
Violent Video Games: More Playing Time Equals More Aggression - Libertatea
http://researchnews.osu.edu/archive/violgametime.htm
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Dirlewanger
“Playing video games could be compared to smoking cigarettes. A single
cigarette won’t cause lung cancer, but smoking over weeks or months or years
greatly increases the risk. In the same way, repeated exposure to violent
video games may have a cumulative effect on aggression.”

When are these bullshit sensationalist comparisons going to end?!

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Domenic_S
There's a theory that it actually _is_ one cigarette that gives you cancer --
the tobacco in that one cig absorbed radioactive material and triggers the
cancer. That theory supposedly explains why a great number of smokers don't
get lung cancer. I'd find a link, but I'm at work.

A more apt comparison for the article might be cigarettes & emphysema/heart
disease. Not saying I agree with it, but it'd be a better analogy.

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angrydev
“People who have a steady diet of playing these violent games may come to see
the world as a hostile and violent place”

What type of fairyland is Bushman living in? The world IS in fact a violent
and hostile place. Our origins are rooted in competition and blood.

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saraid216
Your username is not helping your case here.

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B-Con
I'm curious how much of these was simply being primed to be competitive. Were
the test subjects competing against actual humans in the nonviolent video
games? The violent video games add a form of personal feel to the game,
regardless of whether you are playing against the computer or other people it
certainly _feels_ like you're fighting other beings. I wonder if that prompts
a higher competitive drive.

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snarfy
This was my thought as well. Competitive video games cause aggressive
behavior, not violent video games. It's the adrenaline. It's something you get
from a high level competition, but something you don't get slaughtering
thousands of zombies with a virtual chainsaw.

~~~
B-Con
Following from that, it would be interesting to see if competitive contact
sports (football, basketball, etc) would produce a similar effect of
aggressive behavior.

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GotAnyMegadeth
The should have used Mario Kart as one of the non-violent games, that would
have ruined their hypothesis.

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TheCapn
Depends on what the criteria for violent is... Mario Kart is rather violent
when you define it as injuring or impeding your opponent. Blood and guns don't
make for a violent game although they are present as part of a violent game
frequently.

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otakucode
I really hate studies like this. Their methodology was absolutely terrible,
and absolutely does not support the conclusions they drew.

What they have shown is that exposure to violent fiction results in the
production of more violent fiction, and nothing else. The researchers, like so
many others, made the fundamental mistake of conflating fiction and reality.
Fiction, however, is not reality. And naming violent acts to be incuded in a
fictional story is not equivalent in any significant way with actual violence.

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mc32
Since it's fiction, would it be ok if all villains were one specific ethnicity
throughout all video games which had people in them?

Would it be ok if all the 'good people' were another entirely different
ethnicity?

Could we project that to movies and TV shows as well? Would under-representing
minorities in TV/movies be okay because it's fiction (barring reality shows,
sports and news)?

I think the issue is more nuanced than "it's fiction, therefore it has no
impact on real life". What the connection is and how much the influence is, I
don't know. But I don't think one can say there is no bleeding through
whatsoever.

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JoeAltmaier
It would not be 'ok'. But it also might not change behavior or attitudes,
that's speculation.

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Shorel
> Students in the study then participated in a competitive reaction time task,
> which is used to measure aggression.

Ok, if you have fast reflexes you are a violent person now?

This is extremely misleading.

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ovi256
RTFA please. The reaction time task was phony, there was no competitor. What
they actually measured was the punishment that the "winner" dished on the non-
existent loser. The punishment was allegedly more severe for the aggressive
game group.

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Cowen
I have a bias here. I love video games and I've never truly believed they have
serious detrimental effects on mental health. I'm also not an expert of
psychology, but I know of at least two psychologists that are studying this
and coming to the conclusion that video games have positive results.

[http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video...](http://www.ted.com/talks/daphne_bavelier_your_brain_on_video_games.html)

<http://psych.utoronto.ca/users/spence/Research_Games.html>

Anyways, I tried to approach this study as objectively as I could. But I have
some gripes with their methods and more importantly, their conclusions.

> Students in the study then participated in a competitive reaction time task,
> which is used to measure aggression. Each student was told that he or she
> would compete against an unseen opponent in a 25-trial computer game in
> which the object was to be the first to respond to a visual cue on the
> computer screen.

The loser of each trial would receive a blast of unpleasant noise through
headphones, and the winner would decide how loud and long the blast would be.
The noise blasts were a mixture of several sounds that most people find
unpleasant (such as fingernails on a chalk board, dentist drills, and sirens).
In actuality, there was no opponent and the participants were told they won
about half the trials.)

So this study took people playing competitive, violent video games, and then
measured their aggression by giving them another competitive, violent game?
After three days, they say the students were choosing to deliver harsher and
harsher sounds to their "opponents." But after three days, certainly these
students had also been given their fair share of harsh sounds, and at that
point it's not crazy to think that they were just "playing the game."

Another method they used to measure aggression:

> They were given the beginning of a story, and then asked to list 20 things
> that the main character will do or say as the story unfolds. For example, in
> one story another driver crashes into the back of the main character’s car,
> causing significant damage. The researchers counted how many times the
> participants listed violent or aggressive actions and words that might
> occur.

So after they played a violent yet fake video game that they likely found to
be fun, you give them a fake story and they pick violent outcomes? They were
likely still in the mindset of playing the game that they found fun.

None of this conclusively shows anything about their long term aggression in
the real world. It seems to be using fake scenarios (with poor timing) to try
and make real-world conclusions.

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Permit
Since you've mentioned you're biased against the findings, what do you think
it would take to convince you of their findings? What would they have to
demonstrate for you that their conclusions were valid?

~~~
Finster
As a similarly biased person, I'd also like to see a real control group
instead of just "violent" vs. "non-violent" games. Also, 70 people doesn't
seem like a very large sample size.

If anything, this study seems purposely built to gain headlines and media
attention.

~~~
hvs
I don't disagree with you, but 70 is a pretty large study for something like
this. Many drug studies use fewer people.

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cpearce
What about the link between sports and aggression? I've seen more fights at
sports games than I've seen at lan parties.

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john_i
I wonder what the setup for CoD was. Were they playing against each other
whether it was public games. I'd say most people would get violent tendencies
after playing CoD on public servers.

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eitland
Interesting way to study.

\- As long as they don't use this to make decisions on what games people
should be allowed to play that is. I personally think there is a subset of
people who would be a lot more productive if they raised their base aggression
level a little. Example: Keeping a punching bag might help some people get
their aggression out and other people to build enough aggression to plough
through boring work :-)

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tibbon
A few questions (which are potentially issues) for this study:

\- Doesn't this essentially test short-term reaction to a stimulus? This study
doesn't simulate effects after doing this behavior for months, but 3 days.
There's always the chance of a dropoff in effect here

\- Would one potential factor here be that the 'violent' games were very
immediate twitch-based? And the non-violent games were all essentially racing?
Racing games you're penalized frequently for harsh and sharp reactions, and
rewarded for getting a smooth flow going and discipline (or at least this is
how I play Gran Turismo). In FPS games, you're rewarded for a short, fast and
harsh reaction to input stimulus.

\- I would be interested to see the comparison of these games and violent/non-
violent non-interactive things (movies).

\- While it might have blown the 'cover' of the experiment, would it be
possible to give the testers some other written test on moral-based decision
making before/after?

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mnicole
If I'm driving and I get stuck in traffic, I'm going to be pissed during the
duration of that encounter and if it somehow affects any plans I have.
Similarly, if I am having a couple of bad rounds in a game (or even if I'm
doing well but my team isn't), I'm going to be pissed during the duration of
that game. I will probably still be bothered by it if it somehow manages to
manifest itself into my overall self-worth, just as if traffic made me feel
bad for being late for something.

If you are constantly beating yourself up over gameplay the same way you're
beating yourself up over traffic (i.e. things you can only control so much),
you're going to be more aggressive. But at that point, it is an entirely
different issue.

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diminoten
I'm not sure why this is surprising to anyone - it fits together perfectly
well with the general concept of priming. Experiencing a higher level of an
emotion over a period of time from _any_ source may very well lead to these
same results.

I would expect these results for any consistent sustained exposure to any
interactive activity, not just agression related.

The next experiment should substitute video gaming with say, sustained OKC or
LinkedIn activity.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priming_(psychology)>

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ekanes
The question is whether or not the games were changing the participants'
nature/personality (long-term). It seems self-obvious that playing violent
games would inspire a short-term effect.

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malkia
I work at Treyarch as software engineer. A lot of the QA people are located
near to my office. I haven't seen even a bit of bad behavior from them, in
fact they are one of the friendliest folk around. They have played, and still
play (test) our game (Call of Duty: Black Ops 2) hours and hours, every day.

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meunier
"The study involved 70 French university students"

A sample size that small won't tip the scales on the debate.

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j2kun
Equals is a word often used inappropriately by people who don't understand
logic.

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CamperBob2
Let me guess: the control group was playing Scrabble, not Cowboys and Indians.

~~~
saraid216
The games used in the study are listed in the press release.

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rymith
Were they Playing Demon Souls? I get pretty violent playing that game.
Granted, I can easily kill every person in a far more violent game and frolic
down the street. So I think the quality of the game, the users experience with
games, the users desire to die 800 time in 12 seconds, etc... may also have an
impact.

