Reality Check - Do Video Games Make Us Violent? (Part 1)

There are so many other media outlets that can affect a person negatively. The problem isn't those type of media, its the person. Whats makes this particular person susceptible to such media?

It's amazing how history repeats itself. Several (well more like maaannny) decades ago there was another public outrage that stated that comic books were negatively affecting the minds of children reading them. What the heck happened to that outrage? Over time I guess many realized these statements were unfounded. The same thing is happening here with video games and soon this too will die out when nothing concrete can be proven.

If you have no will of your own or have a child-like mentality (ie, one that is not matured), then chances are you're influenced easily enough for games (and other stimuli) to make you violent. Parents are often cast in the role of scapegoating things they don't understand simply because (as denoted in Bioshock Infinite by the Lutece twins), the mind will attempt to fill in the blanks in order to explain something where no logic can be used. They wish to wash their hands of the responsibility that is involved in allowing a weak-willed individual to be influenced by a violent game, and as such are actually performing a type of abuse to the child by allowing them to partake of that entertainment in a premature developmental state.

I always disprove this blanket statement by stating, if Game A + Person B1 = Violent behavior C, and Game A + Person B2 = No Violent behavior, then the constant (game) is nullable, and the responsibility of the result is due to the variable (the person), ie, how persons B1 and B2 respond to the constant (Game A).

What parents and society fails to realize is that there is people who borns in a predetermined way. There is 3 psychologic ways you can born with, ones who borns as an "evil" person, or just naturally aggressive, psychotic, sadistic, cruel, etc; ones as an "good" person, or just someone kind, simpatic, generous, humble etc, and ones who are like a blank page. These ones will have their personality molded by exteriors agents (parents education, school education, friends, TV, games etc). The first 2 you cant do practically nothing, but the third, if you are responsible parent, who has attention and watches your son's life, he will not be influenced by violent games. Of course you dont let a 6-8 yo child to play GTA or something. Those kids that go bat shit crazy because of video games, like gun shot, fights, aggression etc, its the result of terrible parenting, not the games. But its always easy to blame a "big bad evil industry" than people recognize their mistakes and flaws as parents.

Jack the ripper obviously played too much GTA when he was a wee lad.

I blame the feminists(joke). This sh1t is ridiculous. I've played games since I was about 10 and I can't even remember the last time I was in a fight or the last time I've intentionally hurt anyone.

The biggest problem, by far, is parents not making sure a game is suitable for their children to play. Many of them just do not seem to grasp the idea that video games can and do contain situations and experiences that should not be viewed or interacted with by minors.

An example of this is on my very own door step, two boys from my twin daughter's class (7 years old) came into my house, as they came in I was playing GTA V and I immediately started getting the questions about what it was I was playing, fortunately I was driving from point to point without crashing or killing pedestrians (I did switch it off though). It transpired that both of them play GTA and Call of Duty on their consoles. I asked them if their parents ever played them and, unsurprisingly, they said no they don't play 'kids' games!

It's the parents of these children that need to be educated on how to protect their kids. If they did then there would be no worry over video games potentially making children aggressive and/or violent. Even if they don't, they certainly desensitise them to violence and that's not to mention sexual content.

My girls do play games on their 3DS's but Pokémon is about as violent as they get. Although I do often wonder if trapping wild animals and forcing them to fight each other is sending a bad message? ;)

Violent video games are an outlet for violence they are a perfect way to release your anger and stress, they are not a cause of violence.

At least thats what i believe.

There is no X-BOX achievement for killing people in real life.

At least not yet...

The only link between video game violence and players aggressiveness is... none. It is the parents not knowing how to nourish their children and buying games without checking their ESRB ratings.

Why not also ban all movies depicting violence and torture too? All of these studies and claims are stupid and based on nothing but taking written papers and situations out of context for more effect.

I just don't understand why they keep jumping on videogames, it just looks like a scapegoat to blame something they aren't able to fix or avoiding the real issue altogether.

Good, maybe the next one should be: Do video games make us perverts?

Which might lift some scantily clad loli bans from places like the UK, France and Sweden. Which might stop the stupid censorship they always push.

Or pretty much any sex related content in games coursing ape shit.

But I'm sure that a whole lot of you hypocritical people, that took up the pitchforks against the people saying that games makes people violent, are aiming said pitchfork towards the sexual content instead.

The only things in this world that are guaranteed to make people violent are, outsourced customer service and "the mcrib".

what happened to the voting system on comments?

Still like that people comment that "Children are being exposed to mature contant/violance" isnt this why theres Ratings on the games?

yeah someone always comes up with research to counteract someone elses, that's horseshit. games don't make people violent; people make people violent. the shit people do to one another makes people violent. and sometimes people who have left their motivations to chemical dependency become violent because they are CRACKED THE **** OUT. Stop looking for problems here, and take a wider look at society and the way people interact with one another. These stories are frivolous and bombastic.

The year is 2050, and World War 3 just ended. It was perhaps the most gruesome warfare to ever take place in human history. However, despite the fact the entire world watched the North Koreans declare WW3 on us - out of starvation and poverty - we must keep the sticks up our rear-end and ask: Did video game violence have anything to do with it? Because it's a violent thing, and violence goes in the same category with killing, and killing happens a lot in wars. We must get to the bottom of this.

It really bothers me that this question is still being asked, when the answer is so clear.

Yes, violence in video games can have a negative effect on SOME people. However that is a very specific group of people. People with specific mental deficiencies that either make them more likely to actually commit a violent act, or cause them to have a harder time separating fantasy from reality. Most people however, can separate a game from real life and in many cases, can actually use the game as an outlet for their anger.

There are people that stalk actors or actresses from movies they have seen, believing that they are somehow actually connected to those people. There is no question that if they had never seen a movie with that person in it, they would not have started stalking them. However, to blame that behavior on those movies would be absurd.

Also, when it comes to aggression in video games, the competitive nature of video games is frequently overlooked. I have personally found that with some games, my competitive nature can make me more aggressive. It has nothing to do with the violence and far more to do with my own competitive nature. As an example, I can play a shooter online, and for the most part, remain calm and relaxed. However, I play Starcraft 2 multiplayer, and after a couple bad losses I can be so agitated I have to go for a walk (and as a result I only play this game occasionally). There is no question that the shooters are more violent, however something about Starcraft 2 brings out a far more aggressive side of me.

The point is while some games have an effect on some people, any study claiming a clear link between violence and video games is simply spouting an opinion with unreliable studies as evidence.

Unfortunately I am unable to get sound at the moment, so I will have to catch this later.

However, I am VERY passionate about this subject for one simple reason; Video Games are the ONLY reason that I am not an outwardly violent person.

I will spare going into vast detail about how the FBI shows that Violent Crime, Especially Among Youths, has dropped to RECORD lows since the mid 90s when 'violent games' became mainstream. (yes, correlation doesn't equal causation, but when looking at the data it is none-the-less a STRONG correlation)

Instead, I will point out that as an anger management tool, there are countless times I have played GTA instead of punching someone in their annoying face, or played Hitman instead of beating someone within an inch of their life.

Much like hitting the heavy bag, only vastly more effective, Violent Video Games are the single most effective tool for anger management ever created.

Video Games do not make us violent, humans are violent by nature. Video Games however let us vent that anger in a healthy way that causes no harm to anyone or anything (except maybe our power bill), and let us get on with our lives.

This is frankly the only piece of data you need on the issue:

https://videogamenotes.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/scotus_chart.gif

If they're desperate to continue this research, I'd suggest they try and separate "competitiveness" as a variable. It's quite plausible that any aggression doesn't come from games per se but comes from just competitive behaviour. Compare the results to heavily competitive sports and see what the differences are.

I've played video games my whole life, I'm not violent.

My eldest daughter (now 20 years old) is one of the most passive and selfless people I've ever met and she grew up a gamer playing GTA etc. She still does.

My son is 17 and he is the same.

Video games don't make people violent. It's just another scape goat for the ignorant morons to blame.

Why is this even a subject for debate?! All video games are rated just like movies and TV shows. That means kids are protected (at least in theory). As for adults becoming more violent after playing video games, that's a joke. Besides, there are TV shows and movies with a lot of violence, and nobody seems bothered by those.

Been playing video games for 35 years and i still have not been able to kill anybody with my pixelized gun, nor have i been arrested for running from computer generated cops. Go figure.

Well done Lucy! Looking forward to part 2.

Just ask anyone who argues about video games being violent if they know anything about what spawning is. The fundamental part. I wouldn't be surprised if the person doesn't know what it is. You can't have video games without spawning.

This is good stuff..Lucy handled the issue superbly..

Humans are inherently violent.

Video games are an outlet for violence.

If you got rid of video games, movies, music, guns, knives, religion, military organizations, hunger, etc. We would still kill each other. Why? We enjoy it. Case closed.

To me this just says: "People are violent, can we blame it on something?"