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Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

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Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#161
I sadly do not remember who came up with this quip (c.2000), but it went something like this -

"If video games influenced behaviour, those who grew up in the eighties would run around in dark rooms, listening to monotone music while popping brightly coloured pills."

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

approaching an adult for guidance isn't tattling. Approaching an adult to use leverage to get what you want is tattling, especially when its over "sharing a toy that isn't hers". Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids.

>> Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids. If someone breaks into my house and tries to beat me to death, I'm not going to try to reason it out with them, I'm calling the police.

Hopefully that's not all you do. That'd be a long beating with average police response being around 5 minutes.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#163

I'm one of those people who is entirely bemused by violent videogames and films (I'm sure there are plenty of people who would be bemused by my pastimes too). I'm not trying to argue to stop anyone doing it, but I would really like to understand it better. Many video games are essentially simulators of things that we're prevented from doing in reality, because of the laws of nature or society. Whether that's dropping…

I think it's partially a function of how common and brutal is the deed. You can rip people into pieces in game for a family entertainment because it almost never happens anymore. Sexual violence still happens way too often so its nastiness is more real for people.

Also sex is generally taboo way more than just murder. Soldier killin people - good. Even innocent women if it's indirect enough like bombing. Soldier raping people? Oh, no, we can't have that!

Also not all murder is equally safe for entertainment. Chopping enemies on the battlefield - great. Stalking innocent people in the city to murder them... Way more on the edge of what's acceptable. Even gunning down civilians in the airport raised some eyebrows.

As I'm getting older I'm getting softer. Recently I was sad because I unintentionally squashed Jeff in Half-Life Alyx, blind mutant that was pretty much helpless if you were careful about the sounds you make. Game characters cheering totally didn't sit well with me.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#164

Earlier quoted context omitted.

approaching an adult for guidance isn't tattling. Approaching an adult to use leverage to get what you want is tattling, especially when its over "sharing a toy that isn't hers". Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids.

>> Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids. If someone breaks into my house and tries to beat me to death, I'm not going to try to reason it out with them, I'm calling the police.

uhh. if someone is in your house with intent to harm you, the police will not arrive in time to prevent it. Police response times are measured in minutes. You're much better off running away or defending yourself with a weapon, the ultimate equalizer being a firearm.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd lean towards the lying part. Her strategy of leveraging higher powers didn't pan out, so she went with plan B of illusion of leveraging higher powers.

She just went with the advice and used her (untrue) words and (authoritative) manners to get what she wants. But was immediately betrayed and shot down by her advisor.

... and consequently took notes for when she is leading others in a company so that she can use the pawns under her similarly.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#166

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…

Some kids, yes.

That your children do this I think speaks more to your aptitude as a parent and nurturer than human nature in general.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#167
It's worse than I thought. They measure "aggressive behavior" based on a questionnaire.

They look for a correlation between the "class" of gamer; literally "people who play a lot at younger ages, drop, and then increase", "people who play a moderate amount at younger ages, drop and then slightly increase", and "people who play only a little bit at a young age but increase" and report no correlation between those classes and the aggression assessment based on the questionnaire.

I admire the fact that they didn't do more work to p-hack their way into a correlation; they went with one methodology and showed that it didn't produce a correlation, and reported that. But even though I agree with the article's conclusion, I don't think the data support it in any meaningful way.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

approaching an adult for guidance isn't tattling. Approaching an adult to use leverage to get what you want is tattling, especially when its over "sharing a toy that isn't hers". Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids.

>> Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids. If someone breaks into my house and tries to beat me to death, I'm not going to try to reason it out with them, I'm calling the police.

I think we all very clearly know that there are exceptions where you do need to ask for external help.

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

approaching an adult for guidance isn't tattling. Approaching an adult to use leverage to get what you want is tattling, especially when its over "sharing a toy that isn't hers". Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids.

>> Learning to become dependent on external intervention for all conflict is not a life skill I want to teach my kids. If someone breaks into my house and tries to beat me to death, I'm not going to try to reason it out with them, I'm calling the police.

If they're already in your house and beating you to death, what makes you think you'll manage to make that phone call?

Re: Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior

#170
post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's probably confirmation bias. Same reason a study with positive outcomes about coffee/alcohol/gay parenthood/gender reassignment/ are not criticized as much as a study on the same topic that had negative outcomes. We want certain things to be true so we (consciously or not) avoid criticizing studies bolstering what we want to be true and harshly criticize studies we want to be false. I like to think science always…

I mean, part of this is probably also some degree of us intuitively knowing the answer. If you have a friend group of 10 people, 4 of which regularly work out. You will probably notice that those 4 friends have less body fat and are more toned than the other 6. At that point, if a study came out saying that working out had no impact on body physique, you'd reflexively question the results. That might sound ridiculous…

There's some truth here, but it's important not to use anecdotes too much to guide intuition because the sample size is often too small and too biased.

For example, I have a group of 10 friends. All 10 of them (including myself) got covid, and we all agree it is no worse than the flu. I mean, yeah, we couldn't smell or taste for a few days, but we all recovered within a week. Therefore... I should reflexively question covid studies saying how dangerous it is because in my own experience it's not even worth making a fuss over?

Maybe to some degree, but the fallacy I committed by relying on my anecdote to guide my intuition is that me and all my friends are young, fit, healthy people. My group of friends didn't include the elderly or immunocompromised or morbidly obese, etc.

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