Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

gamesage.net

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

461–470 of 593 posts

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

#461

Post by taeric »

nearbuy wrote: post #420
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 add my observation that action movies and games try to evoke a particular feeling (that feeling that causes you to exclaim, "that's so cool!"), and that feeling isn't just from violence. For me, watching an awesome, well-choreographed dance routine evokes a very similar feeling. (And you could probably argue a good kung-fu fight scene is essentially a well-choreographed dance.) If you ever watch a James Bond mov…

I have tried to compare typical fight movies to ballet. Some family disagreed heavily, until I convinced them to sit closer at a production. The physicality of a ballet show is incredible.

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

#462

Post by topkai22 »

colejohnson66 wrote: post #445
topkai22 wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any chance you'd like to take a stab at convincing me I shouldn't worry about my (young) kids getting hit by cars? I feel like it's an unfortunately rational anxiety.

I didn’t say you shouldn’t worry. I said that ignoring evidence showing a downwards trend is irrational and used airplanes as an example. I haven’t looked at the stats about children getting hit by cars. Please don’t read words from me that aren’t there.

Sorry, just hoping you had evidence I didn't!

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

#463

Post by viraptor »

noobermin wrote: post #260
apta wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The overvaluing and focus on sex of being something amazing or interesting. Because there are severe consequences to it, pregnancies and STDs being just the start. Yes, it is an amazing thing, and it is not overvalued at all. It's one of the strongest drives we have as humans, and it should be controlled, otherwise it will lead to chaos.

There are no consequences to dismembering people and killing scores of them? The point is comparing sex to violence. Violence definitely has terrible consequences, which is why it is socially taboo.

There's a good scene is the TV series Des where the investigator interviews an phychopath who kept the dead body around and watched the TV with it in another chair. The investigator is interested if Des had sex with the body. To which Des asks who's the real sick person here if murdering someone and pretending to interact with them is ignored, but potential sex with a dead body is what warrants attention.

Reminds me of the GP comment... Also aligns with - murder is so out there that we can joke about it, rape is so common that we can't.

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

#464

Post by vlunkr »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #447
dr_orpheus wrote: post #185

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would also echo this as well. I play quite a few violent video games, but not all. I do not necessarily seek out a video game because it is violent, but there are mechanics that I enjoy more than others. I like shooter games (Halo, COD) more than I enjoy fighting games (Mortal Kombat, Soulcalibur). Does that indicate that I have a violent desire is to go out and shoot people? Absolutely not.

> Does that indicate that I have a violent desire is to go out and shoot people? Absolutely not. Perhaps. But does it mean you're more tolerant of violence? And that others such as yourself eventually aggregate to have a collective impact on the broader culture? And what about 10 or 20 years from now, will your non-desire to shoot people still not exist? Neuro-plasticity effectively dictatess we are what we consume,…

We've seen similar concerns about slasher movies, rap music, and even video games, which have been around and been violent for more than 20 years. To my knowledge none of those concerns have ever amounted to anything.

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

#465

Post by skybrian »

ineedasername wrote: post #438
andrewla wrote: post #312

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 c…

If they are using an existing & proven diagnostic tool to quantify aggression then you can't criticize them for quantifying a qualitative variable (which is perfectly acceptable when done right) unless you are appropriately addressing flaws within that diagnostic tool. You're correct, use of such a tool doesn't automatically validate their methodology, but it does shift a lot of the focus of any criticism in the dire…

Yes, we're not going to get to the bottom of it here. Since most of us aren't social scientists and don't have experience with any particular diagnostic tool, all we are doing is comparing priors, and there's no reason why you should take the priors of some other stranger commenting on the Internet all that seriously.

But I'll say that my priors lean heavily towards the idea that most surveys, even the standard ones, are less meaningful than they appear, for reasons explained here:

https://carcinisation.com/2020/12/11/survey-chicken/

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

#466

Post by colejohnson66 »

topkai22 wrote: post #462
colejohnson66 wrote: post #445

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I didn’t say you shouldn’t worry. I said that ignoring evidence showing a downwards trend is irrational and used airplanes as an example. I haven’t looked at the stats about children getting hit by cars. Please don’t read words from me that aren’t there.

Sorry, just hoping you had evidence I didn't!

No worries! I read your reply as antagonistic and went from there. My mistake.

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

#467

Post by [deleted] »

abfan1127 wrote: post #387
closeparen wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work it out" is a strategy for equals. With major age/size/strength differences it just becomes domination and submission. Parents refusing to provide the "monopoly on violence" just results in kids who are worse at fighting learning to do whatever the bully says, and probably still getting beaten for the fun of it. I mean I do agree that kids need to learn to navigate conflict, but adults should ideally be monitori…

> Parents refusing to provide the "monopoly on violence" just results in kids who are worse at fighting learning to do whatever the bully says, and probably still getting beaten for the fun of it. there's refusing to engage when its friends squabbling over toys. Its another whole level when battery comes in... Pretty big difference.

[deleted]

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

#468

Post by giantg2 »

confidantlake wrote: post #415
giantg2 wrote: post #193

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"No, bullying cannot be solved by the victims, otherwise it would not be a problem in the first place." How do you think that works if zero tolerance policies punish the aggressor and victim equally, essentially preventing the victim from defending themself? And by your reasoning, then bullying shouldn't exist today because the school policies should prevent it, yet it's more rampant than ever. I was bullied once. Ev…

I agree with you that zero tolerance is stupid and that victims should be able t fight back. But is there any evidence that bullying is more rampant than ever? All statistics I have seen point to kids being more well behaved, less violence, less drugs, fewer teen pregnancies ect.

I agree that most of those have been decreasing (yay!). Unfortunately, bullying is said to affect 1 in 4 students during their school careers, the highest it's ever been.

https://www.tctimes.com/news/why-bullying-has-become-so-prev...

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

#469

Post by 14 »

viraptor wrote: post #456
14 wrote: post #443

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is because you are actually mistaken. There are BDSM simulators online. I don’t want to create an account to see how exactly the game goes but you can if you like: NSFW and this link seems to hijack the back button https://www.kink.game

The parent comment mentioned sexual violence. Let's just be clear that BDSM is for consenting parties who are turned on by various experiences including pain. That's not what sexual violence / rape is. BDSM or a nod towards it features in many mainstream games. Then again Dishonored did feature a kink scene which turns into a violence/torture scene... it's just not overly sexual.

Okay this one is like you say, it is called Rape Day, for the record it never released on steam but I believe it is available : https://www.polygon.com/2019/3/4/18249916/rape-day-steam-val...

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

#470

Post by [deleted] »

abfan1127 wrote: post #387
closeparen wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Work it out" is a strategy for equals. With major age/size/strength differences it just becomes domination and submission. Parents refusing to provide the "monopoly on violence" just results in kids who are worse at fighting learning to do whatever the bully says, and probably still getting beaten for the fun of it. I mean I do agree that kids need to learn to navigate conflict, but adults should ideally be monitori…

> Parents refusing to provide the "monopoly on violence" just results in kids who are worse at fighting learning to do whatever the bully says, and probably still getting beaten for the fun of it. there's refusing to engage when its friends squabbling over toys. Its another whole level when battery comes in... Pretty big difference.

[deleted]
Post reply on HN