Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
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Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
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Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#2The should have used Mario Kart as one of the non-violent games, that would have ruined their hypothesis.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#3I'm curious how much of these was simply being primed to be competitive. Were the test subjects competing against actual humans in the nonviolent video games? The violent video games add a form of personal feel to the game, regardless of whether you are playing against the computer or other people it certainly feels like you're fighting other beings. I wonder if that prompts a higher competitive drive.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#4I have a bias here. I love video games and I've never truly believed they have serious detrimental effects on mental health. I'm also not an expert of psychology, but I know of at least two psychologists that are studying this and coming to the conclusion that video games have positive results.
http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video...
http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Research_Games.html
Anyways, I tried to approach this study as objectively as I could. But I have some gripes with their methods and more importantly, their conclusions.
> Students in the study then participated in a competitive reaction time task, which is used to measure aggression. Each student was told that he or she would compete against an unseen opponent in a 25-trial computer game in which the object was to be the first to respond to a visual cue on the computer screen.
The loser of each trial would receive a blast of unpleasant noise through headphones, and the winner would decide how loud and long the blast would be. The noise blasts were a mixture of several sounds that most people find unpleasant (such as fingernails on a chalk board, dentist drills, and sirens). In actuality, there was no opponent and the participants were told they won about half the trials.)
So this study took people playing competitive, violent video games, and then measured their aggression by giving them another competitive, violent game? After three days, they say the students were choosing to deliver harsher and harsher sounds to their "opponents." But after three days, certainly these students had also been given their fair share of harsh sounds, and at that point it's not crazy to think that they were just "playing the game."
Another method they used to measure aggression:
> They were given the beginning of a story, and then asked to list 20 things that the main character will do or say as the story unfolds. For example, in one story another driver crashes into the back of the main character’s car, causing significant damage. The researchers counted how many times the participants listed violent or aggressive actions and words that might occur.
So after they played a violent yet fake video game that they likely found to be fun, you give them a fake story and they pick violent outcomes? They were likely still in the mindset of playing the game that they found fun.
None of this conclusively shows anything about their long term aggression in the real world. It seems to be using fake scenarios (with poor timing) to try and make real-world conclusions.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#5Interesting way to study.
- As long as they don't use this to make decisions on what games people should be allowed to play that is. I personally think there is a subset of people who would be a lot more productive if they raised their base aggression level a little. Example: Keeping a punching bag might help some people get their aggression out and other people to build enough aggression to plough through boring work :-)
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#6I wonder what the setup for CoD was. Were they playing against each other whether it was public games. I'd say most people would get violent tendencies after playing CoD on public servers.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#7I have a bias here. I love video games and I've never truly believed they have serious detrimental effects on mental health. I'm also not an expert of psychology, but I know of at least two psychologists that are studying this and coming to the conclusion that video games have positive results. http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video... http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Research_Games.html An…
The tests to measure violence mean nothing by themselves. It is by comparing the results that you can draw conclusions. In this case, they compared people who played violent video games with people who played non-violent games.
The study shows a difference in both cases. However, if they didn't test with people who did not play either violent or non-violent games, they lack a control group and they cannot say if violent games make you more violent or if non-violent games make you less violent.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#8The question is whether or not the games were changing the participants' nature/personality (long-term). It seems self-obvious that playing violent games would inspire a short-term effect.
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#9“Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes. A single cigarette won’t cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years greatly increases the risk. In the same way, repeated exposure to violent video games may have a cumulative effect on aggression.”
When are these bullshit sensationalist comparisons going to end?!
Re: Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression
#10I'm curious how much of these was simply being primed to be competitive. Were the test subjects competing against actual humans in the nonviolent video games? The violent video games add a form of personal feel to the game, regardless of whether you are playing against the computer or other people it certainly feels like you're fighting other beings. I wonder if that prompts a higher competitive drive.
This was my thought as well. Competitive video games cause aggressive behavior, not violent video games. It's the adrenaline. It's something you get from a high level competition, but something you don't get slaughtering thousands of zombies with a virtual chainsaw.