video games and youth violence.

[General Chaos]

This may have already been posted, but it's pretty interesting. It's fairly obvious that the "youth violence epidemic" has been manufactured, but it looks like the relationship between violent video games and actual violence (at least in the aggregate) may also be questionable.

Doom Didn't Make Me Do It
--from Science, Dec. 4, 2009, p. 1327
Oceans of studies—laboratory, longitudinal, and brain-imaging—haven't settled the question of whether violent TV programs and video games cause people to be violent. Now Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Texas A&M International University in Laredo, has weighed in with a graph showing that as video game sales have soared, youth violence has declined. Ferguson contends that lab-based experiments on "aggression" bear little relationship to actual violence. Psychologist L. Rowell Huesmann of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, says the graph is a "red herring" and that early viewing of violence has repeatedly been shown to influence later behavior.



This is a little hard to read, but the blue bars are the number of video game sales and the red line represents youth violence (for the years between 1996-2007, I believe).

[lisalover1]

"Red Herring". Yeah, right, we all know that no conclusive [legitimate] studies have been done to directly link video games to violence. The only reason this is still an issue is because we're just ignoring the people who think this has merit. If we ignore them, they can continue to spout whatever they want about video games and violence they want, with no opposition. If I may, I'd like the refer to an episode of "The Game Overthinker" that is rather insightful about this topic:

http://gameoverthinker.blogspot.com/200 ... olden.html

[Luke]

Yes to both!

[Snickerd00dle]

Thanks for sharing that, I wrote a paper about this a year or so ago, wish I had this graph then!

[Scooter]

Why is it any great surprise that kids with violent tendencies gravitate toward violent games? That, however, doesn't mean the game made them violent.

As a kid I watched many Roadrunner cartoons where awful things happened to that old coyote. I loved those cartoons yet I never had an urge to strap a booster rocket to my back while wearing roller skates and launching myself down the highway and over a cliff.

Show me a kid with violent tendencies and I'll show you a kid with either violent parents and/or parent who excercises no restraints on their child.

[gennss]

::sigh:: Its also the parent's fault for not parenting. I remember when I worked retail some guy was furious and returned a videogame adn wanted it off the shelves. He bought Conker's Bad Fur day for this 4 yr old daughter.

... ::sigh::

[jfrost]

As a kid I watch many Roadrunner cartoons where awful things happened to that old coyote. I loved those cartoons yet I never had an urge to strap a booster rocket to my back while wearing roller skates and launching myself down the highway and over a cliff.

Well, if only I had found a booster rocket laying around...

[Weekend_Warrior]

Here's the thing;

I really don't believe that violent movies and games actually encourages people to be more violent or twisted than they already are, in any way. Even if the movie or game seems to highly glamourize it.

BUT I do believe that there are some people out there who are more impressionable than others and could be possibly brainwashed into thinking that "yeah, going on a shooting spree would be so cool!" after playing a fun first-person shooter game, or.. "yeah, I really should smoke some weed and try to fuck that one bitch" after listening to some rap music in which the rapper or rappers repeatedly says to do so over and over (almost in a chanting-like manner)."

So... even though it doesn't seem fair to blame the video game creators or the rap music artist for the select few who actually seem to be effected by their source of questionable media. It still does leave that window of possibility open for debate and those game designers and music artists to be called into question.

[Scooter]

So... even though it doesn't seem fair to blame the video game creators or the rap music artist for the select few who actually seem to be effected by their source of questionable media. It still does leave that window of possibility open for debate and those game designers and music artists to be called into question.

And once again the idiots are renamed "victims". When will society regain some sense of a concept of personal responsibility? I understand what you are saying, and agree with it, but that doesn't mean I have to like it.

[J T]

While I want to jump on board and be excited about this data, there are just too many opportunities for confounds here. There are a number of other variables that could split apart a correlation between youth violence and game sales. Because this is not an experimental study where the variables are controlled, it is still entirely possible that there is a link between violent videogames and youth violence and this data doesn't represent it simply due to other mitigating factors. Additionally, the variable of "game sales" is not really a good measure, because "time spent playing violent video games" is what you really want to measure. Number of game sales is somewhat related, but it is a different construct altogether.

I've posted this before, but this is a pretty compelling research article that links media violence (including, but not limited to games) with aggression.

http://www.youngmedia.org.au/pdf/2007.H ... Health.pdf

There is quite a lot of evidence linking media violence with increased aggression. I think what needs to be figured out is how to deal with that fact while still keeping freedom of speech and providing multiple forms of entertainment, including the violent stuff.