BLOG VIEW  |  HEADLINE VIEW
SUBMIT NEWS  |  RSS FEED  |  SEARCH

Video Games: Not Bad For You

FRIDAY NOVEMBER 23 2007 9:00 AM

Submitted by johnnyfu. Edited By erin_broadley.

TAGS: video games, violence



This is a sad day for self-righteous politicians, religious tight-asses and conservative cultural monitors. A new study calls bullshit on the connection between video game violence and real violence. Christopher Ferguson, a professor in the Department of Behavioral, Applied Sciences and Criminal Justice at Texas A&M International University, looked at 22 years of clinical studies on the effects of video games and found them seriously flawed.

"It is not hard to 'link' video game playing with violent acts if one wishes to do so, as one video game playing prevalence study indicated that 98.7 percent of adolescents play video games to some degree," [Ferguson] writes, "However, is it possible that a behavior with such a high base rate (i.e., video game playing) is useful in explaining a behavior with a very low base rate (i.e., school shootings)? Put another way, can an almost universal behavior truly predict a rare behavior?"



The reasoning is so obvious it’s almost dumb. Gaming is a 30-year-old, multi-billion dollar industry, and has survived for so long and accumulated so much money because video games are so popular that they're ubiquitous. Yeah, a couple of school shooters played video games. They probably watched television and ate at McDonald’s too.

The supposed proof that video games cause violence is sourced in a year 2000 study by Iowa State University researchers Karen Dill and Craig Anderson. It was the first behavioral study of the correlation between video games — Anderson referenced it as a cornerstone in the 2007 study that seems to now be the Bible for anti-video game crusaders.

The study was strikingly weird. Two hundred or so college-age students, who either identified themselves as veteran violent game players or not, were split into two groups,. One played the snooze fest, puzzle game Myst while the other group played the ancient, first person shooter Castle Wolfenstein. Afterwards, members of the two groups competed in a timed contest where the winner could hit the opponent with “noise blasts.”

The Wolfenstein crowd rocked the noise blasts longer and louder, and the researchers concluded that they were therefore more prone to violence, ignoring how, violence aside, the games require vastly different modes of thinking. Myst requires players to think carefully and analytically. A fast, first person shooter game like Wolfenstein requires much quicker, more reactive thinking.

Anyway, Ferguson says, the whole noise blast thing didn’t prove anything about video games leading to violence.

Ferguson says that the Anderson and Dill study when inspected closely actually supports the exact opposite of the publicized findings that video games don’t correlate to aggressive behaviors in players.

Four measures of aggression were used the Anderson and Dill study, provided by a “noise blast” program that wasn’t standardized. According to Ferguson, the fact that the study authors only found correspondence to one of the measures and the confidence measures around the effect size for the findings actually crosses zero and can’t be considered proof of a positive finding.

A similar study by Ferguson et al using a standardized version of the “noise blast” program found no relationship between violent games and aggression.



In an "Alfred Hitchcock Presents"-worthy twist for the family values crowd, families themselves were found more likely to cause violence than video games.

What was found from these study reviews was that once predication of family violence was eliminated by players of violent video games, there is no correlation between the two.

In other words, gamers who play violent video games are more likely to be aggressive due to family violence than by playing video games.



Despite the study, video games are likely to continue getting blamed for youth violence. This week Douglas Gentile, an Iowa state researcher who’s worked extensively with Craig Anderson, released a study that asserts a correlation between video games and violence.

But more importantly, video games are a deliciously easy target. There’s no NRA for Halo players — actually, a truly valuable study of video gamers would investigate whether or not they vote. But it’s unlikely that a gamer bloc could put numbers that match old people, the demographic most and large scared of technology and young people.

Currently, Washington politicians are riled up about the ESRB rating system. The video game rating system, Democratic and Republican legislators say, is too vague to protect our nation’s innocent little children. Not to be too much of a wise ass, but there’s still a massively unpopular, costly war going on, right?

The uproar revolves around Manhunt 2, a game that features gruesome decapitations, rape, dismemberment, and encourages violent homophobia and fratricide.

Oh, no, wait, sorry. It doesn’t. The first three things in that list are from a Shakespeare play. The last two were from the Bible.


 

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2 | 3

Next

punk

punk

Phoenix, AZ
January 2004

NOV 24, 2007 10:00 AM

A big fuck you to Jack Thompson!

PantherNesmith

PantherNesmith

Gloucester, VA
June 2006

NOV 24, 2007 10:09 AM

ThatTalentedHack said:
I hate to play the role of grammar-nazi,



Wow, we're one page in and already the Godwin comes out.

MrCrisp

MrCrisp

Charleston, SC
August 2004

NOV 24, 2007 10:17 AM

ThatTalentedHack said:
I hate to play the role of grammar-nazi, therefore,
I won't point out the flaws in the article... but many of the stories over the past few weeks have been almost unreadable. This article is just yet another example of why you should proof read before you post. IMO this sort of muddy text ruins perfectly good stories

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

AS A PAYING CUSTOMER, I EXPECT HIGHER QUALITY WRITING ON NEWS POSTS... PLEASE ADDRESS THIS



P.S. aside from my complaints, it was a fascinating article.



hey, i paid too! cater to meeeee! i want bad grammar and nearly unreadable articles, damn it!

if you think an article is unreadable because of a handful of grammatical or editorial mistakes, then you might just be stupid. i'm getting sick of people who log on just to nitpick at small faults in articles when they do nothing to contribute constructively or creatively to this site.

harshgrimcon

harshgrimcon

Glen Ellyn, IL
August 2007

NOV 24, 2007 10:20 AM

UnChanguitoFeo said:
They're in uproar about Manhunt 2? Did anybody even buy that game?



At least one person did. My friend bought it for the Wii. When I had first heard the notion of the Wii I thought, 'Eventually there will be some grotesque and gratuitous physical action involved with this.' Manhunt 2 is it.

I didn't play the game but I watched my friend go through it, and it was fuckin' creepy to see him swing the remote as he vicariously crushed a prone man's skull with a sledgehammer. Not saying anything about causation, just that it's creepy if you don't really like gruesome violence.

Ferretbite

Ferretbite

Mexico
September 2006

NOV 24, 2007 10:31 AM

MrCrisp said:
hey, i paid too! cater to meeeee! i want bad grammar and nearly unreadable articles, damn it!



Not to mention, you've paid more, so you're a better customer, therefore your needs should be met before ours. shocked

aphexplotz

aphexplotz

Arlington, VA
July 2004

NOV 24, 2007 10:51 AM

Ferretbite said:

gdarklighter said:
Don't worry, I'm sure Jack Thompson has his fingers stuck in his ears right now.



He the moron who tried to ban the GTA series? Or is he another idiot with too much time on his hands?



The very same, and those idiocies are just the tip of the iceberg.

The guy is a holy crusader.

Veloxmortis

Veloxmortis

Wichita, KS
February 2006

NOV 24, 2007 11:49 AM

Lack of Masturbation leads to violence.

Trahern

Trahern

United Kingdom
March 2003

NOV 24, 2007 09:58 PM

One small point: I like to think I'm not violent in part because I don't eat at McDonald's. tongue

I imagine particular violent behaviour can be inspired by movies or games, but the person has to have a predaliction towards violence in the first place.

Taloran

Taloran

Littleton, CO
November 2007

NOV 25, 2007 08:43 AM

Remember the congressional music hearings during the 80s, when Congress attempted to unilaterally censor music and wound up putting labels on recordings they deemed inappropriate?
The music industry was represented by John Denver, Dee Snyder of Twisted Sister and Frank Zappa for those hearings, and Zappa made the elected officials look like buffoons. One quote he used during those hearings is applicable to this article, and the whole debate about violent video games leading to violent behavior.
FZ said "There are more love songs than anything else. If songs could make you do something we'd all love one another. "
Media of whatever kind has no direct link to violent or otherwise criminal behavior, or for that matter to any kind of behavior. Anyone who says otherwise is promoting a false agenda.

jma34

jma34

Bradford, PA
November 2007

NOV 25, 2007 08:09 PM

There are so many reasons for violence that I think it's just silly to say that video games cause children to become violent. I've played games my whole life, from the cute fluffy stuff to the downright violent and have never once wanted to go out and shoot someone. I think it has to do more with other influences and psychological factors. There was evidence that in the past school shootings that there were warning signs that people just chose to ignore. As a education major in college, we are constantly bombarded with people telling us that if we see a problem with a student, to do something about it immediately. It disgusts me to see these things happen, and people to look back on it and say "Well, he did write/do these things before the shooting took place" and then blame it on a video game or music.

Saying that video games cause viloence amoung the youth of today is just an easy scape goat to saying "Oh shit, I should have been paying better attention."

I can say that video games might give a kid ideas (though I can't think of any at the moment), but it doesn't make them sharp shooters. If you want to say that it does, I guess you can look at Duck Hunt, I played that game constantly, but only managed to get high scores by standing really close to the tv screen (and I know that I'm not the only one who did this)

Anyways, that's my little rant before bedtime. wink

Previous

PAGE: 

1 | 2 | 3

Next

PreviousNext

Barack "Blunder" Obama

Comments 153 Comments - Last Comment 5 days ago

OMG APOCALYPSE 2012!!

Comments 113 Comments - Last Comment 3 days ago

Asshole Fuckface Roundup #55

Comments 104 Comments - Last Comment 2 days ago

Jimmy Fucking Carter

Comments 87 Comments - Last Comment 5 hours ago

Right Wing WALL-E Meltdown

Comments 86 Comments - Last Comment 3 days ago

SuicideGirls Big in Japan

Comments 80 Comments - Last Comment 5 days ago

Abandon All Hope: Fatalist Love

Last Comment 1 HR

Jeepers, I wasn't even raised religious, and even I know (or at least think I do) that there were two... More ...

Comic Con 2008

Last Comment 2 HR by PaulNikon

Comic Con 2008

Last Comment 2 HR

PICTURES!!!!!!! More ...

US Secretly Funding Iranian Insurgency?

Last Comment 2 HR

There are reasons that people's lives could be at their best regardless of the economic and political... More ...

Comic Con/Hyatt Blows

Last Comment 2 HR by PaulNikon

Comic Con/Hyatt Blows

Last Comment 2 HR

What street is that Hyatt on? Have fun with the rest of the CON. More ...

Life Is Ugly So Why Not Kill Yourself*

Last Comment 5 HR

This is a pretty good piece. I like your writing style. The humor use, even with a grim topic is nice. More ...

Jimmy Fucking Carter

Last Comment 5 HR by Sick

Jimmy Fucking Carter

Last Comment 5 HR

I know. I was just clarifying my position. More ...

SuicideGirls Interview: Debbie Harry
SuicideGirls Interview: Dita Von Teese author of The Art of the Teese
SuicideGirls Interview: Ville Valo of HIM