I hate science
Reading scientific papers on video games and violence is interesting. Whereby "interesting" means "incredibly annoying". Slashdot linked to a newpaper article that quotes a guy who published this. Now, his quoted beliefs aren't in the peer-reviewed article, but he doesn't bother to clarify that. I read through all of the previously published assumptions section and it's skimming okay, until I get to the one line in the paragraph that's not cited: "Children are also spending an increasingly large amount of time playing video games, most of which contain violence."
He has no citations measuring the time spent playing violent video games. At all. And he tries to build a straw man argument to get around the fact that he has no evidence for his predictions of doom. They say how many households with children play video games, and how many video games rated Teen involve violence, but not how many kids play games rated Teen or even what percentage of video games are rated Teen. And yet he accepts as a given that all of these children are playing violent video games.
The next problem is that their evidence of causality is based on meta analysis of studies showing correlation of long-term behavior. These tend to put weight on studies showing correlation and not causation, because the sample sizes are larger. Partially this is because while it is easy to experiment and show that violent behavior is more likely directly afterwards (chemically explained by having the hormones that support violent and competitive behavior stimulated), long-term controlled experiments are difficult.
So I went off to read his cited studies.
The controlled experiments they do cite focus a) on boys ages 7-18 and b) on violence directly after watching a film or playing a video game. The strongest correlation was "[f]or boys rated by their teacher as frequently aggressive". These are boys (so socially conditioned to be physical and aggressive) who are known to have, for whatever reason, tendencies towards this behavior and poor self-control. So if you get them stimulated before putting them in a competitive situation OF COURSE they are more likely to be violent.
The one long-term controlled study that could suggest causation had the children watch violent films constantly. Basically, it kept them in a state of high arousal and thus the same results could reasonably expected as if the studies above were constantly repeated.
What none of the studies address is that habitual viewing of television or playing video games is closely related to less involved parenting (and here a citation is needed that I don't feel like going and tracking down at the moment, because I'm not trying to publish). They have also ignored racial, class or social correlations with viewing time.
Not only that, but all of these studies completely ignore non-behavioral explanations for viewing these things. People don't watch them just because they are there, they don't play these games because there are no alternatives, they watch these videos and play these games because they serve a purpose. Whether it is sublimation, or expression of socially unacceptable but real repressed emotions one thing no one has studied is the actual psychological health and happiness of people who play these games. Especially in some areas, we live in an exceptionally repressed society. Not all expression is healthy, but some certainly is.
And it is when researchers throw around unsupported assertions like "The
relatively recent emergence of violent video games has provided society with another
potentially dangerous means of antisocial media-based socialization." that it gets on my nerves. It also bugs me when no attention is paid to assertive behavior. Interestingly that same study claims that not only is aggressive retaliatory behavior increased, but "instrumental" aggressive behavior, with self-reported purpose behind it. That is, the "antisocial" behavior may well be the same type of selfish behavior that leads to greater personal success. On the other hand, the study did not in any way control for the players' pre-existing aggression and did not prove that an individual player's aggression is increased by playing these games.
In fact, in this particular study they compared women who had just played street fighter to those who had just played Lemmings. Who's to say that playing Lemmings, a calming, constructive, engaging game, didn't suppress aggressive impulses? Their results support that conclusion just as well as the idea that Street Fighter causes it, and yet it is never even entertained. They have no reason to believe that it was an amplifying effect, except that they expected to see one.
By those same measures reading these papers causes aggression. Watching stupid people be self-righteous about being stupid certainly arouses me and makes me want to punish them.
I am not saying that playing Grand Theft Auto has no possibility of teaching kids that it's okay to demean women and commit violent acts by rewarding them for beating prostitutes to death. I'm saying that the pseudoscience that has been applied to this area, grossly overlaid with preexisting biases, heavily expected outcomes and incredibly problematic social assumptions, serves neither side. Especially not when the baseless and unpublished assertions of someone who wrote an overview of old research that contributed nothing new to the discussion receives mainstream press coverage.
And I really like the idea that playing Lemmings makes you less violent. And I have published science to support me! Though is it bad that my favorite move was the one where they blow themselves up?
"Oh no!"
He has no citations measuring the time spent playing violent video games. At all. And he tries to build a straw man argument to get around the fact that he has no evidence for his predictions of doom. They say how many households with children play video games, and how many video games rated Teen involve violence, but not how many kids play games rated Teen or even what percentage of video games are rated Teen. And yet he accepts as a given that all of these children are playing violent video games.
The next problem is that their evidence of causality is based on meta analysis of studies showing correlation of long-term behavior. These tend to put weight on studies showing correlation and not causation, because the sample sizes are larger. Partially this is because while it is easy to experiment and show that violent behavior is more likely directly afterwards (chemically explained by having the hormones that support violent and competitive behavior stimulated), long-term controlled experiments are difficult.
So I went off to read his cited studies.
The controlled experiments they do cite focus a) on boys ages 7-18 and b) on violence directly after watching a film or playing a video game. The strongest correlation was "[f]or boys rated by their teacher as frequently aggressive". These are boys (so socially conditioned to be physical and aggressive) who are known to have, for whatever reason, tendencies towards this behavior and poor self-control. So if you get them stimulated before putting them in a competitive situation OF COURSE they are more likely to be violent.
The one long-term controlled study that could suggest causation had the children watch violent films constantly. Basically, it kept them in a state of high arousal and thus the same results could reasonably expected as if the studies above were constantly repeated.
What none of the studies address is that habitual viewing of television or playing video games is closely related to less involved parenting (and here a citation is needed that I don't feel like going and tracking down at the moment, because I'm not trying to publish). They have also ignored racial, class or social correlations with viewing time.
Not only that, but all of these studies completely ignore non-behavioral explanations for viewing these things. People don't watch them just because they are there, they don't play these games because there are no alternatives, they watch these videos and play these games because they serve a purpose. Whether it is sublimation, or expression of socially unacceptable but real repressed emotions one thing no one has studied is the actual psychological health and happiness of people who play these games. Especially in some areas, we live in an exceptionally repressed society. Not all expression is healthy, but some certainly is.
And it is when researchers throw around unsupported assertions like "The
relatively recent emergence of violent video games has provided society with another
potentially dangerous means of antisocial media-based socialization." that it gets on my nerves. It also bugs me when no attention is paid to assertive behavior. Interestingly that same study claims that not only is aggressive retaliatory behavior increased, but "instrumental" aggressive behavior, with self-reported purpose behind it. That is, the "antisocial" behavior may well be the same type of selfish behavior that leads to greater personal success. On the other hand, the study did not in any way control for the players' pre-existing aggression and did not prove that an individual player's aggression is increased by playing these games.
In fact, in this particular study they compared women who had just played street fighter to those who had just played Lemmings. Who's to say that playing Lemmings, a calming, constructive, engaging game, didn't suppress aggressive impulses? Their results support that conclusion just as well as the idea that Street Fighter causes it, and yet it is never even entertained. They have no reason to believe that it was an amplifying effect, except that they expected to see one.
By those same measures reading these papers causes aggression. Watching stupid people be self-righteous about being stupid certainly arouses me and makes me want to punish them.
I am not saying that playing Grand Theft Auto has no possibility of teaching kids that it's okay to demean women and commit violent acts by rewarding them for beating prostitutes to death. I'm saying that the pseudoscience that has been applied to this area, grossly overlaid with preexisting biases, heavily expected outcomes and incredibly problematic social assumptions, serves neither side. Especially not when the baseless and unpublished assertions of someone who wrote an overview of old research that contributed nothing new to the discussion receives mainstream press coverage.
And I really like the idea that playing Lemmings makes you less violent. And I have published science to support me! Though is it bad that my favorite move was the one where they blow themselves up?
"Oh no!"