The Truth About Violent Video Games
Two Harvard profs, Lawrence Kutner and Cheryl Olson, have written a research-based book, Grand Theft Childhood, showing that while some kids can go over the edge from 15 or more hours of violent video game playing a week, kids who don't play video games are at risk for violent behavior in the real world.
Here are Kutner and Olson, bringing some data-based realism to the hysteria over violent video games:
In the video above, they highlight some of the problems with the often shoddy approach to research on college campuses, where psych students, not necessarily representative of the population they're supposedly representing, are tested in scenarios unlike anything they'd encounter in the real world.
They also point out what roommates of the VA Tech killer found weird about him: That he didn't play video games at all.
via techdirt
Psych Studies and Statistics: gerrymandering with numbers when your language skills alone aren't enough to win an intelligent debate. This is actually from my Statistics professor. He also pointed out that you can get statistics to say anything, especially if you use italics, underlining, sharp intakes of breath during delivery, and the like for emphasis. I tend to listen to people who are capable of honestly admitting that there are some things that they DON'T have the answers to, rather than those who make declarations of absolute truths.
Juliana at April 19, 2008 8:04 AM
It is the frustrated that act out. War and fighting play is normal in the animal kingdom as well as the human one. But adults and the Darwin effect seem to be better at setting boundaries in nature vs. the human arena.
Smarty at April 19, 2008 8:10 AM
I have been playing video games for thirty years. I have never once felt the need to act out anything in those games. (well, there was that one time I got that speeding ticket after a night of Gran Turismo, but I drive fast anyway).
What has always irked me about the Jack Thompsons of the world is that they use studies that they KNOW are worthless and throw them about as "proof" that video games make children into violent kill-bots.
If more people had even a basic knowledge of statistics (and believe me, mine is pretty basic), they'd see right through these "studies".
Of course, JT was on Fox bleating about how video games made Cho Seung-Hui snap while the bodies were still warm. To this day, he argues that the first report he read (which was later retracted) said the kid played Counter-Strike, and that the media were covering for the video game industry.
Face facts - video games do not make people who are well in the head snap. The people who go on these killing sprees were already fucked in the head. Whether it was playing a video game, or getting the wrong mustard on their hot dog, something was eventually going to cause them to break. I see no reason that the liberties of others ought to be restricted to protect society from the random looney.
brian at April 19, 2008 10:23 AM
[Hey Amy- A&LD linked the Solnit piece, with a very dry blurb]
Crid at April 19, 2008 10:57 AM
Back on topic- A favorite tech podcast says the new Grand Theft Auto release is going to make $400 million in its first week. That's two thirds of what Titanic earned in ten years.
Crid at April 19, 2008 11:00 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/04/19/the_truth_about_1.html#comment-1541118">comment from CridActually just sent them a link to my piece.
Amy Alkon at April 19, 2008 11:21 AM
As an inveterate GTA and Halo fan. (My ex-gf was super skilled at Halo. It was embarrassing.) I don't think video games are a problem.
I'll be the Devil's Advocate because..well just because. Advertising is sold on the premise that videos affect human behavior. How can video game and movie and television companies use advertising, yet still claim that their products don't affect human behavior?
Talk amongst yourselves. I'm getting a little veclemt.
Jeff at April 19, 2008 11:27 AM
Anyone who hasn't read Killing Monsters: Why Children Need Fantasy, Super Heroes, and Make-Believe Violence really should. Click on my name for the Amazon link.
marion at April 19, 2008 2:52 PM
Marion, what do you do for a living?
Crid at April 19, 2008 5:59 PM
Jeff -
It's called "Understanding the difference between fantasy and reality".
Advertising works on the premise of getting the target to envision themselves with the product.
Video games work on the premise of getting the target to do something that they understand is either unacceptable or impossible in reality and polite society.
I don't remember seeing anyone trying to roll people up in a ball after Katamari Damacy was released.
Although in other news, guitar sales are up in the wake of "Guitar Hero". Not that that's a bad thing.
brian at April 19, 2008 6:05 PM
My wife and I do not allow our seven-year-old, who loves video games, to play violent or bloody games, despite the fact that he would very much like to play them. This has nothing to do with any silly fear that seeing animated blood and guts on a video monitor will make him a psychopathic killer, because clearly it won't. Instead, it is about having a buffer between him and some of the coarser aspects of our culture, at least for the time being.
Dennis at April 19, 2008 8:34 PM
This kinda goes along with the idea that too much porn turns men into drooling breast obsessed knuckle dragging perverts. I think there's really no cause and effect there at all, we're born that way.
I remember them making a big deal about Klebold and Harris(Columbine killers) being DOOM addicts, but I think the relationship is actually the reverse of what most people thought. I think they were a couple of psychotic maladjusted little bastards who happen to like DOOM because it was a small way of acting out their aggression. I believe that a lot of times, we get the cause and effect relationship confused with logical actions of fucked up people. I knew a guy in the Navy who was about as much of a crazy violent son of a bitch as you could imagine. What did he want to do when he got out? He wanted to go back home to Chicago and be a prison guard at Joliet. Why the hell would anyone WANT to be a prison guard, unless you have a real sadistic streak in you.
I do believe there is a relationship between what you see and what you end up doing, otherwise there would be no such thing as advertising, but I don't think you will be changed by things like video games. But I also have to say this, what the hell kind of person can watch slasher flicks any enjoy them? If you're watching a movie and some young beautiful woman is getting out of the shower and suddenly there is guts and blood splattering all over the mirror, and they do it over and over and over again, and you think thats a great movie, I think you have issues.
Bikerken at April 20, 2008 12:48 AM
Dennis -
Thank you. That's how it's supposed to work. You are the parent, you are supposed to tell your child what he can and cannot do.
My problem is with the millions of parents who demand that the government do their job for them by preventing people like me from playing video games so that their children won't be exposed to them.
brian at April 20, 2008 6:04 AM
If you suspect "studies", well, good on you, you're supposed to suspect everything someone offers you as the truth, about any issue. But leave disdain for "statistics" out of your vocabulary. Not only do few people understand what statistics involves, the science of probability is literally surrounding you at this very moment, and the understanding and control of the principle of uncertainty is key to understanding most physical processes.
For instance, you might be "certain" of a few things in life. This is only because you have assigned a definition of same which is good enough for you to get on with other things. I suggest that you do not know what statistics really is, having not studied the field at all.
For instance, you might believe the same things about a connection between video games and violence that was once believed to exist between "pornography" and rape. But Ed Meese, as Attorney General, was ordered to find this "connection" and he couldn't. When a criminal had a big collection of "pornography" - in quotes here because it included everything from a collection of JC Penney underwear ads to specialized slasher films - it was incidental. There was no cause/effect relationship to be found.
And as you might guess, cause and effect is a major component of statistical evaluation. But few make the effort to understand that principle. It's easy to be offended when a lie is discovered. Why not find it out before it is attempted on you?
Radwaste at April 20, 2008 7:22 AM
Rad, I understand the principles behind statistics fairly well. What I usually don't trust are the personal motivations behind researchers and scientists. I have a friend I go to the casinos with a lot. I was telling him that the card dealers were trying to cheat players on the payouts. He said they only made a mistake once in a while. I ask him, out of a hundred times a mistake was made, how often did it favor the player and he said maybe two. I told him that was mathematically impossible. I did have two courses of Statistics in college and got across to him that when some event with a fifty fifty chance falls one way 98% of the time, you're being lied to, something is skewing the sample. This principle was played out in court a few years ago when a major retailer was sued for not correcting the prices in its computer so they were scanning higer at the register than they showed on the shelf. I think it was Sears. In court, a statistics expert told the court that if indeed it was a simple mistake and prices went up and down, there would be just as many prices scanning too low as too high. Instead, they were scanning too high about 99% of the time and that was proof they were doing it deliberately. The retailer was found guilty of screwing it's customers with price deception.
I remember that Ed Meese thing by the way. Another who made that connection was Ted Bundy. He blamed porn for his sexual tendencies and claimed it was behind a lot of his sexual sickness. I would have liked to asked him, "Ok Ted, porn made you horny. What was it that make you crush their fucking skulls in Ted and go back repeatedly to rape the dead bodies? You don't see that in porn."
Bikerken at April 20, 2008 11:26 AM
Video games do not cause violence in teens and adults.
Number of copies of DOOM in circulation (sold and copied): 5 million (est.)
Number of school shootings blamed on video games: 10 (est.)
Number of people who played DOOM not involved in school shootings: 4,999,990 (est.)
What we have here is a little thing called "statistically insignificant".
There is NO evidence of a causal relationship between the consumption of violent media and violent behavior in teens. In the decade since highly-realistic first-person shooters became the most popular genre of video game, violent crime among teens has dropped, even in the wake of "zero tolerance" policies that get kids reported to law enforcement for the slightest act of violence.
Q.E.D.
brian at April 20, 2008 2:11 PM
I agree Brian. I've watched my nephew playing these shoot em up games and he really gets into them, but he's got to be one of the most passive friendliest polite kids I've ever met. That's upbringing. He likes sports and he hasn't got a violent bone in his body. No video game is going to change that.
Bikerken at April 20, 2008 3:03 PM
You know I did a little digging and found something I'm sure you will all find amazing. More people have been attacked, beaten, maimed, and killed before the invention of violent video games then after.
It really is amazing how no one seems to have noticed this. Infact nearly every war in human history preceded vidoe games.
I wonder why reaserches havent noticed these fact yet
lujlp at April 20, 2008 10:03 PM
Instead, it is about having a buffer between him and some of the coarser aspects of our culture, at least for the time being.
Dennis: Not that you need my approval, but good for you. I'm in favor of children being protected from the coarser aspects of culture for as long as reasonably possible. That having been said, I personally think there's a real difference between keeping children from the coarser aspects of culture and trying to keep them in an action-free/violence-free bubble, and I think the people trying to link video games with real-world violent behavior are leaning more toward the latter situation.
Marion, what do you do for a living?
Crid, I SMASH! and DESTROY! just like the Incredible Hulk, because my parents allowed me to read such things at an impressionable age. Wait, I actually didn't get into the Hulk into the Peter David era, which was more likely to inspire one into meditating on the nature of the self, psyche and love than it was to turn one into a mindless killing machine. (Don't get me wrong - the book still had a lot of action. But it also had a great story.) GI Joe, on the other hand...
Seriously, at the moment I am a student. Soon I shall re-enter the real world and make a living playing with numbers and PowerPoint for a not-insubstantial corporation. I will be The Man, or at least The Woman. I should still read voraciously, though. And you?
marion at April 20, 2008 10:13 PM
Freelance video editing for anyone who'll pay the rate, whether they're substantial or not. I read sometimes. Two last week: Zigzag, about which Tressider was right (and I'll deny that if you quote me); and one from William F. Buckley, a collection of correspondence called Cancel Your Own Goddam Subscription. It's basically a bathroom reader of his bitchslaps over the years. Even with moderate expectations I was disappointed.
He's (was) kinda like Paglia that way: All that candlepower and energy, but just not funny.
Crid at April 21, 2008 1:37 AM
Amy, I agree with this. My kids play/played video games and remained pretty normal (I know you will question the inference, given their genetic pool).
But I am wondering, did you get permission to use the video here? Is it copyrighted? Why don't you mention any of the legal niceties that concern you so much? Just wondering.
JJ at April 21, 2008 6:24 AM
JJ, you are truly a scumbag. JJ is University of Rochester poly sci professor James Johnson, who takes the work of numerous photographers and artists and uses it without permission on his website, and instead of taking responsibility for that use, seeks to attack me. You'll notice that there are no photographs here that were not taken by me or my boyfriend (who gives me the photos to use with his permission) or otherwise explicitly permitted for use. Likewise, as with YouTube videos, this video offers an embed code at the end. This is not because they do not want you to embed it because they do.
Like so many college kids you must "teach," clearly you didn't look at the material before posting your remark.
Also, just take responsibility for what you've done. Stop shitting all over my comments section in hopes of, most childishly, not taking responsibility for your actions, but trying to attack me. You're really a scumbag.
Amy Alkon at April 21, 2008 6:40 AM
AMy. A simple "Yes I asked for and received permission" would suffice to clear up my questions. And, I did watch the video. Perhaps I missed the place where copyright and atributions and p"used by permission" appeare there. If so, I apologize. But I do not see a single of the legal niceties mentioned in your post. Hence my questions. Sorry that they upset you so.
And, I guess I don't get why you think I care if you write my name down here. You act as though asking questions is a criminal offense. Your mistake.
JJ at April 21, 2008 7:46 AM
PS: Yes, I take responsibility for what I've done - I keep a blog using materials in a way that is totally legal under the fair use exceptions in US copyright law. How is that?
JJ at April 21, 2008 7:49 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/04/19/the_truth_about_1.html#comment-1541529">comment from JJSorry that you, as an old fogey professor, are unclear as to the way video works on the web. They provide you with an embed code because they WANT you to post it. No need for "used by permission" (that would be "used WITH permission"). I post that, on the rare occasions I post a photo not taken by my boyfriend or me, to clarify that I am not one of the many who steals others' photographs and art work and posts them on my site...and in hopes that others will question their behavior (taking others work and using it without payment or permission).
Many Flickr photos are likewise posted with the intent that they be used by others, with credit to the photographer. The photos you have posted are not licensed under a Flickr or similar Creative Commons license. They are the fruits of the labor of people who earn their living as photographers. Posting them without paying the authors is like getting your car serviced and driving out of the station without paying for it. It's forcing somebody to work for free, and it's stealing.
You keep promising to leave. Not a surprise that you don't live up to your promises. Please start.
Amy Alkon at April 21, 2008 7:55 AM
Amy Alkon
http://www.advicegoddess.com/archives/2008/04/19/the_truth_about_1.html#comment-1541530">comment from JJThis is from photographer Christopher R. Harris, a professor in the College of Mass Communication at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro, who won his copyright infringement suit against the San Jose Merc news. The original is long, and he's given me permission to quote from it, so I've excerpted parts of his e-mail.
http://digitalprof.wordpress.com/2006/01/06/david-and-goliath-in-the-media-world/
Harris writes (and again, I post these e-mail excerpts with his permission):
Amy Alkon at April 21, 2008 7:57 AM
Every generation needs a "boogey man" to blame the bad behavior of kids on, and to scare others into line. All in the name of feeling like they're good parents in spite of avoiding personal responsibility.
My generation's video games weren't that realistic ("Pong made me a paddle-wielding murderer!!"), so other things were the boogey man.
Dungeons & Dragons - Makes you a violent Satan worshiper.
Rock Music - Makes you a violent, drug-abusing Satan worshiper.
Comic Books - Makes you aggressive and violent, only some of them lead to Satan worship
(Marion: LOVED the Peter David-written Hulk books, thanks for mentioning that!)
Dancing - Makes you a Satan worshiper (oh, wait, that was the Puritans, not the parents of my generation, never mind)
When people fear looking at their own potential responsibility, it's easier to just blame everything outside of their control. When parents fear to be parents, they expect everyone else to take care of and protect their kids.
This existed long before the Atari 2600.
If a parent wants to prevent their kids from playing violent games or from watching trashy tv, they can simply DO just that. They don't need the government to do it FOR them.
(Other Note: This JJ thing is plain silly.)
Jamie at April 21, 2008 11:10 AM
I'm awfully glad you read Agent Zigzag, Crid.
(Not for any chummy reason obviously. But there's huge pleasure imagining someone else's holy fuck! grin reading it for the first time!)
Jody Tresidder at April 21, 2008 3:12 PM
Dungeons & Dragons - Makes you a violent Satan worshiper.
Rock Music - Makes you a violent, drug-abusing Satan worshiper.
Comic Books - Makes you aggressive and violent, only some of them lead to Satan worship
Damn. I haven't been meeting my quotas of violence, aggression, drug abuse, and Satan worship if this is the case. Clearly I have some catching up to do. Excuse me. (Crid, freelance video editing? Kewl gig.)
marion at April 21, 2008 10:24 PM
Hollywood been good to me. Sinatra: "The music she moves to is music that makes me a dancer..."
Crid at April 22, 2008 6:04 PM
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