Violent Games 'Almost' As Dangerous as Smoking 545
Via Voodoo Extreme, a Reuters report on some very 'interesting' research into violent games. A study out of the University of Michigan has apparently found that 'exposure to violent electronic media' is almost as dangerous to our society as smoking. "'The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively,' said Huesmann, adding it could have a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of youngsters. Although not every child exposed to violence in the media will become aggressive, he said it does not diminish the need for greater control on the part of parents and society of what children are exposed to in films, video games and television programs."
A Few Statistics From A Slightly Better Article (Score:4, Informative)
Exposure to violent movies, television shows and video games significantly increases the risk that the viewer or player will behave aggressively in both the long and short term, according to a new University of Michigan study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health.
A link is seen among children who were in the upper quartile on violence viewing in middle childhood, 15 years later:
- 11 percent of males had been convicted of a crime, compared with 3 percent for other males.
- 42 percent of males had "pushed, grabbed or shoved their spouse" in the past year, compared with 22 percent of other males.
- 39 percent of females had "thrown something at their spouse" in the past year, compared with 17 percent of other females.
- 17 percent of females had "punched, beaten, or choked" another adult when angry in the past year, compared with 4 percent of other females.
Source: "The Impact of Electronic Media Violence: Scientific Theory and Research," by University of Michigan professor L. Rowell Huesmann.
It's a topic that has been debated extensively, but this is one of the first studies that shows the relation between viewing media violence and real criminal behavior, according to the study's author, L. Rowell Huesmann, a senior research scientist at the U-M Institute for Social Research.
"This is the first study that shows a relation between childhood exposure to violent TV, playing violent video games, seeing violent movies, and behaving violently enough to be incarcerated as a delinquent," said Huesmann, a professor of communication studies and psychology.
Huesmann and his team followed a group of children for three years as they moved through middle childhood. They found increasing rates of aggression for both boys and girls who watched more television violence, even when taking into account initial aggressive tendencies and other background factors. A 15-year follow-up of those children showed that those who habitually watched violent media grew up to be more aggressive young adults.
Huesmann also cited many independent studies and experiments with similar results, stating that the majority of one-shot survey studies have shown that children who watch more media violence on a daily basis behave more aggressively on a daily basis.
In another experiment cited, both children and adults who watched a violent movie showed significantly more aggression than the children and adults who watched a nonviolent movie when playing a physical game immediately after watching the films.
Video games were also addressed in the study, although experiments involving exposure to violent games are not as extensive or long-term.
"Because players of violent video games are not just observers but also 'active' participants in violent actions and are generally reinforced for using violence to gain desired goals, the effects on stimulating long-term increases in violent behavior should be even greater for video games than for TV, movies or Internet displays of violence," Huesmann wrote in the study.
Bias is obvious (Score:4, Informative)
FTFA:
You can chalk it up to semantics, but it sure sounds like these guys went into the study assuming that violent media was already a threat. They set out to measure the "how much," completely bypassing "if" as though it were a moot point.
Ars Technica has a great article on this here [arstechnica.com].
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:5, Informative)
So even in the US you are more likely to die from smoking than be murdered.
And thats not taking into account the fact that not everyone smokes. The number of people who play violent video games is surely higher in most younger demographics.
That still leaves the US with a murder rate that is about five times higher than the UK after adjusting for the larger population. There is certainly not a major difference in the number of people playing violent video games. In fact back in the 80s the UK had more personal computers per head of population than any other country. Many of the top games come from the UK.
I am sure that you might be able to crunch the numbers and come up with some sort of effect due to violent games. But to say that violent games have a bigger impact than smoking is just utterly ridiculous. Smoking worldwide causes more deaths than 9.11 every single day. In fact smoking killed more people in the 20th century than all the wars of the 20th century combined. To use smoking as a comparison demonstrates a profound indifference to the facts.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:5, Informative)
Murder rates in the UK and USA were roughly equal a century ago when 'every loony and criminal' could buy any gun they wanted over the counter in Britain with no questions asked (though they did have to pay a $2 tax if they wanted to legally carry it in public). Armed crime rates with guns are much higher today in the UK than when 'every loony and criminal' could buy any gun they wanted over the counter with no questions asked, and while the British murder rate hasn't risen much since then the murder rate in America is far higher than it was; murders exploded as Prohibition increased the power of organised crime and, while it's dropped since, rates never returned to earlier levels.
Britons just don't kill each other much; per-capita, Americans kill each other more with knives than Britons kill each other by any means. Meanwhile, gun crime in Britain is growing rapidly as criminals have few problems getting hold of guns to prey on a disarmed population.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:2, Informative)
Ok, I'll bite. How many surveillance videos have you watched of gas station holdups? Criminals have a phenomenally high miss rate, partially due to the fact they're less interested in being proficient with their firearms, than they are in simply getting what they came for (which may include killing folks along the way). The folks delusional enough to commit crimes with guns are usually not fully functional, mentally, to begin with.
In some Matrix universe... I'll say that, were you able to pair random gun hobbyists vs random criminals in holdup / mugging situations with, say, 3-5' distance (normal counter distance, in a repeating experiment)... in the majority of cases, if the hobbyist starts drawing while the random criminal already has his/her gun out, you will end up with a far larger pile of dead or wounded criminals than hobbyists. Heck, there's one convenience store video where a gang banger dumps a 15rd mag at a cashier standing 3 feet away and doesn't hit him.
BTW, given that the gun doesn't make you any more or less safe from the car bomb, I'd call that a red herring argument and not really worth responding to.
On a side note, I live in the irrationally gun-control-happy state of California, and usually the turkeys bringing up these points aren't even worth addressing since their minds are closed off anyway. I'm not saying you're one of them - I'm saying that I hope you aren't, and that this has given you something to think about.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:4, Informative)
Are you sure? Have any data to back that claim? [ted.com]
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:3, Informative)
Actually, media coverage of gun crime is growing rapidly. This may be due to the ages of the people involved (getting younger all the time).
Gun crime itself is on a downward trend in the UK.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:2, Informative)
BTW, Spartan democracy was 1 year terms, no reelection, if you disappoint your voters expect them to come and hurt you. Still sounds like a better deal than the current US system.
Finally hits the nail on the head.... (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:3, Informative)
Presumably "circuses" in the Roman sense. The modern equivalent would be motor racing, which is a lot safer even to the racers. Not that the other form of Roman popular entertainment involved people fighting with real weapons, not infrequently to the death. In more recent times public executions were considered "entertainment".