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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

#331

Post by seangrogg »

mywittyname wrote: post #126
umvi wrote: 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…

To take this even further, with the increasing popularity of games, if violent video games were linked to violence itself we should theoretically see pronounced numbers of streaming personalities (at least those involved in competitive games, which trend towards violence as a win condition) engaged in violent acts. Gaming communities such as Twitch, competitive game conferences such as Evo, events such as Riot's world finals, and establishments such as gaming bars should all have an outsized number of people ready to throw down moreso than their non-gaming cohorts.

And yet gamers remain relatively docile on the whole. And while they may get heated their debates about PlayStation vs XBox are about as likely to result in fatalities as the programming community's vim vs emacs or tabs vs spaces debates.

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

#333

Post by HeavyStorm »

I doubt it very much.

Certainly, games aren't to blame for real killings, terrorism, shootings, etc., but they ARE part of the equation whether we want it or not.

Our society still has a cultural foundation on violence. As the time passes it _seems_ to be diminishing - as we can see by the rejection of violence against woman or other minorities becoming ever more common - but our heroes tend to be aggressive, our tales and stories contains death, killings, etc. Again, less than before, but far from zero.

Studies so far are controversial (to say the least) and it's hard to take sociological statistics at face value, therefore is hard to conclude anything. But it's impossible to believe that spending several hours a week pretending to do violence against ever more realistic cyber impressions of life wouldn't have ANY effect on our selves.

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

#334

Post by Blikkentrekker »

andrewla wrote: post #149
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…

Yes, I think that confirmation bias is very strong here. My rule for analyzing social science articles is pretty simple: If the study contradicts your intuition or understanding of human behavior, it is likely that it does not support the conclusion because of extensive methodological errors or statistical skullduggery. If, on the other hand, the study confirms your intuition or understanding of human behavior, it is…

My rule for analyzing social science is: “it's bullshit till proven otherwise.”.

The simple fact is that I cannot ever think of any solid methodology to investigate a “link” between these two things and that the man who devises it would deliver a rather groundbreaking idea.

How would a study such as this even work?; it's all Quatsch.

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

#335

Post by Miner49er »

A lot of the comments here are replacing "aggression" in the title with violence. Yeah, maybe people aren't more likely to be aggressive on an individual level from violent video games. A much better (but harder to answer question) is do violent video games cause society overall to be more violent?

Is someone who played COD more likely to support military action? Or vote for a violent politician? Or join the military? These all contribute to violence in the world as a whole.

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

#336

Post by Blikkentrekker »

simias wrote: post #251

I doubt there's any kind of direct link between video games and people becoming violent, but I do think it reflects poorly on our societies that we seem to be fine with young kids shoot each other in the face with realistic weapons in CS:GO and Call of Duty but if you show one women's nipple it's unacceptable. While it probably doesn't directly incite violence in well balanced individuals, it does in my opinion trivi…

> I doubt there's any kind of direct link between video games and people becoming violent, but I do think it reflects poorly on our societies that we seem to be fine with young kids shoot each other in the face with realistic weapons in CS:GO and Call of Duty but if you show one women's nipple it's unacceptable.

So the problem is that the weapons be realistic?

I've always noted that rather extreme violence has always been a case of children's entertainment — in something such as Looney Tunes, the characters are frequently the subject of violence that would surely kill a man. Is this acceptable because it's not realistic?

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

#337

Post by simias »

adamnew123456 wrote: post #287
simias wrote: post #251

I doubt there's any kind of direct link between video games and people becoming violent, but I do think it reflects poorly on our societies that we seem to be fine with young kids shoot each other in the face with realistic weapons in CS:GO and Call of Duty but if you show one women's nipple it's unacceptable. While it probably doesn't directly incite violence in well balanced individuals, it does in my opinion trivi…

> but I do think it reflects poorly on our societies that we seem to be fine with young kids shoot each other in the face with realistic weapons in CS:GO and Call of Duty but if you show one women's nipple it's unacceptable. I havent seen this personally, but isn't this more of an American tendency than a general western thing? On the American side media violence is penalized less (in terms of adult ratings) than nud…

It's definitely worse in American media but I think this bias exists even in Europe, just to a slightly lesser extent.

Also, even though we're not quite as prude this side of the Atlantic ocean, we still have to abide by American cultural rules when we use Facebook, Twitter and similar services that have strict no-nudity rules. Similarly, any media produced over here that ambitions to enter the American market will also have to follow these guidelines.

American culture is very pervasive.

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

#338

Post by rgblambda »

giantg2 wrote: post #322
rgblambda wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Older homes do tend to be more sturdy. Still, are the interior doors more durable than the external doors? Are the ceilings secure? Could be easy enough to go into the attic (either with access or by force) and come down in the room in under 5 minutes. Of course if the motive is to kill the occupant then the aggressor could bring tools to defeat the construction.

This has become quite entertaining.

>>Still, are the interior doors more durable than the external doors?

Yes.

>> Could be easy enough to go into the attic (either with access or by force) and come down in the room in under 5 minutes.

Locate the entrance to the attic. Then the room I am in, despite not knowing the layout to the house. Then smash a hole in the ceiling. Then climb through said hole without getting stuck. Without me noticing. In under 5 minutes.

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

#339

Post by watwut »

dr_orpheus wrote: post #203
watwut wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This study is strictly about whether you are more violent 10 years after playing the game. If does not study at all the actual issue most of those who lived with excessive gamers (whether kid or adult) have. Meaning, annoying aggression right after playing and verbal abuse toward household members because they dare to exist if same flat where he lost the match.

Anecdotally, nearly all of my friends growing up played violent video games. I did see this behavior from one of my friends and his aggression following losing a video game. But he also had the same reaction after we lost a soccer game as well. I think that video games may show this effect, but it is not necessarily the cause. After all, all of my friends played the same violent video games (often together); the indi…

In his case, his buddies in soccer either put up with it or don't. They have choice whether to go play with him. Also, soccer is played relatively rarely, like twice a week.

In case of gaming, people in the same householde are getting that despite not having much choice. It is also much more frequent - dedicated gamers play hours and hours every day.

Another aspect with soccer is that really only few people can do overnight, so again, the bad behavior due to sleep deprivation is less likely to happen. If course it can happen if you party while night or something.

These logistical differences can make big difference in terms of how annoying the hobby is for those who have to put up with people like your friend.

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

#340

Post by eeZah7Ux »

eMGm4D0zgUAVXc7 wrote: post #198
eeZah7Ux wrote: post #181

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You are mixing 2 different topics. Ramping authoritarianism and policing is one problem. > "allowed to defend themselves" > "punching my bully" ...and this is what most bullies would say. No, bullying cannot be solved by the victims, otherwise it would not be a problem in the first place. Bullying needs to be stopped by the school - and without calling in armed bullies to stop the bullies.

> No, bullying cannot be solved by the victims As someone who has punched multiple bullies into the face, I can tell you it does stop it quite efficiently. Two of them basically instantly switched to never again daring to acknowledge that I even exist, for the remaining >5 years of being on the same school. The remainder wasn't smart enough to stop instantly and thus got multiple beatings. There's always the one kid…

> I can tell you it does stop it quite efficiently.

Please avoid the patronizing tone. Your experience is not universal. I've personally witnessed victims escalating the conflict into much worse situations.

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