Supernanny Tries to Prove Violent Games Are Bad

SmugFrog

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Sep 4, 2008
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Reality shows have been blown open in the past to reveal that they create whatever reality they want that makes for "good TV". I wouldn't be surprised if the writers decided to jump on the "videogames are bad" bandwagon. It seems to work well for politicians and news networks, so why not "reality" TV?
 

tkioz

Fussy Fiddler
May 7, 2009
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because such "scientific research" that is tainted by preconceived notions isn't anything but bullshit.
 

ItsAPaul

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Mar 4, 2009
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There are so many things wrong with that study that it wouldn't stand up if she were actually doing it for a scientific purpose. Also, why video games over movies?
 

Lullabye

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Oct 23, 2008
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......All i got from this is that violent fps' up your heart rate more than football games.....which makes them evil?
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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oneplus999 said:
G. Alarimm said:
The sample size is much too small, the article does not mention a control, the "evidence" or rather "results" are trivial and are affected by FAR too many factors to point to a single thing, and no, you are indeed not a neuroscientist.
Actually the 8/20 vs 16/20 is enough samples to establish a difference with an alpha < .05, which is generally acceptable as a strong result. The control is the football playing group. This is better than a group that did "nothing", since then it could be blamed on plenty of other factors, like adrenaline. You're right about there being too many factors tho, a non-violent but equally engaging game, like say Portal vs HL2, would have made more sense.

My problem is more with her methodology. This was not a double-blind experiment, because based on this description I'd say it's likely she knew which students had done football vs videogames when she conducted the pencil-drop test. She should have someone else performing this test who didn't know.

Of course, I'm not going to address the heart-rate study, since that's not actually showing anything meaningful. Yes, they were primed so they were familiar with violence ahead of time, and we're surprised when they saw more. Big deal.
Furthermore, each person has a different average heart rate. Some people's heart rates are much higher than others.
 

_Nocturnal

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Nov 4, 2006
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That's some good science there!
Yesterday, I made some research of my own, by way of offering money to some kids if they would punch a passing old person.
Those that played more football asked for less money, so Ms. Frost's theory appears to be quite wrong.
 

Vanguard_Ex

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Mar 19, 2008
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Heavy experimenter bias, no note of the sampling method, aiming to prove a point rather than at least prove her null hypothesis, which she also didn't have...yeah this seems legit.
 

domicius

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Apr 2, 2008
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I'm happy to buy the desensitization argument. Playing violent games *does* make me less prone to being shocked by violence, and seeing it more matter of factly.

So do movies, books and music dealing in the subject matter, by the way. So it just goes to show that kids (and adults) are affected by what they see. But even being desensitized to something does not indicate a tendency to it, however.

The pencil test is interesting; I can posit an alternative argument. Footballers are part of a team, and so have to cooperate with other players. FPS players presumably don't need to cooperate to such an extent (the study doesn't mention whether the kids were playing Team modes in the FPS). As a result, footballers are more likely to help somebody out than non-footballers. The test can be repeated with tennis players vs. footballers. Or pop stars.

See if Madonna would help you pick up those pencils.
 

brunothepig

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May 18, 2009
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Targie said:
To add to the points against this experiment I actually watched the show on TV last night.
Firstly the average resting heart rates (Beats per minute) for the non-violent group was apparently 80ish and just over 90 for the violent lot. Not only is the difference a little large for a test on heart rate jumps if the kids resting heart rates are that high I think finding out why should have been priority over doing this experiment. I mean 0.0.

The other half of the experiment involved in them being interviewed and the interviewer intentionally knocking down a pot of pens. The hypothesis was that the non-violent group would be more inclined to help. Whilst this was the case the procedure was in no way standardized as the researcher leant over to pick up the pens himself in 2 of the 4 shown from the non-violent group before they offered to help. Whereas in the violent group he was quick to ignore it and ask another question. Either they didn't help or otherwise would have been labelled ignorant etc. The test was biased to begin with.

I also fail to see the relation between helping to pick up pens and being desensitized to violence (Whilst it is worth research it isn't related to violence >.>)

I'm not a neuro scientist either but I am a psychology student well educated enough to notice bias and lack of standardization.

Summary: The experiment was too flawed to be considered valid. Another pop at videogames. Move along.

(What will be interesting is next week with the kid with an 80 (Something around there I believe) hour per week game addiction)

(An extra point: The football (Soccer) games themselves actually have footage of players squaring up to each other over disagreements, it can hardly be considered non-violent altogether as well (Tackling is a basic fundamental. Not really peaceful...@)
You stole pretty much everything I was going to say lol. But you put it much more eloquently, and actually saw the episode, I would have just been assuming it was bias. So have a cookie.

Anyway, apart from this, we don't know how she picked these children. It's a pathetically small sample space, and as she said, she is certainly not a scientist. How is helping to pick up pens at all relevant?
 

Chancecall

Money to burn
Nov 18, 2009
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I was watching this. With the second test, where the bloke knocked the pens off the table, it appeared that he was giving off different signals to the children anyway.

With the non gaming kids, he was looking at them and not moving, thus giving the child a window to pick up the pens. However when it came to the gaming kids, he would bend down straight away as if to pick them up. Naturally the adult in the room was in control of the situation and if he makes the move to pick up the pens, the child would not move. It wasn't even the case that they had no manners, it was just the situation they were being placed in was suggestive that they needn't help pick the pens up.

Besides, everyone knows gaming does not make you violent, and if you disagree I will have to kill you.
 

SeanthePsycho

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Nov 11, 2009
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Can English nanny's be discredited by the people that gave her her certification? I see Jack Thompson all over again.

I can see a few flaws with this study. For example, were the football players younger in age than the gamers? Were they all the same age? What news story was shown? Was there a control group who did neither activity? What does picking up pencils have to do with video games and desenistizing kids? Did it ever occur to her than kids are lazy at times and if they see a majority of them get up to do the deed, they don't have to do it themselves?

The lady should stick ot teaching American parents why they suck so much and lay off video game studies since her experiment is just another justification that playing Duck Hunt trains children to be apathetic killing machines.
 

Beeple

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Apr 16, 2009
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SeanthePsycho said:
Can English nanny's be discredited by the people that gave her her certification? I see Jack Thompson all over again.

I can see a few flaws with this study. For example, were the football players younger in age than the gamers? Were they all the same age? What news story was shown? Was there a control group who did neither activity? What does picking up pencils have to do with video games and desenistizing kids? Did it ever occur to her than kids are lazy at times and if they see a majority of them get up to do the deed, they don't have to do it themselves?

The lady should stick ot teaching American parents why they suck so much and lay off video game studies since her experiment is just another justification that playing Duck Hunt trains children to be apathetic killing machines.
1) I believe they were the same age but it wasn't specified (protection of under 16's is very heavy).
2) Nope no control group. Ridiculous I know >.>
3) Bugger all as far as I can see, whilst it isn't necessarily a bad experiment it has little to do with violent video games desensitizing people to violence.
4) Apparently not, they also fail to realize people won't stop to pick up some pens if the person who knocks them over hurriedly blurts out a question expecting an answer to distract them.
5) Agreed.
 

Break

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Sep 10, 2007
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Funny thing about the pencils - influencing people to make them more or less likely to help is an alarmingly simple process. Hell, having someone think about food or money for ten minutes makes them substantially less likely to help pick something up, since they're in a well-off, capable mindset. This makes them more likely to assume that other people can handle something as simple as picking up a dropped pencil - it just doesn't register as a problem they need help with. It's something that's easily done, and has little to no long-term effect on behaviour. It's a meaningless result to a meaningless test, even if they hadn't forced the result and rendered the whole experiment pointless.
 

oneplus999

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Oct 4, 2007
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Zer_ said:
Furthermore, each person has a different average heart rate. Some people's heart rates are much higher than others.
Actually that's not an issue, but of course it means you have to have a large enough sample size. I can't comment on whether 20 per set is enough or not, since it would depend on the standard deviation of the subjects' average heart rates and the difference between the mean heart rates of the test vs control set, but this isn't an insurmountable issue.
 

FinalHeart95

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Jun 29, 2009
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Football is exercise. Exercise increases your BPM.

I just disproved an entire study. Go me. Oh, and maybe you want more than 40 test subjects. After all, there are, what, 1 BILLION gamers out there? 40 isn't enough to get a good read.

Also, we should probably test if football desensitizes people to violence using this same study. We could if there was a control group. [sarcasm]But no, sports are socially acceptable, so there's no way there can be any negative effects from them... right? [/sarcasm]
 

Zer_

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Feb 7, 2008
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oneplus999 said:
Zer_ said:
Furthermore, each person has a different average heart rate. Some people's heart rates are much higher than others.
Actually that's not an issue, but of course it means you have to have a large enough sample size. I can't comment on whether 20 per set is enough or not, since it would depend on the standard deviation of the subjects' average heart rates and the difference between the mean heart rates of the test vs control set, but this isn't an insurmountable issue.
That depends, I mean sure the more subjects you have the higher the chances that the average will be closer to the mean heart rate for homo sapiens, but it still has a chance to skew results, especially considering that some people have some rather quick heart rates.

That's not taking into consideration the different psychological reactions that people get from games (I'm not saying people who play games are psycho, but everyone has a slightly different reaction to games).