do violent games 'create' violent people?

[TheDjinnFor]

It won't cause a violent person to commit an act, but it most certainly desensitizes them to it. In fact, pretty much anything we see, feel, or experience over and over again desensitizes us to it. And if you want the scientific explanation for that, consider that our emotions and feelings are nothing more than chemicals being released by our body into our blood stream and brain; and pretty much any chemical that produces an acute reaction will desensitize someone to it over time.

Look no further than popular media:

Why do you think that people confuse love with lust? Sex is all around us, and all we've ever heard love and sex being used as words to describe pre-martial lust and animalistic behavior, instead of what love and sex have historically been about: pro-creation and a complete and utter commitment of dedication to the other person (agape love). Now it's about how long and how often and how young we can **** a person before we break up or divorce them.

Now, even worse, they're associating love with pain, rape, occult rituals, bondage, and murder. It used to be about domination of men and submission of women (see Playboy, or the sex kitten/sex bunny/pre-nubile craze of the pre-2000's, and so on); that's not what love is actually about (and how many women will just let you walk all over them?). But now... Ever watch Lady Gaga's "Telephone" video? What about Christina Aguilera's "Not Myself Tonight"? What about Rihanna's "Disturbia"? All it really takes is cognitive dissonance: associate a woman with a sex kitten object, then in the next generation associate a sex kitten object with having a ritualistic orgy in a Church (I'm looking at you, 'X-tina'). Pretty soon Love and Life will be synonymous with Pain and Death.

People who see something distorted from a young age have a distorted sense of reality; this is all over psychology. It's a slow but subtle change that can't be noticed in our life time, or heck in the lifetime of our parents. And it's impossible for the person themselves to notice it, since their reality is distorted. And see Cognitive Dissonance for how it can even make a big difference in your life time too.

Listen to music in the 30s, then 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s and then modern music, and tell me you don't notice a difference in the subject matter. Then the society around us and the parents who bring us up and our peers and friends and the school teachers and coaches and so on and so forth all reinforce the messages we hear with their actions or words.

Now, apply this to violence; in the media, in our games, in our lives... it's a vicious cycle. No, it doesn't create violent 'people'. It creates a violent society that takes guns and knives and fifty friends to fight their problems instead of working it out in a civil way. And no, I'm not talking about the civil way to work out a fight ten years ago, or twenty; I'm talking about the civil way to solve problems a hundred years ago, when neighbours could walk up to each other and talk in a civil manner, or politicians could speak one to one without insults and berating each other, or coaches and parents could resolve issues with the referees without yelling and screaming, and so on.

1920s-1930s - The 'moving picture' was going to corrupt all our youth. Clergy preached sermons against it.

1940s-1950's - Comic books. Yep, comic books. The idea was that they portrayed the police as foolish and ineffective, showed crime as glamorous, and encouraged people to become vigilantes. Look up Fredric Wertham and his book Seduction of the Innocent.

Late 1950's -1970's - Rock music. Allegedly it was going to cause untold amounts of drug use and violence.

1980's - Role-playing games, particularly D&D. You can still find a few people who still think D&D is the heart of all evil.

Funny, because they were right. It just skips a generation or two until it's ingrained enough in society that nobody notices it's any different. Once we fail to teach our children proper values, or the values we try to teach them gets drowned out in the sea of other messages they hear, our kids can't teach their own kids any different and society is forever damaged.

The moving picture is now the only thing that society pays any attention to, and it's damaged our ability to communicate with others and pushed messages of sex and violence into our heads since we were old enough to see the messages, as did comic books, but more so sex and male domination for comics. Drugs have now infected society, particularly the rock and roll and hippy side of it, hence the 'War on Drugs'. People are starting to get into cults, skulls, death, and more: see the popularity of the Twilight novel.

You need to look past what we see now and the acute effects on people now and examine how society has changed over generations. I can tell you that my friend has an eight year old brother who thinks shooting up cops is the funnest thing ever because he plays GTA all day, and that all he ever talks about is 'blowing the **** out of stuff'. Sure, that's a parent thing, but they're also immigrants, so what do you expect? He also has no friends and no life, so what do you think will happen in ten years? He'll grow up into a functional human being? No.

I could go on and on and on. But no, 'bad' things don't necessarily create 'bad' people. It's when the entire society has been infected by it that we create 'bad' people; that could take a year, or a decade, or a century, but once people get into it at a young age, it's all over.

EDIT: That's my rant for the month.

[Doomcrew]

Scanned most of thread, so I apologize if this has been
said, If violent games create/promote violent behavior....
what did before the violent games existed?

My thoughts
Cheers

[AyumiAmakusa]

Scanned most of thread, so I apologize if this has been
said, If violent games create/promote violent behavior....
what did before the violent games existed?

My thoughts
Cheers

I've said it before I'll say it again, re-runs of Barney

[lolwatboomer]

Scanned most of thread, so I apologize if this has been
said, If violent games create/promote violent behavior....
what did before the violent games existed?

My thoughts
Cheers

It's because they were troubled to begin with. If violent video games didn't exist, another reason would take its place as a scapegoat. Until the VT incident, the UoT shooting was the deadliest. It happened in 1966, before any video game came out. There has been violence throughout history, but have there been violent video games throughout history?

If someone plays DDO and they go around using two khopeshes to attack children at a school, everyone would jump on the "DDO CAUSED HIM TO KILL" train, because that's the easiest way to explain it. When realistically, he was already predisposed to be psychotic, and playing the video game would be no different then any other catalyst.

Question to those who think violent video games form a causal link to violence... what are you doing playing this game?

[jellyfish21]

I meet a man playing DDO who was very religious.
He was in a citizen foundation for peace.
He told me "MMO fighting games released stress, causing less real life conflict."

[lolwatboomer]

I meet a man playing DDO who was very religious.
He was in a citizen foundation for peace.
He told me "MMO fighting games released stress, causing less real life conflict."

That is probably true. I know a lot of people who play video games to relieve stress. In fact, I do. Imagine you were someone who was disturbed, and after some events you were feeling extremely violent. Instead of going around assaulting people, you log onto DDO and kill kobolds. Hey, you never know!

If some of you are going to pull the "there is scientific evidence linking violent video games to violence" card, I could just as easily counter with "there is scientific evidence linking violent video games to increased visual and cognitive ability".

[phillymiket]

<snip>

Thanks for the links. Whew. Lots of material. Got through as best I could. Interesting perspective. I was unaware of the field of “Killology”.
My thoughts on the links. We probably don't agree but that's fine. I am not taking an absolutest stance that I'm 100% correct. (see my original posts where I say IDK about 4-5 times)

Stop Teaching Our Kids To Kill
Personal anecdotes followed by itemized points. I’ll skip the personal. He seems like a good, decent man.
Major points the author lists
Virus of violence:
A study on the doubling of the murder rate. But his figures run from 1957-1992. Coincidentally the murder rates right after 1992 dropped significantly and are now 37% lower then that of 1990’s rate. Funny how he choose to stop there. I’m not saying he’s wrong but he “seems” to be playing a numbers game taking the figures that support his view.

Killing is unnatural
Study of the natural human abhorrence to killing and how one must be conditioned do kill. Agreed. Note I pointed this out in an exchange about “Child-soldiers” above. Without agreeing or disagreeing if this aversian is “God given” as the auther claims I would point out that the question is if video games are in fact conditioning kids for real life violence. It wasn’t addressed.

The Methods in the Madness: Desenitization
A discussion of military “breaking” of soldiers as part of conditioning. Agreed. Humans can be conditioned. The auther then jumps to TV without establishing a link. He poses the question “Do you remember a time when you couldn’t distinguish reality from TV? When a child sees someone stabbed, shot etc they can‘t distinguish it from reality”. Myself,, I was pretty clear that “Starsky & Hutch” was TV. But others may be different. (note I use the “” to distinguish the authors words from mine. That is in fact paraphrasing)

Classical Conditioning
Pavolv’s dogs. Japanese soldiers watching real life violence as condtioning. Agreed. Dogs like bones and humans who watch real life violence become desensitized. Again the author jumps to video games without ever establishing a connection.

Operant conditioning
Stimulus-Response conditioning. Agreed. Flight Simulators. Agreed. Video games can be training tools. A case of a man claiming video games caused him to turn to violence. The guy was mounting a criminal deffence. There are Doctors who assert a connection, He found one to call as an expert witness. A account of teens who killed with remarkable accuracy with out training in fire arms. Auther posed question why.? He doesn’t answer but leaves it to the reader to answer why. (video games!)

Unlearning Violence
Author recommends you turn off your TV.

Ten Non-Violent video games
Tetrus and Sim city. Agreed. Cool games. Never heard of the others.


Other Links
On Killing
Two sentences from Wiki. No Info - No comment.

Bio link
Credentials.

AMA Study from 1999 (again prior to the major decline. Also during a public outcry over school violence when there was a major fire under congress to “do something”)
Edit - just before election year- congessional study - just sayin' (but im paranoid that way I know thats a bad arguement)

Only related comments to media was - “There is a general consensus that media depictions of violence leads to some increase in violence although the magnitude of it’s effects, those persons at risk and the long term effects are unclear”

Not a lot of meat IMO. Though it’s hard to argue with the AMA but what seems clear to me is that it is unclear.

The only argument that seemed to have any scientific basis was the AMA report and that was mostly copy-cat suicides and other school violence related topics, again just the one blurb on topic which basically said “We don’t know but trust us we are Doctors”

Still Food for thought and I will keep an open mind to the fact that I could be wrong.

Edit - sorry for misspellings, bad english and sloppiness

[phillymiket]

TheDjinnfor-

One can't argue with any point you have made but the question remains.
Which came first the chicken or the egg?
Is the art violent because we are violent
or are we violent because the art is violent?

[vVAnjilaVv]

This thread can only produce one possible outcome...turning people into dogs that chase their own tails. :P

[Borror0]

"There is an increase in violence in society and we can corrolate it to the source."

What is Col. Grossman's evidence backing up that claim?

[phillymiket]

What is Col. Grossman's evidence backing up that claim?

Without intending to sound patronizing there seemed to be little.
I'm sorry but I would describe that as pseudo-science.
Personal assertions wrapped in figures and citations that don't support the original claim.
They are usually presented with the seeming intention that one won't fact check.
More of a wall of words that is intended to intimidate one from making a counter-argument but offers no actual counter-argument.
Of course none of that takes away or adds to the "truth" of either sides point of view.

[phillymiket]

This thread can only produce one possible outcome...turning people into dogs that chase their own tails. :P

There we have found truth I can support.
Woof.

[Borror0]

Without intending to sound patronizing there seemed to be little.
I'm sorry but I would describe that as pseudo-science.
Personal assertions wrapped in figures and citations that don't support the original claim.

That is what I was thinking as well, but I'm open to be proven wrong if sound evidence does exist.

As far as I remember, the number of violent crime per capita has gone down in most Western countries over the last few years, rather than gone up. Even if it went up I'd be curious to see proves the correlation between violent video games and the increase number of violent crimes.

[phillymiket]

That is what I was thinking as well, but I'm open to be proven wrong which sound evidence does exist.

As far as I remember, the number of violent crime per capita has gone down in most Western countries over the last few years, rather than gone up. Even if it went up I'd be curious to see proves the correlation between violent video games and the increase number of violent crimes.

I would like to hear a convincing argument as well. For example the facts the AMA used to reach a "general consensus" or the argument made for the defense in the court case cited.
I'm sure they would provide some stuff that makes you say "hmmmmm maybe i'm wrong"
But this kind of stuff is so hard to pin down because of multiple influences.
Each side is almost acting on faith.
I'm just suspicious of anyone who is dead certain either way. How could you be?

[lolwatboomer]

Without intending to sound patronizing there seemed to be little.
I'm sorry but I would describe that as pseudo-science.
Personal assertions wrapped in figures and citations that don't support the original claim.
They are usually presented with the seeming intention that one won't fact check.
More of a wall of words that is intended to intimidate one from making a counter-argument but offers no actual counter-argument.
Of course none of that takes away or adds to the "truth" of either sides point of view.

yuuuuuuup.

[Sirea]

I actually did my thesis paper last semester on the very same subject as the OP. It actually got chosen as one of 3 papers in my class to go in a campus database

I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if this was mentioned or not, but I read the book Grand Theft Childhood as part of my research. I also looked at a lot of the research done by Dr. Christopher Ferguson and his colleagues. Interesting stuff.

[Salsa]

No. It is ignoring other factors.

1) World Wide media, not too long ago you wouldn't of heard of much happening. It increases the feel of it happening more.
2) Proliferation of guns. Guns don't kill people, but guns being easy to get a hold of do. In the old days most fights were hand to hand or required skill to use. Now Joe can grab a automatic weapons and open fire take out people from a distance with little skill required. Fist fighting usually just ended up with broken teeth, clubs with broken bones, knives a few dead. But those required a certain skill and strength to do much, with guns it makes up any inadequacy the attacker may have for a confrontation.
3) Collapse of family structure, more broken support systems increases chance someone will snap as opposed to getting family help. When there is no one to talk to or trust people act out
4) WWW in a way doesn't help, now if you are mad and go to forum or blog people will encourage you


Disclaimer, I am not a licensed Sociologist or Psychologist nor claim to be.

[phillymiket]

I actually did my thesis paper last semester on the very same subject as the OP. It actually got chosen as one of 3 papers in my class to go in a campus database

I haven't read the entire thread so I don't know if this was mentioned or not, but I read the book Grand Theft Childhood as part of my research. I also looked at a lot of the research done by Dr. Christopher Ferguson and his colleagues. Interesting stuff.

checking it out now. but this was the first thing I hit from your refs
I dont know if that is representative of his or your findings...just interesting

Disclaimer, I am not a licensed Sociologist or Psychologist nor claim to be.

Maybe not but everyone likes to say "salsa"




Edit - Thanks for the reading Sirea! Very interesting paper. I'll check out "Grand Theft Childhood" at a later date.

[Sirea]

That chart corresponds well with the points made by Kutner and Olson in Grand Theft Childhood, that the prevalence of video games and youth violence rates have been moving in *opposite* directions for years.

I particularly liked an example of false cause used by Ferguson in one of his articles:

This is the classic error of using a high-base-rate (very common) behavior to explain a low-base-rate (rare) behavior. Using video-game-playing habits to predict school shootings is about as useful as noting that most or all school shooters were in the habit of wearing sneakers and concluding that sneakers must be responsible for such violence.

Source: Ferguson, Christopher J. "Video Games: The Latest Scapegoat for Violence." Chronicle of Higher Education, vol. 53, June 22, 2007.

Link: http://www.tamiu.edu/~cferguson/VideoGames.html

[Burtle]

Personally I blame this guy: