If you assume there are two types of people: prone to violence (not necessarily violent, given socialization and incentives) and not prone to violence (possibly due to physical skills or a more generally submissive personality):
- Sociological stereotype goes that videogames are mainly popular among those not prone to violence. Therefore most results on the matter might only mean that videogames cannot make people not-prone-to-violence act violently. If they're physically unfit (and not deranged enough to use guns) this may be obvious a priori.
- The data says little about whether videogames increase the likelihood that someone who is prone to violence will act violently.
I had an idea games should be made as hyper-realistic, brutal and bloody as technically possible so every gamer would know actual war is nightmare, not fun and they really want to avoid it at all damn cost - the way those who has actually witnessed war feel.
That’s the thing with media portraying violence (and I’m saying this without judgement) it is always glorifying violence (“gewaltverherrlichend” in German) since one doesn’t experience the violence itself.
Even if (war) video games were to be made “gorier”, bloodier, more brutal one still doesn’t experience losing someone, re-building a life in a country that has been bombed to ruins, or dealing with the aftermath such as physical wounds or mental trauma.
I must admit, I don't understand the appeal of the most violent video games. I recently read "The Last of Us Part II" described as being "about [...] the awful things that humans can do to each other" [0]. Why would I want to spend my leisure time experiencing that? How is that entertaining? [0] https://www.theguardian.com/games/2020/dec/23/the-15-best-vi...
Is it any different than any other forms of art (eg. movies, tv, books) that depict human cruelty?
Not the GP, but for me the answer is "cars." And child services coming after me for being neglectful. And rattlesnakes. But mostly cars. Even with statistics about danger being down across the board, in still pretty worried about my kids getting hit by an automobile. The raw statistics are even one area where danger is rising- fatality numbers are back over the mid 90s.
^ this. You can show someone who’s afraid of flying that it’s the safest form of travel all you want, but you’re not going to convince them. Anxiety usually isn’t rational, so rational means of convincing don’t work.
Why is the prevalence of kids addicted to video games on the rise? People are too quick to say "causation/correlation" but often times there is overlap. One can encourage the other.
Hot take, but: 1. more games being produced because the industry is larger and the barrier of entry was reduced 2. more and easier ways to access them: free-to-play models, relatively stable $60 top-end price even after 2 decades of inflation 3. more socially acceptable and includes more than the nerdy kids from ~20 years ago. You could get bullied for playing EverQuest when I was a kid. 4. streaming platforms comple…
I'm absolutely terrified at the moment when my 3 year old son will get his hands on video games. So far we encourage outdoor play, playing with physical toys and very little screen time, etc. At some point some clash emerge (my son has a stubborn facet), a parent can guide only so much, kids do have to gain little autonomy at some point or at least prove it to themselves they do take some decisions. The problem is that lots of new games enforce really bad habits and any child can become a causality to dynamic. I will try to postpone that moment as much as possible and curate the content as to mitigate the problem. I remember when I got my first computer I was so fascinated by it that nothing my parents would say would stick but I got lucky, I got bored of games rather quickly and became interested in making them myself and that opened the gate to programming. The computer community seemed to be a lot more benevolent back then, now..
This is only tangentially related, but one thing I find interesting is how video games contributed to us being desensitized to violence. It's funny hearing from my mom about how The Exorcist was terrifying back then, while nowadays it's borderline funny to watch (and not only because of the technology not aging well). Makes me wonder if any studies have been done regarding that.
Dunno, I watched The Exorcist a couple of years ago and it's one of scariest horror films that I watched. Not even in the same league with modern stuff.
Not saying I'm not desensitized to fake on-screen violence (I eat comfortably watching The Walking Dead), I just think horror being scary has nothing to do with violence being scary.
Somewhat Tangential: Without any instruction my 2 and 4 year olds know how to turn things into weapons to beat each other with. Like puppies they seem to be testing limits to rough play. What surprised me is what happened when I didn't intervene: a few times the older one completely dominated and got his way. But more often than not the older one displayed empathy and tried to apologize and give kisses and give the y…
I think people form stronger ethical boundaries when it is self-motivated - i.e. your 4 year old learns how to be sincerely empathetic because you allowed them to deal with the emotions from rough play, rather than forcing them to play nicely.
I used to teach kids for many years, and I noticed the "helicopter parents" tended to have more mischievous children, presumably because these kids rarely feel intrinsically motivated to do anything (it's always coming from the parents).