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."
correlation != causation (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:3, Interesting)
My Solution (Score:5, Interesting)
Right now, on the American Chart for November at VGChartz, the TOP THREE slots are occupied by family-friendly non-violent games: Super Mario Galaxy, Guitar Hero 3 for the 360, and Wii Sports.
Manhunt 2, the media's punching bag for Hyper-Violent Video Game Paranoia, is only ranked *41st* (and that's just the sales for the top platform, PS2). For every one unit of Manhunt 2 sold for the PS2, approximately 9 units of XBox 360 Guitar Hero 3 are sold. For every one unit of Manhunt 2 sold for the Wii, approximately 20 units of Super Mario Galaxy are sold (think about it: Manhunt 2 Wii has been out for 4 weeks, SMG has only been out for 2 weeks).
If this trend continues, the entire argument against hyper-violent games will be moot, because they will be relegated to the niche market of 17+-year-old males. The younger kids don't seem to care any more. And that's the way it should be.
But, all that said, the most important thing is for parents to A) be more involved in their children's lives, and B) read the ****ing box before buying a game. It has the rating right on there!
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:My take (Score:3, Interesting)
Urrgh (Score:5, Interesting)
There is a common belief that the economic prosperity coincides with lower violent crime rates. Though regional influences tend to have more impact than national anything. Compare social/economic conditions in Detroit versus Silicon Valley in the 90's as an example.
those who were going to commit violence anyway
You've made up your mind on that one huh? If only social issues were so simple we could divide citizens into criminal and non-criminal pools at an early age and finally live in a utopia. Where do white collar criminals fit in your magic world? Kids who cheat at board games?
his isn't even original research, just research into the research that's been done.
Yes. It's called meta-study. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meta-study [wikipedia.org]
There is nothing interesting about the parent's post.
How about this? (Score:4, Interesting)
Try any European country, Australia or NZ, Japan or other Asian countries. Preferably, try several.
THEN Draw your game use vs violence correlations, and see if what's making US kids violent is games, or a mentality that doesn't equip them with the tools required to cope with mature content.
THEN we'll talk. How I love it when American lobbyist groups oversimplify an issue so an uninformed public can be made even more misinformed. Go America.
It's more complex (Score:5, Interesting)
That said, there have been a lot of changes since the 80's, and I've heard the correlation between crime decline and X argued, where X was:
- less lead ending up in kids' system (via banning lead-based additives in gasoline, etc.) We already know that lead damages the nervous system, so that correlation at least doesn't trip suspension of disbelief too hard.
- "3 strikes and you're out" kind of laws. Both via taking out the incorrigible recidivists (some people seem to be really that psychopathic and dumb), and by providing a scary escalation level to keep the ones in line who still have at least minimal logic capabilities
- stricter gun control laws
- the availability of porn on the internet. Don't laugh, it has argued that the kind who'd go out and mug or rape someone, is now busy stroking his own wookie in front of the computer.
- widespread availability of violent movies. Apparently the day a new splatter movie hits the cinemas, there's a sharp decline in people actually doing violent stuff. Just because they'll be seated there getting their jollies viewing violence on the screen, instead of out on the street actually doing it. (And I guess then in the same could then be argued about games. If it's the same kind of asshole in both, he can't be out mugging people at the same time as he's online ganking newbies.)
Etc, etc, etc.
Note that I'm not saying that all the above are true. Some probably _are_ bunk. Take your pick which.
I'm just saying that the waters are muddy enough. A _lot_ of things changed at the same time. So, well, how do you know which of them were the ones that actually lowered criminality.
It's easy to pick one factor, let's call it X, out of context, pretend that it's the only thing that changed, and present it as the one thing that's responsible for the whole effect. It's good for political agendas too, so each politician or lobbyist is picking the one which makes his group look good. But how do you know if X is really the one? Maybe X had nothing to do with lowering criminality.
Just as an example, watch me pull a similar maneuver and do the following correlation: use of Linux rose steadily in the late 90's and 2000's, criminality sunk during the same time, hence Linux is singlehandedly responsible for making the world safer. I guess the types which would go out and mug someone are now too busy recompiling all libraries to have any time left to do evil stuff. Or something. Does it sound ridiculous yet?
Or you know what else improved since the 80's? The quality of Japanese game translations. Nowadays you can get them actually translated and voiced by people who know English. As opposed to the traditional "All your base are belong to us" Engrish translations, and voice-overs by people who never actually spoke it and don't even know where the accent is supposed to go. Criminality declined in that time. Hmm, looks like a possible cause to me. I guess the former steady rise in criminality was caused by those Engrish translations driving people homicidal.
No, I don't believe those are the real culprits. It's just supposed to be random ridiculous examples.
To get back to the topic, we don't know if games have anything to do either way with that decline. We also can't use that to claim that games can't possibly cause violence.
For the sake of playing the devil's advocate, if factor X would actually increase criminality, but factors Y and Z lowered it more than X raised it, then you'd still see a decline. Just as a purely theoretical scenario, it _is_ possible that X = video games, while Y and Z are... well, take your pick from the list above.
Just because a function of a dozen variables declined on the whole, doesn't mean that none of a dozen factors would have the effect of rising the result if taken alone.
Just something to think about, if you're bored enough
Violent behavior. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:How about this? (Score:5, Interesting)
Wade vs Roe
A slice of society that was parenting kids more of which grew into crime than of other slices was SUDDENLY given an out on unwanted pregnancies. 15-20 years later, crime SUDDENLY drops.
Less unprepared mothers went through with their pregnancies.
A good chunk of the next generation that was responsible for crime was never born.
Re:correlation != causation (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:How about this? (Score:3, Interesting)
More seriously... (Score:3, Interesting)
In a more serious way, your joke points out the fundamental difference between the two and why it's a bad analogy.
- Smoke does it harm by the simple presence of dangerous chemicals. (Nicotine, free-radicals, and tons of others). Intention to smoke doesn't change the outcome. In fact second-hand smoke is dangerous for the health even in very low levels.
- Whereas games do their evil on people who feel attracted to violence and naturally get interested in enacting such things. They consume violent games, but also violent movies, etc. But there's no such thing as second-hand consumption or effects. You won't become a violent psychopath because someone else is watching TV in the next room. Psychopath don't happen more frequently among workers of those shop who happen to have a software & video games department.
The frequency of bad outcome is also different.
- In the case of smoking-induced* cancer, the danger is stochastic (except maybe for a few special genetic cases). It's like rolling dice. Each time one individual is exposed, there some amount of chance (or maybe "bad luck") that the cancer will start. One my get lucky and roll high scores several time in a row. Similarly some people may smoke for years without having any problem. But overall there's a probability that increases with the amount of exposure. You can make plot of duration of exposure and associated risk, and see some correlation.
In fact the correlation is so good, that you can use a clinical score (based on the duration in years x number of pack per day) to predict risks associated with smoking.
- In the case of violence, the danger mostly depends on a set of pre-determined characteristics. Because of a complex set of circumstance, mostly genetic factors, family history and other childhood experience, there are people who are predisposed to become psychopath and other who aren't. Some (like most
There's no such thing as a "amount of years spent playing" that will predict when someone will snap and start shooting random people.
* : As an example of stochastic risk. There are also other smoking-induced disease, mainly non-cancerous pulmonary disease which have a deterministic distribution. They're mostly linked to the amount of garbage that accumulate in someone's lungs. Past a certain year-packs score, you're mostly sure that the patient will have some form of bronchitis. But those diseases are easy to model.
Where tobacco company managed to stir controversy was about the stochastic risks because not everyone developed them. But in the end, after careful examination, you still can link an increase of risk to duration of exposure. Whereas violence mostly depend on having risk factors, the rest only plays a small role of trigger.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:3, Interesting)
Violence can also be constructive and beneficial to society. For example, the threat of violence from the state convinces many people (who would be otherwise disinclined) to pay their taxes and more or less obey the law. In addition, violence and the threat of violence is one way to avoid tragedy-of-the-commons scenarios. Finally, violence and the threat of violence can deter future violence from occurring.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:correlation != causation (Score:3, Interesting)
(FYI, lead carbonate wasn't the danger; it was lead chloride and lead bromide. Much nastier, more strongly reactive stuff.)
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:4, Interesting)
Just curious.
less violence and more violent media (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm not saying it's good for kids but I'm not sold.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:1, Interesting)
"every looney" has to go through a *background check* (can't own a gun with a felony on record, hard as hell to with most misdemeanors) and 30 day waiting period before they can buy/own a gun (kinda farking over crimes of passion). and if someone is going for premeditated murder, the lack of a gun isn't going to stop them.
we have this thing called logic. try it. just because your mama always told you "guns are evil" doesn't mean she's right.
Re:unless it causes cancer (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:4, Interesting)
The Economist had an a recent article on this topic, noting that gun crime/murders have shot up, particularly with gangs, though the quantity of guns in Britain is stable. ("Gun for hire", Sep 20, 2007.)
When Britain really clamped down on guns, they introduced a law which could result in several years of jail just for possessing a gun.
One hypothesis is that, as a result, the older gang members had the younger inductees carry their guns around, so that the older ones didn't have to worry about getting caught.
The problem is that the younger inductees tend to be less mature and such and are therefore more likely to use the gun as a way of solving conflict, hence the rise in gang gun usage.
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:2, Interesting)
-> in small doses (ie. 1-2 hours MAX)
-> for longtime adults (ie. someone 30 or older)
For this class of people it does indeed matter little as long as they keep to this.
It's also not violence per se that is dangerous in a society. In fact a violent populace can be very beneficial, as long as the violence is directed. Say you follow Christian dogma and are violent within it's limits. And you follow it to the letter. This violence, protecting the weak, will improve the society.
If you use violence to get your way, this will destroy society.
Now why don't you tell me
Re:Get thee away from me (Score:3, Interesting)
I ostentatiously chewed a mouthful of turkey as she described the museum, then fixed her with a raised eyebrow. "I know what you're trying to do," I said, "but it won't work. Biology does not skeeve me out."
"OK," she replied, "what does skeeve you out?"
I considered for a moment. "People suffering."
That's pretty much my attitude toward pornography. To the degree that it is an exhibit of biological curiosities, I can variously enjoy or tolerate it. But if the people performing look miserable, I find it offensive. I suppose there might be legitimate artistic reasons to depict sexual sadism, but it's not light entertainment to me.
There are some people who seem to need the extra stimulation of sadism and cruelty to experience arousal. Somehow I think material suited to those tastes is unlikely to promote pacific behavior.