@ distaria

Yeah you have to use actual HTML tags here.

Wait... wait... so.... because almost everyone has played games, they're the cause? Let's drudge up a few related arguments. You're wearing red, you must be a commie. You're hair covers your eyes, you must be emo, and must be suicidal. You read books, you are too informed, and a liability, and must be killed. You have foreign friends, you're a terrorist, and must be detained. Sorry... but if all of these seem ridiculous, how does it sound when you try to single out a demographic that comprises of 98% of people under the age of 50 or something.

For some reason the quote "When you gotta go, go with a smile!" From Nicholson's Joker came to mind.

They took a sip of JT's bong water, didn't they?

However, despite living in an era "saturated with mass media (tm)," we have one of the lowest crime rates in our history? Or take Japan! Those folks are obsessed with games and TV and the like, yet they have one of the lowest crime rates in the world. The only possible conclusions to me is that these folks were either studying a parallel universe or are making sure to find exactly what they want to see.

More BS junk science from Bushman, so why am I not surprised?

I'd like to know what kind of drugs Bushman is on, so I know exactly what to avoid.

@ nightwng2000

But don't you think there's at least some similarities in all of the studies. And granted all studies are not identical, but all scientific research are all unique and we're talking about social science, not physics. Of course, historical changes need to be taken into account and I think they already know that.

@ HandofCrom

It's nice to make comparisons to Japan, but there's huge cultural differences between America and Japan. So it's an iffy statement that you made. Studying what they watch isn't going to useful. It's how they interprete and make it.

@ Janarius

But don’t you think there’s at least some similarities in all of the studies. And granted all studies are not identical, but all scientific research are all unique and we’re talking about social science, not physics.

Alright, they are similar. They all study the short term effects of media violence. This guy is taking that short term research and coming to long term conclusions. That does not fly in my book.

It seems to me that this guy hangs with John Bruce and we will see Johnny boy touting this as a huge victory for his side.

It’s nice to make comparisons to Japan, but there’s huge cultural differences between America and Japan. So it’s an iffy statement that you made. Studying what they watch isn’t going to useful. It’s how they interprete and make it.

Why should we take into account "how [Japan] interprete and make it." when we completely ignore how the US interprets and makes violent media. Violent media is violent media no matter where you go. I agree that we have different societies, laws, norms, and mores but that is something that all these researchers don't ever take into account.

I will be back with more after I read the whole thing.

This is it. This is the big one. The comparison of gaming to smoking. The same has been done for fast food and other lifestyle choices, and I have been waiting to see them try this tactic.

You know, spewing out nonsense and claiming to be a scientist in the process is MUCH MORE dangerous than playing Halo 3 or Call of Duty 4.

Listening to this crap every day makes me angrier than any videogame ever could.

Doh. Apparently [] tags don't work here. Whoops. A habit from UBB forums I guess.

Janarius,
Similar in the sense that most research doesn't focus on the INDIVIDUAL and the complex nature of individuals. They find what appears to be a common ground, determine a statistic, then sets that common ground as a stereotype for the whole of a particular group throughout the species.

"violent video games increase aggression". Therefore, people who play violent video games are statistically probable for being aggressive.

OOOOoooooo....

Except that the study didn't take into account a great many factors. Some of those factors include, but aren't limited to:

Genetic factors.
Personality types of the individuals.
Emotions an individual feels while playing
Life experiences of the individual which shape a great many factors over time. Experiences from the tiny forgotten type to the "life altering" events.
Mood of the individual at the time of the study.
Likes and dislikes for a form of media, a particular genre, a particular product.
Capability of playing a particular type of game or even a particular type of console.
How the individual reacts to a particular product.
How the individual reacts to other situations, interactive or non-interactive and WHY (using all the above factors in those situations as well).

But researchers don't care about nor do they record these factors. They ignore the complexity of these factors and their play on an individual at any given moment. These factors zip past us when they happen to us as well. "second nature" is a way to describe how we treat that complexity.

But the overwhelming majority of the studies being reviewed have the simplistic "they externally appear to be more aggressive, so the media/product makes them more aggressive". It doesn't matter how the study is performed and it doesn't matter the "side comments" they make. In the end, that's all these studies amount to. And doing a "review" on those studies does nothing whatsoever other than to support them by not taking into account those complex factors any more than the specific studies themselves do.

Is it possible to do a study on these issues? I truly think there is a very possible way to do a study on the issue of aggression in general and get far more realistic and intelligent data from such a study without leading to stereotypes of any group of individuals. And, quite frankly, I think it would be far more useful to the science of psychology and mental health than these limited misused studies have been.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

@ nightwng2000

Well I wouldn't say they don't care about the factors you mentioned, but i guessed they "controlled" these factor by having a large and diverse sample population, so people in the low and high extreme of a variable would cancel each other out.

If you look at Richard Tremblay's work, mentioned earlier. He only talked about genetic factors and nothing about social, emotional expression or social competence. So I wouldn't jump on saying he doesn't care about other factors.

Besides, doing a study to investigate all these factors would take a lot of resources and time. and for data analysis of this type, the result can be rather tenuous I think. (better ask my stats teacher)

I have more now:

Those who had played the violent video game were more physically aggressive toward peers. Other randomized experiments have measured college students’ propensity to be physically aggressive after they had played (or not played) a violent video game. For example Bartholow and Anderson [25] found that male and female college students who had played a violent game subsequently delivered more than two and a half times as many high-intensity punishments to a peer as those who played a nonviolent video game. Other experiments have shown that it is the violence in video games, not the excitement that playing them provokes, that produces the increase in aggression [26].

Its not the thrill of playing the game but the game itself that makes people more aggressive. It is not the fact that most violent games are very competitive and when you make someone play a competitive game and then make them perform a competitive agression test they will show more aggression to others.

Nope it is the violent content.

In summary, experiments unambiguously show that viewing violent videos, films, cartoons, or TV dramas or playing violent video games “cause” the risk to go up that the observing child will behave seriously aggressively toward others immediately afterward.

Hey look he is coming to a "causual" conclusion.

One more quasi-experiment frequently cited by game manufacturers should be mentioned here. Williams and Skoric [28] have published the results of a dissertation study of cooperative online game playing by adults in which they report no significant long-term effects of playing a violent game on the adult’s behavior. However the low statistical power of the study, the numerous methodological flaws (self-selection of a biased sample, lack of an adequate control group, the lack of adequate behavioral measures) make the validity of the study highly questionable. Furthermore the participants were adults, for whom there would be little theoretical reason to expect long-term effects

Translation:

"This study is directly related to what I am writing about and I have to include it. But since it does not support my preconcieved notions, it is completely flawed and therefore worthless."

Give me a break.

A number of researchers have suggested that, independently of the plot, viewers or game players who are already aggressive should be the only ones affected. This is certainly not true.

Here he is again debunking research that does not support his thesis. He has not facts to back this up, just his opinion.

That is all I have. Feel free to continue debunking and otherwise complaining about this "study"

This is it. This is the big one. The comparison of gaming to smoking. The same has been done for fast food and other lifestyle choices, and I have been waiting to see them try this tactic.

I've been waitng for them to try this too. Once you say something is almost or just as bad as smoking - the big public health boogeyman - everyone's alarm bells go off. The only problem is smoking has major, demonstrable and physically tangible effects while the media violence is far more nebulous. They're really reaching here as the comparison is fallacious on a lot of levels. As Overcast said, it's just more junk science.

Also, how much does anyone want to bet that certain politicians - especially those running for president - (*cough!*Billary*cough!*) will pick up this ball and run with it?

Janarius,
I do like the genetic research study as it does focus on another of those many factors. But it's still limited.

And when researchers make the argument about how much time and resources it takes to do a more thorough study, the word that seriously comes to mind first (and maybe a little biasedly): lazy.

Frankly, when it comes to studies that rely on such complex issues and so heavily on chaos theory as well (dang that uncertainty principle!), I hold very little interest in statistics. I'm not even a big fan of profilers because more ofen than not, we'll hear about successes but not how often they may be wrong. I keep having this image of the so-called "professional" who made all sorts of claims about the Branch Davidians in Waco... but had never met a single one and couldn't really back up any of his claims with FACTS.

Statistics have their uses. Unfortunately, too many folks love to use, or rather MISuse them, to create idiotic stereotypes about many groups of individuals.

I do believe there ARE good researchers out there. But like so many other good people in various professions, they get ignored in favor of the bad sensationalistic ones.

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

BTW, that's pronounced "veeguh" or "The Veegs", for short.

I like how they keep going on and on about the violence present in media and how playing violent games and such can increase AGGRESION (ie, not violence) but they never actually say what the actual 'threat' to one's health is. They just compare it to tobacco without actually SAYING what the health threat is.

Tobacco = Chemical that withers away organs and kills human beings.
Video Games = Media taken in through senses.

Last i checked, images and chemicals are not the same thing.

I'll put it bluntly: this research is shit, mainstream media are flies. Of course the media will notice this study, and give ALL researchers a bad name by attracting attention to it.

Serious studies don't get 10% as much attention as they deserve. Facts don't sell nearly as well as fear, but that's certainly nothing new.

@ Loudspeaker

No problem. Simply doing my duty as a concerned and informed individual.

Loudspeaker, you're right on. There are no numbers whatsoever- numbers are the cold, objective elements of a scientific study. It's better to say "16% more" rather than "somewhat more" because "somewhat" is subjective.

I just have to say...don't they teach you the scientific method at school anymore? The most important thing about conducting experiments is putting variables into account (like the different moods of the people at the time of the experiment, and their family values).

Wait a minute, I can't believe that L. Rowell Huesmann, Director of the Aggression Research Program, and Editor of the Aggressive Behavior journal found that something causes aggression???
Next you are going to tell me that the president of the state lottery commission thinks that people spending money on lottery tickets leads to people being millionaires!
Call me cynical but anyone who has affiliations with so many things that have "aggression" in the title seems highly unlikely to say, "Nope, we looked at it and it doesn't have anything to do with aggression."

"As with many other public health threats, not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior."

Erm. Isn't this wrong? Isn't a public health threat by definition something that does have an effect on everyone? Not everyone is affected seriously, but nobody gets away clean; not all smokers will get lung cancer but smoking will damage your lungs in some way.

Interesting theory time! A small percentage of people exposed to X will exhibit negative effects as a result of the exposure. Therefore X is a public health threat. In this case, the statement is X = games.

Let X = nuts.

So could it be that some people are, in a way, mentally allergic to games?

Here is a link to the journal that JCCalhoun mentions:

http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/32356/home

Seriously, roll down and look at the list of articles in just that one issue.

Look at the first line in the abstract for the article "Young adults' media use and attitudes toward interpersonal and institutional forms of aggression":

"Links between media violence exposure and favorable attitudes toward interpersonal violence are well established..."

Really? Where?

Nightwng2000
NW2K Software

I asked Dr. Christopher Ferguson who previously wrote journal articles on video games, and he's mentioned in GP too. and here's his responses to my inquiry about this news:

I'd have to disagree entirely with their conclusions. The research on media violence in general has been very poorly done, as other scholars have noted (Freedman, 2002; Savage. 2004). Briefly, major problems include the use of unstandardized, unvalidated measures of aggression, the tendency to ignore negative results in a manuscript and focus only on positive results, and the failure to eliminate "third" variables such as family violence, genetics or personality. These are widespread failures in his field, and as such it's impossible to really assess much of value from the field as it exists.

The statement that media violence exposure risk is close to that of smoking and lung cancer has been debunked. The effect size for smoking and lung cancer is (r = .9), (Block & Crain, 2007) not (r = .4) as once claimed (Bushman & Anderson, 2001). This larger figure is supported by the American Cancer Society's data noting that 87% of lung cancers are directly attributable to smoking with a relative risk of 23 (meaning smokers are 23 times more likely to develop lung cancer than non-smokers).
The effect size for media violence on violent behavior (even if you ignore all the significant problems I mentioned above) is (r = .1). There are many, many, many, many risk factors in life that are of much greater effect than media violence exposure.

and when I asked him about Block & Crain (2007) about the effect size and whether there was a response to their criticism:

Yes they responded, but not adequately in my opinion. They replied that they couldn't replicate Block and Crain's statistics...although I can't understand why not, as I could replicate them easily enough (in fairness, I can replicate how Bushman & Anderson, 2001 get their very different results too...it's just that their technique is not very good for converting medical data to psychological effect sizes). Despite Bushman & Anderson's response (2007) the data used in most medical studies can not be converted into the effect size r (Rosenthal & DiMatteo, 2001). My observation is that attempts to do so greatly truncate the observed effect size...which looks good to psychologists who want to think that our effects are as good as those seen in medical research...but they just aren't as even a little digging can reveal (I encourage anyone to read the American Cancer Society's statistics on smoking and lung cancer and see if they'd agree that 87% of violent acts can be attributed directly to media violence as is the case for smoking and lung cancer).

What, we're only in second place? We should go after those filthy smokers and claim the top spot! I don't play video games to get silver medals.

@ Jon

"Honestly, I think more people today are dying from chipmunk attacks than asbestos poisoning."

Or at least RADON. Asbestos is generally considered a lung cancer risk, but has become less and less of a problem because it has not been used in home products for quite some time. RADON also causes cancer. However as it is a naturally occurring radioactive gas found in most basements around the USA. Also it is actually more dangerous in modern / well insulated basements because the insulation traps it, and causes it to concentrate into higher (and more toxic) levels.

This is why the Government already considers RADON the second leading cause of lung cancer in the USA.

Seems like he chose asbestos because it was more recognizable, which further reduces his credibility. It was already low I think, as years of violent media has made me fearful of 'mutants'...

So... based on this I should be out on a killing rampage right now instead of writing comments here. Sounds logical. *rolls eyes* Not very trustful that the CDC is clamoring behind this, considering it's tied to an administration that's socially backwards. Oh well...

~Sol~

So they are saying that increasing RISK is the same as a CAUSE and EFFECT? You have a high risk of dying in a plane crash when you get into a plane just like you reduce that risk when you drive in a car... of course you are increasing your risk to die in a car crash. Does not mean you WILL, just the risk of it increases. In other words, this study is blatant missinformation between the facts and the interpritation. In short:

Just because you increase the risk does not mean it is going to happen.

@ Erik

No we should simply ban parents from the games. ;)

I sometimes wonder if they even realize what they're saying, because if any of this was true, we'd be a country of mass murderers.

And THAT'S what makes me laugh each and every time someone makes the claim that by simply taking in some form of violent media it makes anyone extremely close to becoming a violent person.

The research clearly shows that exposure to virtual violence increases the risk that both children and adults will behave aggressively…

Then why have only two of the people who have attacked me outright over the years been gamers of any kind?

More than 60 percent of television programs contain some violence and about 40 percent of those contain heavy violence.

1: Those percentages are inaccurate.

2: Violence on T.V. became irrelevent when the ability to block any channel you want became available.

Children are also spending an increasingly large amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence.

I love when these people don't specify what they mean by "children". The term can easily refer to anyone under 18, or a specific age group, let's say, 5-12.

Video game units are now present in 83 percent of homes with children.

I don't know how accurate that is, but it's irrelevant regardless.

Exposure to violent electronic media has a larger effect than all but one other well-known threat to public health. The only effect slightly larger than the effect of media violence on aggression is that of cigarette smoking on lung cancer.

Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuullshit.

Our lives are saturated by the mass media,

Wow, he actually stated something true.

and for better or worse, violent media are having a particularly detrimental effect on the well-being of children.

Only if said children are being raised by the family television, which is not the fault of anyone in the media.

As with many other public health threats,

Violent media isn't a public health threat.

not every child who is exposed to this threat will acquire the affliction of violent behavior.

Vilence isn't an affliction, it's a part of human existence. Always has been, always will be.

But that does not diminish the need to address the threat — as a society and as parents by trying to control children’s exposure to violent media to the extent that we can.

That's quite easy, unfortunately, most people aren't up to the task.

"support of the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) concludes that media violence - including video game violence - is an emerging public health threat second only to smoking tobacco."

20,000 people die in drunk driving accidents every year and the second emerging public health threat isn't alcoholism but them there vidya games and them movin' pictures.

So these tests in which they gauge aggression how many of their test subjects killed/attack someone? Or is this where they use nerf bats or sound blasts as simulated aggression and somehow correlate that to real world violence.

Aggression is not a bad thing. An aggressive salesman will win out over a passive salesman. I don't want to see that video games cause violence, because frankly there are a lot of people who need to be more aggressive (as society at large seems to be getting sorta wussy), what I need to see is that playing video games somehow negates a person's moral limits.

Aggression is a normal human emotion.

This study is just crap. First of all, the conclusion seem exaggerated. The thought that violent media is worse than a nuclear disaster (Chernobyl, anyone?), natural disasters, non-tobacco health dangers, and even al qaeda is jacked up. These people, with all due respect to them, must have a bias against said media. Secondly, they didn't consider genetic factors as well as poverty, how the child was brought up, and that child's education. These factors are essential. Finally, agression NEVER equals violence. It CAN lead to violent acts, but aggression does not automatically cause violence. Saying that violent media increases aggression isn't satisfactory for the courts.

In the end this study just doesn't show the casual link and other important factors were not even taken into cosideration.

One more thing:
Like Erik said: Aggression is an emotion.

*This public service announcement from your good friends at CDC*

There has been an outbreak of a disease in our building. The disease cause people to lose all common sense and rational fault and blame very complex problems on very benign things, like say kleenex or video games. Please don't be alarmed as other than a very strong dose released in Washington D.C. and a small part in Miami there has only been a small amount of the virus that has managed to escape. While it may ahve infected some of our hospital staff, please don't be alarmed and don't listen to them either as they are not in the right state of mind. We are currently in the proccess of containing this virus and will most likely do so before the situation gets worse.

*Thank you for your time*

Wow I didn't know violent media could actully hurt somone that must be true! By now you will relize I am not serious and find it hard to belive these people. Oh yeah did you know a study in 2000 said games caused aggression, but they used the games Castlewolfenstien 3D and Myst, two different genres, and only allowed 15 minutes of play time.

-DarthCylon

For those of you not familiar with Huesmann, he did a study that many politicians love to cite, but like all others, has Swiss cheese methodology. He was the one who did the longitudinal study measuring 8-year-olds, and showed that viewing habits back then were positively correlated with violent crime at age 30. This study, of course, had the problem of a high dropout rate, leading to all the data coming from the violent crimes committed by only 3 subjects. Huesmann himself admitted that if not for those 3 boys, there would be no significant statistical finding.

And of course the whole graph is based on Correlation. So he's basically saying there's a bigger correlation between violent media and real violence than exposure to lead and low iq scores in children. Of course any idiot will tell you that correlation does not equal causation.

"The best single predictor of violent behavior in older adolescents, young adults, and even middle-aged adults is aggressive behavior when they were younger. Thus anything that promotes aggressive behavior in young children statistically is a risk factor for violent behavior in adults as well."

Once again he contradicts himself here when before he said most aggressive kids do not grow up to be violent (and come on how many little kids do we know that love to knock over towers made out of blocks and have pillow fights). Not only that but anything that promots aggressive behavior? I could think of some board games that promote aggresive behavior within the games. Also as pointed out before, msot studies only show the short term effects. This means that if it promotes a short term aggresive behavior that wears off quickly that suddenly means they'll grow up to become violent. Such heavy bullshit.

"Furthermore these theories also explain why the observation of violence in the real world—among family members, among peers, and within the community—also stimulates aggressive behavior in the observer."

Ahem. The sun rotates around the earth. This explains why the sun sets in one direction and rises in the other.

And again he is saying that aggresiveness equals violence which as he just proved earlier is not the case. he just proved was not the case Don't you just love it when people destroy their own arguments for you?

The fact that this guy even brings up displacement effects (e.g. the effects of playing video games instead of reading or doing something productive) makes him seem biased and makes his arguments seem more well pathetic.

I'm not even going to bother responding to the rest of his arguments since they destroy them selves (this paper will self destruct in five seocnds).

"But that does not diminish the need to address the threat "

*sigh*

And that's what ratings are all about... Protecting people from harmful material.

ok...but what about the news???

The news has real violence but it is on daily.

What about the impact of violence in news on regular people????

we are expose to violence every freak in day..... god...... what the hell is worng with people.

Wow, yet another highly paid puppet. Just what the world needs.

[...] Dass Videospiele die Wurzel allen Übels sind, ist ja bekannt. Deshalb überrascht eine neue Studie, die behauptet, Videospiele machen aggressiv, keine wirkliche Überraschung. Allerdings schließt diese Studie daraus, es handele sich um eine Gefahr für die Volksgesundheit (Public Health), da Videospiele extrem deutlich (statistisdch hochsignifikant) zu gewaltbereitem verhalten führen. Wenn man sich jetzt anschaut, dass laut dieser Studie 83% aller Kinder Zugang zu gewalttätigen Medien haben kann die Signifikanz aber nicht so hoch sein wie behauptet, denn dann wäre in Amerika bereits die Zivilisation zusammengebrochen. Interessanter ist da schon, dass Videospiele jetzt auch für Analphabetismus verantwortlich sein sollen. Zumindest laut der britischen Tageszeitung The Sun, das dortige Gegenstück zur Bild, die erst am Tag zuvor mit nackten Mädels als Werbung für das Videospiel Need for Speed Pro Street Auflage gemacht Aufmerksamkeit erregt hat. Tja, gestern so, heute so. Die Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung empfiehlt unterdessen Rollenspiele (explizit genannt wird Pokémon) fürs Lesen lernen. [...]