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

Perhaps due to an engineer's background, I don't quite understand why it's so hard to verify whether or not there is a correlation between violent video games and real life violence. All you need is a simple statistical analysis. Over the last 25 years or so games have been massively growing in popularity. Their graphical fidelity was also improving very rapidly. As a result, 25 years ago games were mostly played by a handful of nerds and consisted of a few pixels that were meant to symbolize actual objects, such as a human body. Right now they're played by the vast majority young males and a significant percentage females and they're almost photorealistic in their depiction of the world, violence included. Considering that majority of games involve some kind of conflict and killing, it should be trivial to simply try and correlate the number of gamers and the number of homicides (or robberies, car thefts, sexual assaults etc.) in a given year, paying particular attention to the crimes committed by young people. The only potentially problematic thing is eliminating the influence of all the other factors that may have affected crime rates, but it's not impossible either. Other factors, such as changes in law or it's application, social situation of certain groups, police training, education etc are mostly local in nature (that is, they don't really transcend national borders and are often specific to particular cities or regions). The rise of gaming on the other hand, was pretty much a global phenomenon. If you compile data from several different countries, you can pretty much eliminate all the local factors, leaving pretty solid data on the true correlation between gaming and violence.

I can already tell you however, that they're unlikely to find such a correlation and if it's there, it might be negative rather than positive. Violence across the developed world (and in US particularly) has dropped significantly since the early 1990s and that includes youth violence as well. I wouldn't be surprised if it turned out that kids are less likely to mug someone or steal a car because they can do all of that and more in GTA without having to face the RL consequences of doing so. There's no proof of that of course, but it's almost certain that games cannot be a significant cause of RL violence - otherwise it would simply not be possible for violence to decrease at the same time as popularity of gaming has increased so much.

Being human seems to make people violent, if you open up a history book.

I do think people who cannot tell the difference between fiction and reality should steer clear of anything violent...from films/tv series, to games and books. Also the news....

I have been playing violent games since I was a kid. And the only creatures I ever harmed in real life are insects, the bad ones. I never engaged in fights or had any aggressive behavior. So how do those nerdy psychologists explain that? Funny when people have a debate about something they never tried based on some biased studies.

NO

Any correlation between video games and violence would most likely be caused by parents who ignore ESRB ratings. Of course children and young teens are vulnerable, that's why there is a rating system that attempts to prevent these individuals from playing a game. Most adults who play a T or M rated game should know the difference between right and wrong in the real world. Those who don't were already going to be a danger, and video games weren't the cause of it.

Nope. Been playing violent games since I was 5 and I'm more easy going and relaxed than most people I know that don't play any games.

In short, don't believe the hype... or the overwhelming bias.

Aggression?

People who play Demon Souls say they want to throw the controller through the television set. Many gamers said so. I think a few actually did.

Make a derogatory statement about someone's beloved console and endure lots of nasty insults and threats.

Killing a bunch of people in video games, displacing unhealthy emotions on video game characters are a much healthier outlet for aggression than doing it for real.

Do we all live in a vacuum? Is anyone free from influence of the outside world and other people? I suppose everyone would be much better off if the government locked everyone up in a closet, free from the nasty influence of video games, sports and other recreational activities.

Does video game news show hostesses cause heartbreak among some gamers? Yes. *Tears*

Violence, psychopathic and sociopathic tendencies are things that a person is born with and a lot of times its how the person is raised. If by playing a violent game as a child and they are told to act like that and be like that then yes it will lead to violence same as being an aggressive sports star and you are rewarded for violent activity. I play COD, BF, and such and I know the difference. I'm aggressive in the game because it's a competition and nothing more. I'm not like that when I'm away from the game because i know the difference. Any research into this issue and claiming violent connections will always be biased and basically wrong by default. Any person who has committed a crime and used games as a reason we're only looked for a scape goat via the mental insanity clause. Those people were naturally violent and mentally unstable. It's the same as a sports fan or fans beating to death a rival team fan because of the deep seated rivalry, you can't claim one without the other.

Saying video games makes people violent is like saying sports makes people violent? You don't see experts and politicians saying we should ban sports because fans can become violent and have actually killed rival fans or actual sports stars have injured, crippled or killed themselves? They don't do that because of the lucrative tax revenue that's earned by the trade and that the Super Bowl is a big human trafficking event or all the kickbacks local politicians receive from sports teams and such. That study was a complete joke. The big reason is that the gov't can't get any tax revenue out of it on a more constant basis.

Saying video games makes people violent is like saying sports makes people violent? You don't see experts and politicians saying we should ban sports because fans can become violent and have actually killed rival fans or actual sports stars have injured, crippled or killed themselves? They don't do that because of the lucrative tax revenue that's earned by the trade and that the Super Bowl is a big human trafficking event or all the kickbacks local politicians receive from sports teams and such. That study was a complete joke. The big reason is that the gov't can't get any tax revenue out of it on a more constant basis.

Yes. hardy har har lel kappa

No they don't. The end.

Yawn, I'm glad someone said it. it is a possibility, If think otherwise. the evromental choas of everthing around you... choose poorly... and were offended enough to pick a side. woah, then... you used actual numerical data. Captain Obivious, check please. nah, honestly. you stay, i'll leave.

First, I would like to point out how ridiculous the "I don't become violent after I play games" argument is. It would be like me saying "I don't buckle my seatbelt when I drive and I'm still alive" or "I've never hurt anyone when I was drunk driving." Those arguments do not work logically.

Now, people who say video game violence does not cause aggressive behavior are no more able to say that then the APA can really state they do. Those in here are subjected to the same biases those researchers may have been while conducting some of those studies. Many gamers have their beliefs just like anyone else and are subjected to another error in logic: cognitive dissonance. So when personal beliefs are conflicted with actions of the opposing belief, like this video and the APA study, people often justify their position through faulty logic such as ad hominem attacks, anecdotal information, poisoning the well, etc. So this video kind of has a little of that. A degree in psychology is great so she can understand better as well, but focusing on all the flaws in the study ignores where the study might have gone right. Also, those researchers who were over 50 at the time of the research may have been biased, but it should not be assumed their capacity for objectivity and unbiased research is non-existent either. The possibility one person disagreed with methods may have been more poisoning the well than actual reasonable flaws in the study. I will agree though, numerous studies on this subject often find it hard to define and test certain areas aggressive behavior and video game violence. To me, this video demonstrates confirmation bias on Lucy's part a little, but basically reaches a similar conclusion to what many have found, there is no concrete link and it still requires more research.

So, it is not a yes or no, but there is some information out there that does cause concern. Bottom line is it needs to be researched more.

And one thing I do find interesting which has never been brought up in any of these arguments. Social Learning Theory. Alfred Bandura came up with a learning theory which posits children and adults can learn by observing others. The Bobo doll experiment (you can look it up on youtube) is actually quite famous for demonstrating this. This demonstrated children can learn aggressive behavior after watching the actions of an adult, which was on a television. He recorded adults playing with toys in a room in various situations, and one of them was being violent with th Bobo doll. The children who watched the recording and viewed the aggressive adult repeated that behavior quite well. Also, modeling theory states behavior can be learned through specific role models. People may not look to TV or video games as being or having "role models," but think about how children can really look up to superheroes or video game characters. Modeling theory is not a belief of something, it is actually something which has been researched through numerous different studies. Those studies have shown more than enough times correlations between role models and children's behavior.

So, after those, can video game violence cause aggressive behavior? It's possible. If it does come out it has no effect on aggressive behavior, great. If it later comes out it does affect aggressive behavior and, or causes violence, then we have to accept it given the evidence is clear and not subjected to errors.

This needs to be reposted

:"However, the group of 230 academics from universities around the world wrote in its open letter to the APA youth violence in the US and around the world was currently "at a 40-year low"." - http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-33960075.

In other words, no. Video games are merely a scapegoat, just like rap, heavy metal, rock 'n' roll, jazz, horror movies, comic books, etc... were used to incite moral panics back in the 90s, 80s, 70s.

It is funny how stupid these episodes have become since Cam left

No they don't men are aggressive without computer games and I would look more to drink for the reason. Time would be better spent on looking into how computer games distract many from more important tasks in life and potentially without discipline can effect you negatively.

Saying that any form of competition or stress can make any person man or woman aggressive so to an extent I do agree.

No they don't men are aggressive without computer games and I would look more to drink for the reason. Time would be better spent on looking into how computer games distract many from more important tasks in life and potentially without discipline can effect you negatively.

Not at all, people really need to get over this. I just finished massacring innocents on the street, blowing up cars, and shooting down helicopters. Now I am back home playing Grand Theft Auto V on my PC and I do not feel any different.

Nope I been playing games all my life and not violent. Although I have smashed a couple of controllers and key board in my time but never took it out on anything else.

I'm going to answer based on common sense.
I am a 27 year old gamer with about 40,000 hours of gaming experience.
The short answer is NO games do not make you violent or aggressive.
Games or media in any form of entertainment can actually help reduce psychological symptoms, and may even reduce violent tendencies.
There is a age limit regarding when a child knows what is real or not real, like religion.
If said person believed it was real he may unknowingly repeat said actions in the real world, thinking it as normal(this is the only exception).
All other psychological links are related to social experiences, e.g. abusive parents raises a bully, bully abuses others for fun too.

I've heard this about games potentially increasing aggression before, and I think it's valid, but there's a very big leap between slightly increased aggression and straight up criminal, violent or sociopathic behavior.

There's also the fact that basically anything can increase a persons aggression, certainly anything competitive like online gaming or playing sports of any kind, as does getting stuck in a traffic jam, being overly hungry or tired, and a whole plethora of other things! Remembering this I think it's silly to see so many of these aggression studies focused solely on gaming, as though they're special in any way with regards to increasing human aggression.

That is the best episode so far. Looking forward to the next one.

Bunch of nonsense, it depends on a person, someone who is angry can lose it when repairing a car when things don't go smooth, so then we should all just stop doing everything and even then there would be people who would go insane just because they already are.

I hate those clueless idiots who think they know everything about everyone.