Research Finds Negative Effects in Violent Videogames

[jklinders]

Let me count the problems here.

Sample size=70 students-microscopic.
Sample group= all from same school, very little diversity
duration of test=3 days

The lack of diversity, short duration and small sample size of this "study" says nothing about the population at large. you cannot possibly even begin to rule out any of the really important variables with these systemic flaws in the study.

Might be good enough for a high school project but I would expect much higher standards than this from a university. Is this what people are paying 10s of thousands of dollars on education to learn to do these days?

 

[Adeptus Aspartem]

Did my school diploma thesis on that subject.

Again another study which reveals "short term aggresion". This is nothing new. When you play a violent game and get questioned directly after the gaming session, you're more aggressive.

A bunch of studies also revealed that it's not really a violence-aggression correlation, it's more an exctiment-aggresion correlation.
Because even test subjects which played exciting but non-violent games showed these effects. Games used to test this were racing games and similar stuff.

So far the long time effects are not proven to my knowledge. There's also yet no direct correlation between gaming induced short term aggression and real life effects (e.g. gamers bein' more violent to others), since all data which i saw is showing that humans usually are very good to differentiate between fiction and reality.

Basically only people who're nuts to begin with and can't abstract that stuff could become potentially more dangerous to the rest of us.

*shrug* Call me, when they find something new.

 

[Tohron]

Bear in mind, you can get those effects for some people just by telling them a violent story. So while the results may be noticeable, they don't really uniquely implicate videogames.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

i wonder if they considered how "frustrating" some games are.

obviously, someone who plays LoL or COD multiplayer is going to me much more frustrated than someone who plays a lite game (not saying superbike or dirt is)

but what i'm getting at is if they figured that into their game choice..there are plenty of violent games i play that i don't get frustrated with at all, while some old mario games i've gotten vehemently pissed off at when there is little to no violence at all.

still, interesting choices to do the study with.

 

[Johkmil]

Before everyone goes into research-bashing mode, let us look at what the study actually claims; people who play violent games will have a slightly more aggressive mindset afterwards. No "videogames cause violence," no "violent videogames kill," merely that we humans are an impressionable lot. Other things that increase aggressive behavior is having a bad day, being low in blood sugar or drinking alcohol, things that everyone goes through without murder every week. The study was limited in both scope and scale, and should be seen neither as a threat to violent games or as proof of their seduction of the innocent. We now know that playing Modern Warfare might make you more likely to choose violent paths in a choose-your-own-adventure story, or annoy people with noises; no more, perhaps less.

Ignoring studies and going for knee-jerk responses as "I HAVE MURDERED A GAZILLION DIGITAL NAZIS AND AM STILL SANE!!1!" really does not help our cause. It only makes us as ignorant as the murder-videogames crowd. This study will, as all others, be misrepresented and misused by the censorship-worshipers, but that does not give us license to stoop to their level. Taking the high ground is always the way to go in the long run.

 

[Scow2]

Books and movies are not interactive. That's a HUGE difference. Compare your thoughts about the protagonists actions in a movie such as Commando, and then compare them to the thoughts on the actions of your character in any game where you get to kill large numbers of enemies.

Personally, I don't see much of a difference. Clearly I'm massively unusual in that I can tell the difference between a game and reality, because I don't really care about shooting stuff on a screen any more than I'd care about demolishing an inconveniently placed apartment block, but I abhor violence and abuse of power in real life.

In addition, just because the medium is interactive shouldn't lead to the demonisation it receives. 80 years ago, people were horrified by burlesque (officially, anyway). Today it's fine. People were horrified by radio (for completely different reasons! ). Today it's fine. People were horrified when TV came out. Today it's a substitute nanny.

Gaming should be no different. Those who refuse to learn from history are too gorram' retarded to be permitted to influence policy decisions and societal perceptions. Unfortunately, to my eternal disgust, the population as a group are too retarded to keep the loonies in check.

Sometimes, I'm just ashamed to be human (and all that other unnecessarily over the top deprecation! ).

The effects of gaming aren't as extreme as people make them out to be, but the interactivity DOES add an element that I feel should be researched, though most research goes about it completely the wrong way. And I DON'T feel that the effects the medium has on people is negative.

 

[Mothhive]

The students were assigned to play either violent games - Call of Duty 4, Condemned 2 and The Club - or non-violent ones - S3K Superbike, Dirt 2 and Pure - once per day, for 20 minutes at a time. At the end of each session, they were given the beginning of a story and asked to list 20 things the lead character would say or do in it. The students who played violent games were more likely to think that the character would behave aggressively or violently, a belief that grew stronger with each passing day; those in the non-violent pool did not show any increased expectations of hostility.

So exposing someone to certain content results in that content being on their mind shortly afterwards? No shit!

If I showed you pictures of food for 20 minutes, I'd bet you'd be thinking about it afterwards, and maybe even get a little hungry, but you're not going to suddenly run off and become a chef because of it.

This research could be done with absolutely any form of media and you'd get the same results. Books, TV, Films, Music, whatever. To make the research solely on video games with a focus on aggression in this way just shows that the person conducting the experiment had an agenda. Whether that agenda is to villify violent games, or simply to gain more attention due to the provocative subject matter, this test was clearly biased.

 

[WieldsOblivion]

Ahahaa, 3 days = long term!

My sides -_-

 

[Johkmil]

Books and movies are not interactive. That's a HUGE difference. Compare your thoughts about the protagonists actions in a movie such as Commando, and then compare them to the thoughts on the actions of your character in any game where you get to kill large numbers of enemies.

Personally, I don't see much of a difference. Clearly I'm massively unusual in that I can tell the difference between a game and reality, because I don't really care about shooting stuff on a screen any more than I'd care about demolishing an inconveniently placed apartment block, but I abhor violence and abuse of power in real life.

In addition, just because the medium is interactive shouldn't lead to the demonisation it receives. 80 years ago, people were horrified by burlesque (officially, anyway). Today it's fine. People were horrified by radio (for completely different reasons! ). Today it's fine. People were horrified when TV came out. Today it's a substitute nanny.

Gaming should be no different. Those who refuse to learn from history are too gorram' retarded to be permitted to influence policy decisions and societal perceptions. Unfortunately, to my eternal disgust, the population as a group are too retarded to keep the loonies in check.

Sometimes, I'm just ashamed to be human (and all that other unnecessarily over the top deprecation! ).

The effects of gaming aren't as extreme as people make them out to be, but the interactivity DOES add an element that I feel should be researched, though most research goes about it completely the wrong way. And I DON'T feel that the effects the medium has on people is negative.

True.
Better knowledge about how the interactivity of games affects people might even help creating better games and more immersive gaming. Or help the big money create more addictive casual games/MMOs, as the old Skinner box is being overused. As long as we stay calm and do not overreact when things appear differently than we expected, gaming is not in a threatened position.

 

[DataSnake]

And as already mentioned up-thread, there's no control group... How are we to know that it's 'violent' games having an 'aggressive' effect and not 'non-violent' games having a pacifying effect?

My first thought was, "technically the non-violent games are the control group". Then I read this post. You make a very good point, which I can't believe I didn't see right away. The reason we use placebos in drug tests is we already know a sugar pill won't kill germs, reduce pain, or what have you. The only justification for doing this study was the claim that the amount of aggression in games can effect the amount of aggression players show in real life, constructing a perfect Morton's fork; there are three possible assumptions the scientists could have made, all of which fail the "does this make sense" test:
1. Videogames affect aggression; violent games increase violence, and non-violent games decrease it. This fails because it means the "control group" is nothing of the sort.
2. Videogames have no effect on aggression. This is a good null hypothesis, but you don't design your experiment to ONLY WORK IF THE NULL HYPOTHESIS HOLDS. Experiment design 101: Always. Isolate. Your. Variables.
3. Videogames can have negative effects, but never positive ones. If you see no problem with starting from this assumption, you've probably never heard of confirmation bias.

 

[Agayek]

Not only does this study not prove that violent video games make people commit more violence, but it also does not prove that violent video games even make people more aggressive. Unless you consider writing violent stories correlates into you being an aggressive person, which I think is silly.

It's really not though. It's a pretty clear indication of the person's mental state at the time they're answering the question(s). It's not perfect by any means, but it's definitely sufficient for this kind of study.

OT: This is actually rather interesting. The only question I have about it now is when, relative to the periods of gameplay, the questions/metrics were taken. There's already been studies that indicated a short-term increase in aggression after playing violent games, through somewhat similar means. I'm curious as to how that impacted this particular study. The seemingly-cumulative effect seems to indicate that there may well be long-term effects, but that may just be the short-term effects being compounded. We'd need more data to say.

Edit: Also, I've gotta say, the vehement, visceral, and knee-jerk reaction of the vast majority of the people in this thread is simultaneously hilariously depressing and depressingly hilarious. I am forcibly reminded of this:

 

[Mariahsyn]

I've actually seen the whole "decompress from violent games" thing work.

 

[Adultism]

Wow this is dumb, there are so many things I can counter but I don't even want to bother it would end up being a page long.

But the one thing that made me lol was victory noise, bahahaha I celebrated winning that means I'm mad right?

 

[Milanezi]

What the fuck is this "At the end of each session, they were given the beginning of a story and asked to list 20 things the lead character would say or do in it." I mean, hell, anyone with half a brain will think of a grim/violent attitude to a character who's been killing people in the game, such as a CoD soldier, Nikko Bellic, etc. WHY would a Dirt 2 character (aka rally pilot) be aggressive? I'm sorry, but at least this part of the research could only lead to one outcome...
As for the "noise". I feel that in fps multiplayers there's an instinctive feeling of "humiliation" when you lose, which automatically means there's an "extra" amount of "primitive" excitement when you win, the abilities required in a racing game and a shooting game are far too different, thus bringing different aspects/levels of excitement to the players.

Edit: I do believe, firmly, that violent games - in CERTAIN PEOPLE, who, for many other reasons, already have a tendency for violence OR, in the case of younger audiences, some sort of difficulty to differentiate reality from fiction, thus failing to have a decent grasp on social morality - can lead to an ultimate outburst of violence, probably due to the high level of interactivity that don't usually get from other media.

 

[Ruley]

This experiment is total rubbish in my opinion. mainly because of the core testing element it seems to use: "tell me a story"

Ok, so if i say to you: "don't think about a pink elephant" what are you going to think about? a pink elephant! thus if i asked you to tell me a story after that, chances are you might set it in the zoo because i gave you the idea of an animal. What was this guy expecting after having people play violent videogames? Of course they were going to discuss things at the forefront of their minds. He has no basis to draw conclusions in projecting over such a long term period in the future thanks to three days of study with a patchy core concept of experimentation.

A better test would have been say: examine peoples behavior for a week with no videogames, then have them play violent games the next week before examining their behavior during the videogame week and then the week after where you ban videogames again. I'd guarantee you that the aggressive behavior seen to have been induced by playing these games dissipates. But this still doesn't give anywhere near enough data for a long term conclusion. You would need a study spanning easily a year or more to be able to draw those kinds of conclusions!

add this experiment to the pile of useless amongst most other studies done on videogames

EDIT: Yet, as a scientist, i'm open and actually want to see more experimentation done on videogaming as an entertainment medium with its effects on a persons behavior documented. But only if the experiment is solid enough and data set broad enough to be taken seriously and hold up to questioning certain demographics and timescales.

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

If games made people violent then i expect hundreds of thousands of acts of violents connected to games. How many people are violent after eating a doughnut? There is no way you can make a link between games and violence. An not violence as in throwing a joypad as your frustrated through messing up a section of gameplay...i agree that happens. But actually a game making you go out and stab or kill another human being? No i doubt that so much.If thats the case then ban everything that stresses people out, music, driving, work and everything else.

 

[DestinyCall]

I'd be interested to know how many of the study participants play games in their free-time and whether or not that was accounted for in this study. 'Cause I'm not overly fond of first-person shooters, so I can see myself getting pretty frustrated after 20 minutes of dying repeatedly. Along the same lines, my parents would be completely lost if you handed them a controller and told them to play CoD4. Pretty sure they don't even understand the concept of a "thumbstick" or how to control the camera. While my brothers are both very into first-person shooters and spending ONLY 20 minutes playing one of those games would be pretty annoying for a completely different reason.


On a completely different subject, I'm curious what kind of results a study like this one would turn up with a video game that has more mixed elements. They chose first-person shooters as their "violent" games. What about a first person RPG-style shooter game, such as Fallout 3 or Skyrim? Those games have the potential for just as much violence, but they also offer a lot of non-violent gameplay and interesting scenery. I'm curious how aggressive people might be after spending 20 minutes of crafting increasingly complex suits of armor or arranging the nuka-cola bottles in their player-owned house ...

 

[AlexVanko]

Is this a joke? What kind of scientific study can conclude long-term impact from a three-day experiment with a straight face? This evidence is laughably flimsy.

 

[blackrave]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, we get it. "Video Games can cause aggression, aggression can mean violence."

The same way football players are more likely to use steroids than a lazy teenager, a person who drives everyday is more likely to get in a car accident, and a surfer is more likely to be eaten by a shark. Theres bad in everything, but i dont see them banning bulk tubs of "Scooperman" because to much "Frozen Dairy Desert" can lead to heart failure.

In the end, studies like this get us nowhere, and never will. Just because people are more angry after a few thousand rounds of CoD, doesnt mean they will go out and 360 noscope the neighbors cat.

Also, there was no control group that regularly watched violent movies and tv shows
I bet that they would have at least same effect on a person

 

[Mr F.]

Oh look, the gaming community is refusing to accept any evidence to state that their hobby could cause harm!

Sorry, we are starting to look too much like the pot smoking community. Every study that says our hobby can have negative effects is immediately ignored, any study that says our hobby can have positive effects is immediately preached from the mountaintop of moral superiority.

Finally, one quick point: Correlation does not indicate causation, Violent crime rates being stable (Or decreasing) does not neccesarily invalidate all of the research that shows videogaming can cause more violence, there is a substantial leap of logic taking place there.

But I do not see the point in writing any more. Chances are I am going to get flamed for what I have written so far.

Play lots of violent games, become more aggressive overall. Seems logical, I am willing to accept that as fact. Now, it is important to note that this study is not saying that people will become psychotic axe murderers, nor that we will start punching people in the face. Just that consuming lots of violent media can increase levels of aggression.

Why is that hypothesis so hard to accept?