me to become a great farmer!" said one player who would only give OpTiCx N0sc0p3 420 BLAZE as their name, "I'm making mad points by using what I learned in video games!"

While the increase of food production is being felt around the world, people are wondering how far is too far?

"we have long standing regulations and work hours, but now you get these kids out here working 36 hour days and completely destroying the lands making 'art'" says one local farmer, "the worst part is they keep knocking on my door every few hours with something, saying it's a gift if I help them with their farm, I'm getting tired of sending them away, and their damn cows keep pooping all over the lawn!".


But when will it all end? will these gamers who cant tell the difference between reality and fantasy end up creating a farm that covers the entire US? will we see groups forming together to raid Mazes and Monsters? will there be a sudden increase of pro football and basketball players?

signs point to yes.

Stay tuned to Sarcasm Daily, up next we have why your cats are secretly plotting to kill everyone you know and why the Mantis Shrimp will be the end of the world.

That is the best post I have seen today...
My hat's off to you, friend!

 

[redknightalex]

Pretty much. In the veritable avalanche of scientific studies it's rather easy to ignore one whenever it doesn't suit your agenda.

Although any scientist worth their salt would consider opposing opinions before even considering publishing to a peer-reviewed journal, even if they need to come up with it themselves or completely contradicts their own line of thinking. That's the beauty, and the fault, of science: there's no real way of knowing, 100% if something is right. Pretty sure that science has had their own problems yet they have, in the end, mostly corrected them, ie homosexuality being in the DSM III and there-after no longer considered a mental disorder. It's not perfect, and science still has a new set of problems to figure out, but science itself is not at fault.

OT: The study looks to be a decent read but I've read better metas on this subject five years ago than this one. They've been doing research on violence and video games since the early '90s (at least), which many studies also include violent TV, and most came up with no correlation.

Then again, try to teach politicians about correlation because I'm sure that brings in the money. Oops, I meant voters.

 

[Snotnarok]

Then there's the people who want to tax violent video games, like that will stop people from buying them? It's amusing how every form of medium has to go through this witches trial till it's proven guilty, as it cannot be innocent.
What causes violence? Elvis and those uncontrollable hips of his!

 

[Jamous]

Excellent stuff, I was just wondering about finding myself a decent study I can bookmark for source purposes. Ta!

 

[Zhukov]

This study confirms my previously held beliefs.

I shall now hail it as correct and irrefutable, despite knowing virtually nothing about how its data was gathered and studied.

 

[Lo Flying Frying Pan]

I would hope this would be the definitive blow in the long, tiresome argument. But I know the truth, and it is that this will simply be discarded by those in opposition to the gaming-markets. Largely because there isn't much of debate in the whole matter. It's an unending cycle of finger-pointing by people who aren't comfortable with facts that deflate their points. Their answer has always been to disregard anything counter to their beliefs. You can lead a horse to water, but ...

 

[Spud of Doom]

This is all well and good, but we (gamers) pretty much already knew all about this. What's really important is who will this study reach? If this doesn't reach government officials it probably won't do much.

THE MEDIA COALITION was founded in 1973. It represents most of the booksellers, publishers, librarians, periodical distributors, recording and videogame manufacturers, and recording and video retailers in the United States. Its members are:

American Booksellers Foundation for Free Expression
Association of American Publishers, Inc.
Comic Book Legal Defense Fund
Entertainment Merchants Association
Entertainment Software Association
Freedom to Read Foundation
Motion Picture Association of American, Inc.
Recording Industry Association of American Inc.

Pretty hefty list of members. I would expect that they make themselves known.

 

[Retardinator]

It's a vicious cycle isn't it? Somebody calls out games on violence, a study is released negating the ever-loving-shit out of it, rinse, repeat.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

It's a vicious cycle isn't it? Somebody calls out games on violence, a study is released negating the ever-loving-shit out of it, rinse, repeat.

In some ways, yes, but you can take heart in knowing that the other side keeps falling back onto the same tired arguments. There's no real methodology on the detractors' side, only the collating of face-value claims made by convicted saprophytes who aren't stupid.

I mean, think about it. You're caught red-handed after murdering your folks or your neighbours or whoever else. The insanity plea won't stick for whatever reason, but the 21st century comes with a new escape clause - the "GTA Made Me Do It!" clause. That way your pride takes a massive trampling and you pass for the kind of guy who can be pushed into extreme actions with the slightest of prods - but hey, your sentence is probably going to be reduced because you've "obviously" proven that it isn't your fault!

It'll be a long while before things really start evolving. I'd say our generation needs to outclass the baby-boomers before that sort of mentality changes, because they and their parents still look to our hobby with the kind of vaguely revulsed attitude their own parents had during the Hippie and Rock and Roll eras.

Looking at the games industry from their point of view, I can almost understand: we're pushing forty in some cases and I'm starting to hear about your first few cases of sixtysomething Skyrim players. We're mature adults and yet we're engaging in something that feels even more fruitless and non-productive than the previous generation's rigmarole of starting bands, gathering to listen at records or smoking weed.

Try explaining the concept of player engagement to one of your grandparents if you've still got one or two alive. If you're lucky, they'll get it. If you aren't - like me - anything you might bring up as being something that fosters a sense of implication will be ignored.

 

[Retardinator]

It's a vicious cycle isn't it? Somebody calls out games on violence, a study is released negating the ever-loving-shit out of it, rinse, repeat.

In some ways, yes, but you can take heart in knowing that the other side keeps falling back onto the same tired arguments. There's no real methodology on the detractors' side, only the collating of face-value claims made by convicted saprophytes who aren't stupid.

I mean, think about it. You're caught red-handed after murdering your folks or your neighbours or whoever else. The insanity plea won't stick for whatever reason, but the 21st century comes with a new escape clause - the "GTA Made Me Do It!" clause. That way your pride takes a massive trampling and you pass for the kind of guy who can be pushed into extreme actions with the slightest of prods - but hey, your sentence is probably going to be reduced because you've "obviously" proven that it isn't your fault!

It'll be a long while before things really start evolving. I'd say our generation needs to outclass the baby-boomers before that sort of mentality changes, because they and their parents still look to our hobby with the kind of vaguely revulsed attitude their own parents had during the Hippie and Rock and Roll eras.

Looking at the games industry from their point of view, I can almost understand: we're pushing forty in some cases and I'm starting to hear about your first few cases of sixtysomething Skyrim players. We're mature adults and yet we're engaging in something that feels even more fruitless and non-productive than the previous generation's rigmarole of starting bands, gathering to listen at records or smoking weed.

Try explaining the concept of player engagement to one of your grandparents if you've still got one or two alive. If you're lucky, they'll get it. If you aren't - like me - anything you might bring up as being something that fosters a sense of implication will be ignored.

I know, but it's about goddamn time this whole stupid and pointless argument is put to rest. I can't bear listening to it anymore (and I'm certainly not the only person who feels that way). The problem with the "GTA made me do it" plea is that it almost instantly gets dismissed in court (at least I hope), but the media then picks it up and runs with it because they're being fucking idiots, as usual, as well as the people who listen to them.

I have a neighbor who's 70+ and plays FPS games (specifically WW2) because he hasn't got much else to do with his time, being 70-something years old. It's an excellent way to spend time for a pensioner. I just wish more older people shared his view. I was blown away when he first came up to me and said he needed help getting through a level in MoH. Then a couple months later he said another one of the neighbors (also in the 60's or 70's) needed some help with getting CoD to run. It was completely inconceivable from my perspective, but it turns out that it might be a bigger thing than I thought.

As for your fruitless and productive argument, I don't think so. It's the same now as it is in your example, come to think of it (a bit easier with the Internet at hand). Some people would just gather to smoke weed and listen to records, some would smoke weed and start producing their own music, maybe become something more than just a garage band. It's the same with games, I think. Some people just want to play, but if you actually want to make something, you can absolutely do that too. There are so many SDK's, editors and engines out there that if you really want to make a game, a mod, a level, anything really, you can. Maybe someday you'll become something more than a "garage modder", so to say. So it doesn't feel all that fruitless and non-productive, IMO.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Very good points.

I agree that none of this is counter-productive, but what I'm trying to get at is that working on a level or a mod still doesn't quite feel like you're actually doing something the wider world would consider to be worthwhile. Those of us who are in the know wouldn't care if you announced you were working on something based on the Unity engine - because it's more or less commonplace now.

Still, you'd probably run into the usual dismissive arguments. "You're developing a *game*? Why don't you do something more constructive with your time?"

It's just hard to make certain types understand that working on systems of play and general gameplay mechanics can be and absolutely is an engaging and rewarding activity.

 

[Retardinator]

Still, you'd probably run into the usual dismissive arguments. "You're developing a *game*? Why don't you do something more constructive with your time?"

If I was ever confronted with that question, my response would be: "Well, what's so constructive about the way YOU spend your time then? What's the most worthwhile thing YOU have ever accomplished?" Simple yet effective, because it brings out the hypocrite in them and makes them ponder their meager pointless existence, which every existence is essentially, so

Spoiler: Plot Twist

It doesn't really matter what you do with your time anyway and no-one should ever care about it!

Horrifying, but true. Life is but finding the right measure of not giving a shit.

 

[IamLEAM1983]

Life is but finding the right measure of not giving a shit.

Absolutely. It's just annoying having to even HEAR the same old naysayers, is all. All we can hope is that things will improve in the coming decades.

 

[Reeve]

I wonder when we'll get the "New Study dismisses link between sexism and videogames" Now that we've got the politically right's bs out of the way, it's about time we started on the left.

 

[CygnusMal]

Now while I agree with the premise, I do think that we should keep in mind that the Media Coalition isn't a research organization, it's a third-party advocacy group which lobbies for industry. In other words their members want to maintain the status quo to make money, or in certain cases, help craft legislation to protect their products (SOPA, PIPA, etc.)

I just wrapped up reading the 13-page report (not a "Study" Escapist" and the best they can come up with is that:
- The science on violent media and causing real-world violence in inconclusive at best
- Violent crime rates have gone down in recent years
- First Amendment, First Amendment, First Amendment

Again, I personally believe in the premise of what they are saying, that video games do not cause violence, but until a reputable scientific or medical organization comes forward with actual data, we gamers have to stop relying on crap "research" like this. Causation is not correlation and in order for us to defend games properly someone out there needs to do due diligence and get some hard science behind this thing.

 

[Pirate Of PC Master race]

Again, I personally believe in the premise of what they are saying, that video games do not cause violence, but until a reputable scientific or medical organization comes forward with actual data, we gamers have to stop relying on crap "research" like this. Causation is not correlation and in order for us to defend games properly someone out there needs to do due diligence and get some hard science behind this thing.

No matter how reputable or scientific they are, it is the fact that we cannot measure the quantity of the violence in the videogames.(let alone how much impact that may cause to the children.) Most of groups with sense would not start the research they cannot draw conclusion on.

 

[CygnusMal]

Most of groups with sense would not start the research they cannot draw conclusion on.

That's why I want to see a medical board or some folks from the scientific community take this on. Also it's not about measuring the quantity of violence in a videogame, it's about measuring the impact of that violence on the brain. From a quantitative standpoint you could take something mainstream and generally considered "violent", such as CoD or GTA and use that as your baseline. Actual games, actual people, actual neurologists collecting data - none of this third-party sponsored research that both sides seem to point to for their talking points.

This is probably something that will necessitate a federal research grant, which seems to be the way things are blowing towards anyway, but until then I remain skeptical on most of the "data" that's out there.