Ten year study: No link between violent video games and aggressive behavior • Hacker News Board

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

#311

Post by andrewnc » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

adamredwoods wrote: post #305

I think any study has validity, but when religion is involved, my suspicions begin: Dr. Sarah M. Coyne, School of Family Life, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah, USA. Specifically: https://familylife.byu.edu/ "Provide instruction that fosters commitment to the principles in The Family: A Proclamation to the World." ...and that proclamation is.... "THE FAMILY A PROCLAMATION TO THE WORLD The First Presidency and Co…

I think if you actually knew Dr Coyne you would see your suspicions are unfounded. She is an excellent scientist and often provides research counter to what is comfortable at BYU.

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

#312

Post by andrewla » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:25 PM UTC

ineedasername wrote: post #234

andrewla wrote: post #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 clas…

I can't see the full text to evaluate the server, but if there is an established and proven diagnostic tool for measuring aggression and that's the tool they used, then the methodology may be sound.

Look in the comment thread to links to scihub.

Yes, they use an off-the-shelf diagnostic tool. No, that does not make the methodology sound. They use a word like "aggression" which has a qualitative meaning and attempt to assign a quantitative metric to it. To assign a meaning to it, I would have to go to other studies to find out how this links to my various qualitative notion of "aggressive": incidence of violent crime vs. cutting in line vs. correcting people's grammar.

You may say "this is impossible, the bar you are setting means that social science papers can't even use the word 'aggressive' to describe quantitative results". And yes, that's true, they can't. They can say things like "convicted of a violent crime" which we can at least agree means something objective that vaguely correlates to aggressiveness (although this has limits). The media can report this as "aggression" and that's fine too, so long as we know what is actually being measured.

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

#313

Post by rgblambda » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:26 PM UTC

giantg2 wrote: post #307

rgblambda wrote: post #302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> if they've already broken into the house, they will be able to break into any room you are hiding in I disagree. If possible, call the police immediately. Barricade yourself in a room and if it comes to it defend yourself. I don't fancy my chances against someone armed and motivated so it's a last resort. This is based on the advice from the Police Service in my country.

Dude, what's your interior house walls made of? I'm not saying don't barricade yourself. Just that if you have an attacker in your house who is intent of killing you ("beating you to death") and an average police response of 5 minutes or more, they can get into any room in a typical house. You can barricade the door, but anyone who knows about construction knows drywall is easy enough to get through. Most interior do…

Sometimes I forget how America centric HN is. The internal walls in my house are made of stone. But it's an old house. Most in my country are made of brick.

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

#314

Post by CC38 » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

BigJ1211 wrote: post #171

afandian wrote: post #117

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'll try to break this down one by one. >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 blocks into place, building a city, chasing and eating ghosts, flying a plane, performing magic spells, or engaging in physical violence. I've played a lot of ultra-violent games, puzzle games, adventure rpg games,…

I just want to add that the skills that make a good First Person Shooter player do not translate to real-world shooting skills AT ALL.

In a virtual world:

- The gun weights nothing so strength doesn't matter and gravity doesn't slow your aim

- The trigger is a mouse button and there is no right or wrong way to pull it, and it's incredibly easy and identical for all firearms

- The accuracy of the firearm is often perfect

- Holding the gun still is usually only a consideration when sniping and you can just hold down a button to achieve an impossible level of stillness

- When you reload a half-empty magazine the bullets from the discarded magazine usually stay in your overall supply somehow

- Posture is a non-issue

- Recoil never hurts

- You achieve a perfect sight/scope picture every time you shoulder the weapon or raise it up with no practice needed

Basically I am trying to point out that these games are really not simulations. The visuals are just window-dressing for the real game which is determined by the mode. Even the ubiquitous "team deathmatch" is essentially just a modified version of capture-the-flag without the flag where eliminations are not permanent and the game is instead ended by a timer or a score limit.

On an interesting note, I got the game Star Wars: Battlefront 2 recently and I noticed that the game says I "defeated" whoever I just shot which is in contrast with the visuals of the person getting shot and falling down. I see this as an attempt to make the game more friendly to kids by pulling back the curtain on what is really happening through language in order to keep kids from going around talking about how many dozen people they killed in the last game they played. I don't see anything wrong with this but think it should not be necessary for adults. Of course if your game is rated T (Teen) or E (Everyone) then this makes perfect sense.

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

#315

Post by nindalf » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

jchw wrote: post #292

yazboo wrote: post #80

I have noticed that many social science articles posted on Hacker News bring out critical comments about study design, doubts about the strength of the study's conclusions, that kind of thing. This submission, on the other hand, is a link to some kind of gaming news website, which links to an abstract for an article in a Cyberpsychology (?) journal which costs $60 to access, and there is widespread and uncritical agr…

The assertion that violent video games cause violence is pretty non-sensical to begin with given that violent media already existed before video games. It’s just another way to push censorship. You see a lot less criticism when the same thing is done for pornography and eroticism, even though there is no real hypothesis for why it would be any different.

While I don't think violent video games cause violence, it's not a completely ridiculous premise. Interactive video games require you to take and execute the decision yourself, putting yourself in the shoes of the player character.

If you've played the Last of Us 1 or 2, you know what I'm talking about. If you saw it, it would affect you deeply. But actually doing those things hits so much harder. Is it possible that has a deeper effect on us compared to a movie? I don't know, but it's not a ridiculous proposition.

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

#316

Post by Natanael_L » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:27 PM UTC

Quarrelsome wrote: post #226

umvi wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 questio…

well to put it another way; in the time that I have lived violent video games have exploded in popularity and violent crime has apparently decreased substantially. That's not to say there's causality between the two but it would definitely support the premise that violent video games at least don't encourage violent crime.

I also don't think there's a strong correlation / causation, but this isn't solid proof.

If there was a causation then the reduction in violent crime could be muted by a small factor due to games, while the net decrease is (as before) caused by an even larger independent factor. In other words, the net decrease could have been larger without the presence of games.

What it does instead show is a maximum plausible effect size, and that it likely isn't worse than the activities which it is replacing.

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

#317

Post by troupe » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:28 PM UTC

diarmuid wrote: post #227

longdefeat wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

-we should ask "what can I do that has a positive impact?"- That's part of the point of this essay that was on HN last year: "Fortnite and the Good Life," which seems relevant here. https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...

headshot === positive impact they are just games and most (non crazy) people understand that like hansel and gretel when they push the witch in the oven - its fiction and not intended to be a guide to life

> its fiction and not intended to be a guide to life

You might read the actual tale of Little Red Riding Hood. It is very much meant as a guide for young girls in what to expect and watch out for in life.

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

#318

Post by cortesoft » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #24

Waterluvian wrote: post #14

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 kids have more ability to self regulate than we typically treat them as having. This "kids need adult supervision" is a relatively new thing, we used to be sent out to play as kids for HOURS (be home by dinner) and ran the woods and parks or played murderball (soccer with tackling) and other forms of roughhousing, all without serious mayhem. Parents would let us "work it out" if there was a fight.

Kids did suffer injuries and deaths playing unsupervised before. Whether the risk is worth it or not is a fair question, but we can't just pretend there is no risk in letting your kids play without supervision.

This is the same argument that anti-vaccine people make... we survived as a species for thousands of years without vaccines, we don't need them now!

Yes, we survived as a species but a lot of individuals did not survive.

Every safety and health improvement we make can suffer the same argument (we survived for years with lead paint! Asbestos has been used in a ton of buildings and we are still here!)

Of course, not every safety improvement is worth it. Some risk is acceptable when the gains are high. I just think it is important to be realistic about the risks when we are talking about the benefits.

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

#319

Post by THE_PUN_STOPS » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:29 PM UTC

Ensorceled wrote: post #24

Waterluvian wrote: post #14

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 kids have more ability to self regulate than we typically treat them as having. This "kids need adult supervision" is a relatively new thing, we used to be sent out to play as kids for HOURS (be home by dinner) and ran the woods and parks or played murderball (soccer with tackling) and other forms of roughhousing, all without serious mayhem. Parents would let us "work it out" if there was a fight.

Throughout the 1800s there were tens of thousands of homeless kids just running around New York City making ends meet. The data is unreliable but it’s interesting to wonder how their lives turned out.

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

#320

Post by rriepe » Tue, Dec 29, 2020, 7:30 PM UTC

yazboo wrote: post #80

I have noticed that many social science articles posted on Hacker News bring out critical comments about study design, doubts about the strength of the study's conclusions, that kind of thing. This submission, on the other hand, is a link to some kind of gaming news website, which links to an abstract for an article in a Cyberpsychology (?) journal which costs $60 to access, and there is widespread and uncritical agr…

Hacker News users aren't smart, we just type good