Wow, those t-shirt makers were pretty big assholes. And the only time we ever had to do the "Wal-Mart cheer," which has nothing in it that's akin to the Nazi bullshit those two were talking about, was when one of my pals there made a joke during a meeting about how he wants us to do it from now on (ass).
If there's anything negative to be said of Wal-Mart from that episode with no defense, it's the sweat-shop labor and the no-unions thing. What they failed to do was bring up Wal-Mart's bullshit regarding healthcare it offers its employees and all the clauses in it that could result in making the employees pay anyway.
But I mean, it's still just a business and offers people a place to shop. Nobody at my store was being paid close to minimum wage (in Texas, at the time I worked, mw was 6.55 an hour) (new hires were coming in at 8.50, or 8.75 / 9.00 for overnight positions). I wouldn't quite call that mistreating employees.
I worked night crew stocking for repeated summers in between college between 1996 and 2000. Wal-Mart cheer? Required EVERY meeting. Meetings? EVERY night at start of shift. Overtime? Mandatory or fired. Overtime? Often not paid out (there is a class action lawsuit against Wal-Mart for this very thing). Overtime? Constantly complained about. Corporate lies? A sign was at front of store. "Wal-Mart employees are paid an average of 10.50 per hour". 500 employees, most stockers and checkers. None of the checkers and few of the stockers earned more than 8.25 per hour. If you include the manager earning 250k to 500k a year, technically yes. The average pay for all employees at the store might indeed be 10.50 an hour, the average employee was paid 8-8.25. McDonald's was paying the same. I preferred to avoid grease.
As to other things, such as lowering the general economy of the area, that depends on whether or not you trust the varied studies. That's a harder call.
Bullshit is a decent show. But they do omit things that go against their own arguments, and they do trivialize some other things. Such as wildlife conservation. "Let's focus on this one guy who can't build his house because of some insect. Let's ignore wolf and bear habitats."
"Video Games" aren't new and sexy, but every single new game that comes out is. GTA5 will probably cause some sort of media storm.
To be fair, Rockstar has benefitted from public outcry about their games. If they aren't actively encouraging it (they probably aren't) they stand little to gain from toning things down for the sake of mitigating controversy. I'm sure various lawsuits have cost them some lawyers fees, but would they be the juggernaut they are if they didn't dominate a few news cycles before the release of their last few games? I highly doubt it.
It's the "no such thing as bad publicity" effect, which is so increasingly rare these days that we tend to be shocked when we see it rear its head.
Agreed. But to be fair, your point was that public opinion was turning m'eh.
About the violence stuff, yeah.
You'll note that the outcry over GTA and its ilk these days centers around it's supposed "sexual content" despite there being a distinct lack of such in GTAIV. The "you can murder thousands and thousands of people!" thing gets mentioned as an afterthought, or as a sort of necessary component to "killing hookers."
There are AAA titles which are vastly more gory and horrific than the GTA series. They don't get nearly the attention. The focus on GTA has a lot to do with the fact that it even imentions sex, let alone presented it as a minigame in one iteration of the series.
I don't really know of any measures of public interest, but scientific interest in violent video games (as measured by the number of articles written) is actually growing at a pretty fast pace. Maybe science is behind the times as far as how sexy an issue is, but it's one of those fields that still has that "new and applicable and maybe I'll get quoted in the media" shine to it.
As for the results of prior studies... they weren't conclusive, but they were certainly more suggestive than you're implying. Longitudinal studies will never really be able to conclusively prove causation. It's just not really feasible. But there's as much suggestive evidence as is attainable that violent media increases 1) aggression, 2) aggressive behavior, and 3) several measures of violence. And more short-term behavioral studies on violent video games in particular found essentially the same thing, although those tend to hold less stock than more longitudinal studies (which won't be available for years). Kakos might be right that violent video games ultimately break the trend of violent media, but I think the evidence so far is more suggestive than "meh."
Although, your prediction that the media focus will migrate to gaming addiction is a pretty cool one that I really hadn't thought of. And yeah, I could kinda see things going that way, to be honest, what with WoW becoming such a cultural phenomenon.
This is pretty much my entire point. The "games 'n' guns" thing just isn't and won't be conclusive enough to sustain long-term focused interest by the public, by politicians, or by researchers. It has interesting implications, yes, and I have a sneaknig suspicion that longitudinal studies will provide some groundbreaking answers if they ever get done properly.
You can prove pretty conclusively with an fMRI done while a person is playing games that gaming activates certain parts of the brain associated with aggression and/or competition. It'll take some digging but I do want to find one of those articles I read, it just might take me a day or two.
The problem is going from "brain looks aggressive-slash-competitive" to "games cause violent behavior!" doesn't fucking work. An fMRI can't tell you if a kid is going to shoot up a school because he played a lot of TF2, but statistical studies can tell you that school shooters don't seem to be any more involved with violent games than and other violent media (I've got a study on that one that's a few years old [2003? I think], I'll dig it up too).
It's a causation that's basically impossible to prove because aggression is not a simple issue when it comes to the neuroscience behind it. Issues that "raise mroe questions than answers" don't get public opinion involved. People like simple A->B causations, not "well A or B or C might be somehow involved with X and Y and maybe Z but we need more studies to figure it out." Issues like that just don't make the news.
Addiction, on the other hand, is well-documented and also involves remarkably few parts of the brain in relatively simplistic fashions. Gaming addiction has the potential to be the center of the next big public outcry over the medium, and that it hasn't happened already is a little surprising considering stories like Shawn Woolley's. There was a guy on my EQ server years and years ago who killed his family (wife and kid) and himself in a bizarre murder/suicide that was linked to his EQ habit; the server boards have scrubbed any psots on it, though, and I can't remember the dude's name.
I have a feeling that as WoW remains popular and the MMO genre grows in America, we're going to see a lot more attention focused on gaming addiction rather than gaming aggression.
permapensive on
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Olivawgood name, isn't it?the foot of mt fujiRegistered Userregular
Except that a documentary is supposed to be founded in... truth and reality?
Penn & Teller absofuckinglutely have an agenda but that doesn't remove how well they construct their (sometimes flawed) argument.
When they cut up the school shooting triangle it was a great piece of spectacle.
Even if you disagree with them (I do too sometimes), you have to admit they are some serious showmen
I've become pretty disenchanted with penn and teller as time has gone on. I enjoy some of Bullshit's episodes, but it seems like every time I see one on a topic I know anything at all about, they ignore or discount four or five important angles.
Eat it You Nasty Pig. on
hold your head high soldier, it ain't over yet
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
I generally consider it a bad idea to get my "bullshit free truth" from a pair of guys who specialize in deception, professionally.
It seems like for every time they've made a good point, there's another time where they done some rhetorical sleight-of-hand to make things seem the way they want.
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DynagripBreak me a million heartsHoustonRegistered User, ClubPAregular
edited July 2009
I hate Penn so much. He's a slightly less annoying version of Michael Moore in these things.
Dynagrip on
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WulfDisciple of TzeentchThe Void... (New Jersey)Registered Userregular
edited July 2009
That was entertaining. Time to fire up that crazy murder-simulator so I know what's what when I come out of my vault 200 years after the world gets nuked! Oh wait...
The problem is going from "brain looks aggressive-slash-competitive" to "games cause violent behavior!" doesn't fucking work. An fMRI can't tell you if a kid is going to shoot up a school because he played a lot of TF2, but statistical studies can tell you that school shooters don't seem to be any more involved with violent games than and other violent media (I've got a study on that one that's a few years old [2003? I think], I'll dig it up too).
While I can only speak to violent media in general and not to video games in particular (although again I think violent video games will ultimately behave much like any other violent media medium)... children who are exposed to violent media in their youth see statistically significant increases in various concrete measures of violence when you look through their high school detention records, court records, and their self-report surveys in their middle ages. And you can still get this result even if you control for essentially any possible mitigating factor save whether or not the researchers told parents their hypothesis: that there will be highly suggestive correlational evidence that violent media caused increases in aggression later in life. So if you look at groups of kids from similar backgrounds and with similar natural tendencies for aggression, whose parents have naturally similar parenting styles that differ only in a small researcher manipulation, you can still get results. (I'd link the relevant literature, but I'm abroad and don't have access to my books/papers/search engines. Maybe somebody else whose read these papers will be kind enough to do it for me?).
It's still technically correlation, but it's suggestive enough that it shouldn't be dismissed (by scientists or the public or the media or whatever) as "just another correlation." Admittedly, I doubt any developmental psychologist would outright tell you that violent media definitively causes aggression (I'm kind of taking the hardline stance here to play devil's advocate). But to cast the whole branch of research off as "well, it's not causation so it isn't not true" is misguided and also probably a mischaracterization of where public opinion stands. A lot of the social sciences just don't work by only considering causative evidence. Sometimes you have to settle for the best interpretation of the best available evidence.
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
I watched this show for the first time last night and it is pretty terrible. Penn sounds like a 13-yr-old who recently decided that cursewords make every sentence better.
I watched this show for the first time last night and it is pretty terrible. Penn sounds like a 13-yr-old who recently decided that cursewords make every sentence better.
Watch the very first fucking episode if you can find it. They outline the reason why they swear so fucking much throughout the goddamn series.
Better yet, can any of you mother fuckers paraphrase what he said from the get-up?
Decius on
I never finish anyth
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KalTorakOne way or another, they all end up inthe Undercity.Registered Userregular
I watched this show for the first time last night and it is pretty terrible. Penn sounds like a 13-yr-old who recently decided that cursewords make every sentence better.
Watch the very first fucking episode if you can find it. They outline the reason why they swear so fucking much throughout the goddamn series.
Better yet, can any of you mother fuckers paraphrase what he said from the get-up?
Basically that they could be sued for slander if they went on TV and called people or their claims "liars" or "cheats" or anything like that. Instead of calling them "liars" they call them "assholes;" instead of saying their claims are falsehoods, they call it "bullshit." Swearwords count as statement of opinion rather than statement of fact, so you can't be sued for calling someone an asshole when you might be for calling them a liar.
Again, they could make a better point if they provided the research to back up their claims (which would also protect them from liability for slander) but this is another shortcut for a more entertaining, less scientific show.
I watched this show for the first time last night and it is pretty terrible. Penn sounds like a 13-yr-old who recently decided that cursewords make every sentence better.
I'm with you on this one. I think the Slander argument is rather flimsy given the amount of needly fucks and other random expletives that he likes to throw in. Most of the time i find that it undermines his point rather than emphasizing his point and it comes off as his trying to distract people from thinking about the situation and focusing on the emotional response as well.
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
First, what was their control group doing the entire time?
Second, let's repeat the same test, only this time, we'll substitute "violent media" with "football".
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
First, what was their control group doing the entire time?
Second, let's repeat the same test, only this time, we'll substitute "violent media" with "football".
In the first half, the control group was shown some kind of control television program (I imagine it was some mundane children's programming, although if the experimenters were solid they'd have made it an exciting-and-adrenaline-pumping though still-non-violent program. I can't remember if they actually did that, although I assume they must have thought of it). Outside, the control group was out on the playground doing playground things, just like the experimental condition, except their aggression measure wasn't elevated.
And you're right that playing violent sports also increases aggression. So does corporal punishment, as well as being bullied or teased. Just because there are several things that increase aggression doesn't excuse any single one as a risk factor. As a parent I wouldn't really want a young child of mine engaging in any of these activities, although as I grow confident my child can handle these things in a mature manner, I would loosen the restrictions on violent sports and video games, since I'm of the belief their benefits (health, fun) can outweigh the risks if practiced responsibly.
I love this show, I didn't realize it was still on! Some episodes are funny, educational and others are a real let down. Especially the episode regarding recycling, what a bummer.
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
Considering that kids use playtime to sort through new data, I'm not sure that observation really tells us anything about the kinds of effects that people are worried about.
I mean, I saw Beverly Hills Cop when I was a tiny kid and swore up a storm for a month afterwards. But it's hard to make the argument that it altered the way I use language over the long haul. To me, that sits it right back at "well let's discard this because it's just a correlation".
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
Considering that kids use playtime to sort through new data, I'm not sure that observation really tells us anything about the kinds of effects that people are worried about.
I mean, I saw Beverly Hills Cop when I was a tiny kid and swore up a storm for a month afterwards. But it's hard to make the argument that it altered the way I use language over the long haul. To me, that sits it right back at "well let's discard this because it's just a correlation".
Well, that's the reason I cited both long-term and short-term studies. You're absolutely right that any one single risk factor has less and less predictive power over a longer period of time. The point is that when you have both heavily suggestive long-term studies alongside fairly concrete short-term studies, at some point you have to consider that all the available evidence is pointing to a real answer. It's never going to be that violent media causes increased violence and aggression, because save for biological or medical issues rarely is a behavior directly caused by any one thing. But there's evidence enough to show that violent media is a risk factor.
Look, there aren't any studies proving that child abuse causes depression or anti-social behavior later in life for this same reason. You can't really prove that child abuse causes these things because you can't really prove causation in longitudinal studies, and rarely does any one stimulus claim single responsibility for any behavioral outcome. But there's a statistically significant correlation in long-term studies, and short-term studies prove concretely that in the short-term it leads to the undesired behaviors. Should we throw up our hands and say "child abuse and anti-social behavior is just a correlation" because there's no golden bullet that proves causation?
Reading social science is about taking the best interpretation possible from the best available evidence. In one case, it's that child abuse is a risk factor for depression and anti-social behavior. In another, it's that violent media is a risk factor for raised aggression and violence. That doesn't mean that without strong parenting the effects aren't mitigated, or that it isn't possible for someone to surround themselves their whole life with violent media (or child abuse) and emerge a totally healthy and functioning adult. But the evidence is there to suggest significant risk, and clamping your hands over your ears and shouting correlation won't change that.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
Talka maybe I missed the point of what you said earlier but when you say the kids in episdoes of there life where they were in trouble they were more likely to be violent? I could also interpret it to mean that the kids from playing games also appreciate what a violent action is so are more likely to report on it when self reporting etc rather than an increase in overall violence. Surely knowing what your doing from knowledge of others allows you to describe your actions in an alternative way?
I also expect these guys to be the dickhead uncles of Carrot Top but admittedly I havn't watched the episode yet - first impressions ftw.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
It's really not a complex topic. Does exposing someone to violent images and media produce a sympathetic response? Um, yeah...
The only thing that's really up for discussion is how much of an effect it can have on someone.
In the first half, the control group was shown some kind of control television program (I imagine it was some mundane children's programming, although if the experimenters were solid they'd have made it an exciting-and-adrenaline-pumping though still-non-violent program. I can't remember if they actually did that, although I assume they must have thought of it). Outside, the control group was out on the playground doing playground things, just like the experimental condition, except their aggression measure wasn't elevated.
It's tough to know what to think of that study without knowing what they were showing the control group. I mean, on one hand, we have the experimental group who are shown pulse pounding high intensity violent action, and in the other we have a potential blank. I agree with you that they definitely needed the control group to be shown something of similar intensity without the violence. You have to minimize your variables. If they were shown anything OTHER than similar intensity non-violence, then the children might simply be in a more excited state.
I would like to assume that they had thought of it, but unfortunately real life has taught me to make as few assumptions as possible.
Talka maybe I missed the point of what you said earlier but when you say the kids in episdoes of there life where they were in trouble they were more likely to be violent? I could also interpret it to mean that the kids from playing games also appreciate what a violent action is so are more likely to report on it when self reporting etc rather than an increase in overall violence. Surely knowing what your doing from knowledge of others allows you to describe your actions in an alternative way?
Self-reports are always an imperfect science, but when bolstered by three or four other measures the collective evidence begins to paint a picture.
And I doubt the problem is recognizing violence, even if it's in yourself. Whether or not you've been heavily exposed to violence and aggression, I would think it's the sort of thing you'd still know if you saw it.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
It's really not a complex topic. Does exposing someone to violent images and media produce a sympathetic response? Um, yeah...
The only thing that's really up for discussion is how much of an effect it can have on someone.
This is only an assumption, though. I know my nieces and nephews get more violent simply from being excited about something. "Hey, kids, let's go get ice-cream!" 5 minutes later there is a fight and someone's ice-cream is on the ground and I'm pulling them apart.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
It is also practically the same thing as an appeal to tradition.
In the first half, the control group was shown some kind of control television program (I imagine it was some mundane children's programming, although if the experimenters were solid they'd have made it an exciting-and-adrenaline-pumping though still-non-violent program. I can't remember if they actually did that, although I assume they must have thought of it). Outside, the control group was out on the playground doing playground things, just like the experimental condition, except their aggression measure wasn't elevated.
It's tough to know what to think of that study without knowing what they were showing the control group. I mean, on one hand, we have the experimental group who are shown pulse pounding high intensity violent action, and in the other we have a potential blank. I agree with you that they definitely needed the control group to be shown something of similar intensity without the violence. You have to minimize your variables. If they were shown anything OTHER than similar intensity non-violence, then the children might simply be in a more excited state.
I would like to assume that they had thought of it, but unfortunately real life has taught me to make as few assumptions as possible.
Well, you're pretty much right. If there's anybody else out there who's read these studies, I think it'd help the thread out greatly if they'd be kind enough to source a few of them. I'm abroad and don't have access to the search engines I would normally use. I'll see what I can find just through Google.
However, if I remember the study correctly, there was a gap of a few days between the viewing period and the observation period. Even though the uptick in violence might be attributed to an increase in activity levels, I think the waiting period ought to mitigate that effect.
EDIT: Alright, the evidence out there is pretty strong if you run a quick search. Turns out they've done this study a hundred times and at all sorts of time intervals and length variables. Showing one group violent TV for just a week and then measuring aggression a month later still shows the result. Introducing violent television leads to increased aggression and violence three years later (about the upper limit for which it's ethical to give/withhold a manipulation like television). Short-term evidence is pretty conclusive, and it looks like it bleeds into the medium-to-long term range as well.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
It's really not a complex topic. Does exposing someone to violent images and media produce a sympathetic response? Um, yeah...
The only thing that's really up for discussion is how much of an effect it can have on someone.
This is only an assumption, though. I know my nieces and nephews get more violent simply from being excited about something. "Hey, kids, let's go get ice-cream!" 5 minutes later there is a fight and someone's ice-cream is on the ground and I'm pulling them apart.
Right. It's not simply enough to say "this produces a violent response". If you looked at a dozen different vegetables, consumption of one would be the most correlated with violence as compared to all the other vegetables. That doesn't mean we should freak out about that vegetable, it just means that the brain is a complex thing that reacts in strange ways to various stimuli.
If violent video games promote aggressive tendencies, but do so to the exact same extent as watching a sports game, or seeing an exciting, non-violent film, or eating ice cream, is that promotion of aggression really that relevant? The core question is "elevation of aggression as compared to what?" I have yet to see any evidence that video games elevate adrenaline or violent tendencies any more than comparably exciting non-violent activities. And if that's the case, then we shouldn't be talking about video games at all - we should be talking about excitement.
But there's evidence enough to show that violent media is a risk factor.
Look, there aren't any studies proving that child abuse causes depression or anti-social behavior later in life for this same reason. You can't really prove that child abuse causes these things because you can't really prove causation in longitudinal studies, and rarely does any one stimulus claim single responsibility for any behavioral outcome. But there's a statistically significant correlation in long-term studies, and short-term studies prove concretely that in the short-term it leads to the undesired behaviors. Should we throw up our hands and say "child abuse and anti-social behavior is just a correlation" because there's no golden bullet that proves causation?
As they say, there's 'risk factors' and there's 'risk factors'.
My understanding is that the correlation between child abuse and anti-social behavior is strong, strong, strong. And that the correlation between violent media and anti-social behavior is comparatively very weak.
Another interesting study from a super fast google session: (Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH; Marta L. Wilde, MA; Lisa C. Navracruz, MD; K. Farish Haydel; Ann Varady, MS) has an intervention group (4th grade) that gets taken off violent video games for six months. One year later their aggressive behaviors had dropped based on anonymous student peer reviews and double-blind playground observations.
Again, all the caveats about risk factors losing their predictive power over longer periods of time still apply. But the short term evidence is pretty damning.
And since the discussion seems to have switched to the strength of the effect over whether it exists at all: "children in the intervention group had statistically significant decreases in peer ratings of aggression (adjusted mean difference, -2.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.6 to -0.2; P = .03) and observed verbal aggression (adjusted mean difference, -0.10 act per minute per child; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.03; P = .01)." That's about as significant a response as you could get.
I'll start digging up long-term studies. I'm fairly confident from what I've read in the past that the correlation is strong enough and large enough that it goes beyond the statistically-significant-but-pragmatically-insignificant correlations ElJeffe gave as examples.
I thought this was common sense here, you sit a kid in front of a violent, realistic, murder simulator (which is what most FPSs are) for a couple hours a day, for a few years, and it's going to have some kind of affect on his aggression levels.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
It's really not a complex topic. Does exposing someone to violent images and media produce a sympathetic response? Um, yeah...
The only thing that's really up for discussion is how much of an effect it can have on someone.
There are two major questions about violent media posed here: first, do they influence aggression? It's easy to make the case that most sports have a greater effect on aggression than any video game, or that movies are the same thing, yadda yadda yadda. More importantly, does that matter? Are certain amounts of aggression healthy, or even necessary? Would a child suffer from having too much or too little aggression?
It sure isn't a complex topic, and neither is feminism or Israel.
I think the Grand Theft Childhood people have the best point so far: no correlation between violent video games and crime.
And since the discussion seems to have switched to the strength of the effect over whether it exists at all: "children in the intervention group had statistically significant decreases in peer ratings of aggression (adjusted mean difference, -2.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.6 to -0.2; P = .03) and observed verbal aggression (adjusted mean difference, -0.10 act per minute per child; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.03; P = .01)." That's about as significant a response as you could get.
Aggression isn't really the holy grail, though. That's the problem with playground studies -- the issue isn't whether or not kids become more excited or aggressive -- the issue is whether their later selves end up being harmed in any way by earlier exposure.
I think the Grand Theft Childhood people have the best point so far: no correlation between violent video games and crime.
I haven't read this book, but I'm now I'm interested. There might not be a link specifically between violent video games and crime, but I'm fairly confident a link has been found between media violence and incarceration measures in more general terms.
Another interesting study from a super fast google session: (Thomas N. Robinson, MD, MPH; Marta L. Wilde, MA; Lisa C. Navracruz, MD; K. Farish Haydel; Ann Varady, MS) has an intervention group (4th grade) that gets taken off violent video games for six months. One year later their aggressive behaviors had dropped based on anonymous student peer reviews and double-blind playground observations.
Some questions:
A) What sort of "violent video games" are these fourth graders playing? Not all violence is created equal, and there's a huge difference between Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter IV and Grand Theft Auto, all of which possess elements of violence.
What behavior replaced the time spent playing video games? Were they instead reading a book, were they watching equally violent television, were they sitting in the corner staring at the wall?
C) What definition of "aggressive" are we using, here? Being overly enthusiastic in play, taking things from people forcefully, hitting them...?
I think when we discuss this issue, it's important to consider that not all age groups are the same. I absolutely believe that giving Gears of War to a nine year old is going to be unhealthy as all fuck. I think giving that game to a seventeen year old is going to be quite different. I don't think anybody here skeptical about the links between violence and gaming is saying that all games are appropriate for all ages.
And since the discussion seems to have switched to the strength of the effect over whether it exists at all: "children in the intervention group had statistically significant decreases in peer ratings of aggression (adjusted mean difference, -2.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.6 to -0.2; P = .03) and observed verbal aggression (adjusted mean difference, -0.10 act per minute per child; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.03; P = .01)." That's about as significant a response as you could get.
Aggression isn't really the holy grail, though. That's the problem with playground studies -- the issue isn't whether or not kids become more excited or aggressive -- the issue is whether their later selves end up being harmed in any way by earlier exposure.
Well, yeah. Again, that's why I'm citing the long-term and short-term studies as the evidence necessary to suggest violent media is a serious risk factor for violence and aggression. In the short-term there's a clear increase in aggression on the playground. And in the long-term it's correlated with detentions, incarcerations, and high self-reports and peer-reports of aggressive behaviors (which become more serious as adults than the playground bullying of their youth).
My argument is that the violent media and aggression link is being unfairly attacked from two sides. Long-term evidence is dismissed as a correlation, whereas short-term evidence is dismissed as, well, short-term. It's like looking at the evidence that early reading skills correlate highly with later school performance and dismissing it as a correlation (i.e., seeing dedicated parenting as the root cause). That's totally fair, but then if someone were to cite a short-term study between controlled groups and the immediate to long-term benefits of early reading skills, it's as if that evidence would then get dismissed as lacking any long-term implications. It isn't perfect, but you can only provide evidence in these two ways. And if both parts are there, the bigger picture becomes more clear.
One would imagine that kids on a study who have their violent games yanked away are made aware of the fact that their aggression is an issue, even if it was never made explicit.
And since the discussion seems to have switched to the strength of the effect over whether it exists at all: "children in the intervention group had statistically significant decreases in peer ratings of aggression (adjusted mean difference, -2.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.6 to -0.2; P = .03) and observed verbal aggression (adjusted mean difference, -0.10 act per minute per child; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.03; P = .01)." That's about as significant a response as you could get.
Aggression isn't really the holy grail, though. That's the problem with playground studies -- the issue isn't whether or not kids become more excited or aggressive -- the issue is whether their later selves end up being harmed in any way by earlier exposure.
Well, yeah. Again, that's why I'm citing the long-term and short-term studies as the evidence necessary to suggest violent media is a serious risk factor for violence and aggression. In the short-term there's a clear increase in aggression on the playground. And in the long-term it's correlated with detentions, incarcerations, and high self-reports and peer-reports of aggressive behaviors (which become more serious as adults than the playground bullying of their youth).
The counter argument goes:
A) Short term studies don't matter, as they don't address the issue. The long term studies also correlate strongly with so many other parenting issues and class issues that it becomes impossible to sort out what is what.
C) The correlations are weaker than child abuse, weaker than the neighborhood you grow up in, weaker than the school you go to.. etc. etc. At what point do we get to say: an honest reading of the data shows very inconclusive results?
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As to other things, such as lowering the general economy of the area, that depends on whether or not you trust the varied studies. That's a harder call.
Bullshit is a decent show. But they do omit things that go against their own arguments, and they do trivialize some other things. Such as wildlife conservation. "Let's focus on this one guy who can't build his house because of some insect. Let's ignore wolf and bear habitats."
About the violence stuff, yeah.
You'll note that the outcry over GTA and its ilk these days centers around it's supposed "sexual content" despite there being a distinct lack of such in GTAIV. The "you can murder thousands and thousands of people!" thing gets mentioned as an afterthought, or as a sort of necessary component to "killing hookers."
There are AAA titles which are vastly more gory and horrific than the GTA series. They don't get nearly the attention. The focus on GTA has a lot to do with the fact that it even imentions sex, let alone presented it as a minigame in one iteration of the series.
This is pretty much my entire point. The "games 'n' guns" thing just isn't and won't be conclusive enough to sustain long-term focused interest by the public, by politicians, or by researchers. It has interesting implications, yes, and I have a sneaknig suspicion that longitudinal studies will provide some groundbreaking answers if they ever get done properly.
You can prove pretty conclusively with an fMRI done while a person is playing games that gaming activates certain parts of the brain associated with aggression and/or competition. It'll take some digging but I do want to find one of those articles I read, it just might take me a day or two.
The problem is going from "brain looks aggressive-slash-competitive" to "games cause violent behavior!" doesn't fucking work. An fMRI can't tell you if a kid is going to shoot up a school because he played a lot of TF2, but statistical studies can tell you that school shooters don't seem to be any more involved with violent games than and other violent media (I've got a study on that one that's a few years old [2003? I think], I'll dig it up too).
It's a causation that's basically impossible to prove because aggression is not a simple issue when it comes to the neuroscience behind it. Issues that "raise mroe questions than answers" don't get public opinion involved. People like simple A->B causations, not "well A or B or C might be somehow involved with X and Y and maybe Z but we need more studies to figure it out." Issues like that just don't make the news.
Addiction, on the other hand, is well-documented and also involves remarkably few parts of the brain in relatively simplistic fashions. Gaming addiction has the potential to be the center of the next big public outcry over the medium, and that it hasn't happened already is a little surprising considering stories like Shawn Woolley's. There was a guy on my EQ server years and years ago who killed his family (wife and kid) and himself in a bizarre murder/suicide that was linked to his EQ habit; the server boards have scrubbed any psots on it, though, and I can't remember the dude's name.
I have a feeling that as WoW remains popular and the MMO genre grows in America, we're going to see a lot more attention focused on gaming addiction rather than gaming aggression.
Even if you disagree with them (I do too sometimes), you have to admit they are some serious showmen
PSN ID : DetectiveOlivaw | TWITTER | STEAM ID | NEVER FORGET
I've become pretty disenchanted with penn and teller as time has gone on. I enjoy some of Bullshit's episodes, but it seems like every time I see one on a topic I know anything at all about, they ignore or discount four or five important angles.
that's why we call it the struggle, you're supposed to sweat
It seems like for every time they've made a good point, there's another time where they done some rhetorical sleight-of-hand to make things seem the way they want.
While I can only speak to violent media in general and not to video games in particular (although again I think violent video games will ultimately behave much like any other violent media medium)... children who are exposed to violent media in their youth see statistically significant increases in various concrete measures of violence when you look through their high school detention records, court records, and their self-report surveys in their middle ages. And you can still get this result even if you control for essentially any possible mitigating factor save whether or not the researchers told parents their hypothesis: that there will be highly suggestive correlational evidence that violent media caused increases in aggression later in life. So if you look at groups of kids from similar backgrounds and with similar natural tendencies for aggression, whose parents have naturally similar parenting styles that differ only in a small researcher manipulation, you can still get results. (I'd link the relevant literature, but I'm abroad and don't have access to my books/papers/search engines. Maybe somebody else whose read these papers will be kind enough to do it for me?).
It's still technically correlation, but it's suggestive enough that it shouldn't be dismissed (by scientists or the public or the media or whatever) as "just another correlation." Admittedly, I doubt any developmental psychologist would outright tell you that violent media definitively causes aggression (I'm kind of taking the hardline stance here to play devil's advocate). But to cast the whole branch of research off as "well, it's not causation so it isn't not true" is misguided and also probably a mischaracterization of where public opinion stands. A lot of the social sciences just don't work by only considering causative evidence. Sometimes you have to settle for the best interpretation of the best available evidence.
Another example that's more short-term: controlling for everything yadda yadda yadda, give one group of kids access to violent media (television in this case) for two weeks. In double-blind playground observations, researchers note a statistically significant increase in aggressive behavior. More pushing, shoving, kicking, punching, etc. I think these sort of results, while not necessarily conclusive of anything, go a step further than "raises interesting questions" and several steps past "well let's discard it because it's just a correlation."
Watch the very first fucking episode if you can find it. They outline the reason why they swear so fucking much throughout the goddamn series.
Better yet, can any of you mother fuckers paraphrase what he said from the get-up?
I never finish anyth
Basically that they could be sued for slander if they went on TV and called people or their claims "liars" or "cheats" or anything like that. Instead of calling them "liars" they call them "assholes;" instead of saying their claims are falsehoods, they call it "bullshit." Swearwords count as statement of opinion rather than statement of fact, so you can't be sued for calling someone an asshole when you might be for calling them a liar.
Again, they could make a better point if they provided the research to back up their claims (which would also protect them from liability for slander) but this is another shortcut for a more entertaining, less scientific show.
I'm with you on this one. I think the Slander argument is rather flimsy given the amount of needly fucks and other random expletives that he likes to throw in. Most of the time i find that it undermines his point rather than emphasizing his point and it comes off as his trying to distract people from thinking about the situation and focusing on the emotional response as well.
Second, let's repeat the same test, only this time, we'll substitute "violent media" with "football".
In the first half, the control group was shown some kind of control television program (I imagine it was some mundane children's programming, although if the experimenters were solid they'd have made it an exciting-and-adrenaline-pumping though still-non-violent program. I can't remember if they actually did that, although I assume they must have thought of it). Outside, the control group was out on the playground doing playground things, just like the experimental condition, except their aggression measure wasn't elevated.
And you're right that playing violent sports also increases aggression. So does corporal punishment, as well as being bullied or teased. Just because there are several things that increase aggression doesn't excuse any single one as a risk factor. As a parent I wouldn't really want a young child of mine engaging in any of these activities, although as I grow confident my child can handle these things in a mature manner, I would loosen the restrictions on violent sports and video games, since I'm of the belief their benefits (health, fun) can outweigh the risks if practiced responsibly.
Considering that kids use playtime to sort through new data, I'm not sure that observation really tells us anything about the kinds of effects that people are worried about.
I mean, I saw Beverly Hills Cop when I was a tiny kid and swore up a storm for a month afterwards. But it's hard to make the argument that it altered the way I use language over the long haul. To me, that sits it right back at "well let's discard this because it's just a correlation".
Well, that's the reason I cited both long-term and short-term studies. You're absolutely right that any one single risk factor has less and less predictive power over a longer period of time. The point is that when you have both heavily suggestive long-term studies alongside fairly concrete short-term studies, at some point you have to consider that all the available evidence is pointing to a real answer. It's never going to be that violent media causes increased violence and aggression, because save for biological or medical issues rarely is a behavior directly caused by any one thing. But there's evidence enough to show that violent media is a risk factor.
Look, there aren't any studies proving that child abuse causes depression or anti-social behavior later in life for this same reason. You can't really prove that child abuse causes these things because you can't really prove causation in longitudinal studies, and rarely does any one stimulus claim single responsibility for any behavioral outcome. But there's a statistically significant correlation in long-term studies, and short-term studies prove concretely that in the short-term it leads to the undesired behaviors. Should we throw up our hands and say "child abuse and anti-social behavior is just a correlation" because there's no golden bullet that proves causation?
Reading social science is about taking the best interpretation possible from the best available evidence. In one case, it's that child abuse is a risk factor for depression and anti-social behavior. In another, it's that violent media is a risk factor for raised aggression and violence. That doesn't mean that without strong parenting the effects aren't mitigated, or that it isn't possible for someone to surround themselves their whole life with violent media (or child abuse) and emerge a totally healthy and functioning adult. But the evidence is there to suggest significant risk, and clamping your hands over your ears and shouting correlation won't change that.
I'm certainly not arguing we shut down the FPS factories, but ignoring common sense so nobody says anything bad about your hobby is stupid. Kids don't have the same abilities to distinguish between reality and fantasy as adults do.
"Common sense" is a terrible means of forming opinions on complex topics, though. Common sense says that you can go as fast as you damned well please, all the way up to infinity. Common sense says that people will always buy more of something if the price goes down. Common sense is frequently retarded.
I also expect these guys to be the dickhead uncles of Carrot Top but admittedly I havn't watched the episode yet - first impressions ftw.
It's really not a complex topic. Does exposing someone to violent images and media produce a sympathetic response? Um, yeah...
The only thing that's really up for discussion is how much of an effect it can have on someone.
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I would like to assume that they had thought of it, but unfortunately real life has taught me to make as few assumptions as possible.
Self-reports are always an imperfect science, but when bolstered by three or four other measures the collective evidence begins to paint a picture.
And I doubt the problem is recognizing violence, even if it's in yourself. Whether or not you've been heavily exposed to violence and aggression, I would think it's the sort of thing you'd still know if you saw it.
It is also practically the same thing as an appeal to tradition.
Well, you're pretty much right. If there's anybody else out there who's read these studies, I think it'd help the thread out greatly if they'd be kind enough to source a few of them. I'm abroad and don't have access to the search engines I would normally use. I'll see what I can find just through Google.
However, if I remember the study correctly, there was a gap of a few days between the viewing period and the observation period. Even though the uptick in violence might be attributed to an increase in activity levels, I think the waiting period ought to mitigate that effect.
EDIT: Alright, the evidence out there is pretty strong if you run a quick search. Turns out they've done this study a hundred times and at all sorts of time intervals and length variables. Showing one group violent TV for just a week and then measuring aggression a month later still shows the result. Introducing violent television leads to increased aggression and violence three years later (about the upper limit for which it's ethical to give/withhold a manipulation like television). Short-term evidence is pretty conclusive, and it looks like it bleeds into the medium-to-long term range as well.
Right. It's not simply enough to say "this produces a violent response". If you looked at a dozen different vegetables, consumption of one would be the most correlated with violence as compared to all the other vegetables. That doesn't mean we should freak out about that vegetable, it just means that the brain is a complex thing that reacts in strange ways to various stimuli.
If violent video games promote aggressive tendencies, but do so to the exact same extent as watching a sports game, or seeing an exciting, non-violent film, or eating ice cream, is that promotion of aggression really that relevant? The core question is "elevation of aggression as compared to what?" I have yet to see any evidence that video games elevate adrenaline or violent tendencies any more than comparably exciting non-violent activities. And if that's the case, then we shouldn't be talking about video games at all - we should be talking about excitement.
As they say, there's 'risk factors' and there's 'risk factors'.
My understanding is that the correlation between child abuse and anti-social behavior is strong, strong, strong. And that the correlation between violent media and anti-social behavior is comparatively very weak.
Again, all the caveats about risk factors losing their predictive power over longer periods of time still apply. But the short term evidence is pretty damning.
And since the discussion seems to have switched to the strength of the effect over whether it exists at all: "children in the intervention group had statistically significant decreases in peer ratings of aggression (adjusted mean difference, -2.4%; 95% confidence interval [CI], -4.6 to -0.2; P = .03) and observed verbal aggression (adjusted mean difference, -0.10 act per minute per child; 95% CI, -0.18 to -0.03; P = .01)." That's about as significant a response as you could get.
I'll start digging up long-term studies. I'm fairly confident from what I've read in the past that the correlation is strong enough and large enough that it goes beyond the statistically-significant-but-pragmatically-insignificant correlations ElJeffe gave as examples.
It sure isn't a complex topic, and neither is feminism or Israel.
I think the Grand Theft Childhood people have the best point so far: no correlation between violent video games and crime.
Aggression isn't really the holy grail, though. That's the problem with playground studies -- the issue isn't whether or not kids become more excited or aggressive -- the issue is whether their later selves end up being harmed in any way by earlier exposure.
I haven't read this book, but I'm now I'm interested. There might not be a link specifically between violent video games and crime, but I'm fairly confident a link has been found between media violence and incarceration measures in more general terms.
Some questions:
A) What sort of "violent video games" are these fourth graders playing? Not all violence is created equal, and there's a huge difference between Super Mario Bros. and Street Fighter IV and Grand Theft Auto, all of which possess elements of violence.
C) What definition of "aggressive" are we using, here? Being overly enthusiastic in play, taking things from people forcefully, hitting them...?
I think when we discuss this issue, it's important to consider that not all age groups are the same. I absolutely believe that giving Gears of War to a nine year old is going to be unhealthy as all fuck. I think giving that game to a seventeen year old is going to be quite different. I don't think anybody here skeptical about the links between violence and gaming is saying that all games are appropriate for all ages.
Well, yeah. Again, that's why I'm citing the long-term and short-term studies as the evidence necessary to suggest violent media is a serious risk factor for violence and aggression. In the short-term there's a clear increase in aggression on the playground. And in the long-term it's correlated with detentions, incarcerations, and high self-reports and peer-reports of aggressive behaviors (which become more serious as adults than the playground bullying of their youth).
My argument is that the violent media and aggression link is being unfairly attacked from two sides. Long-term evidence is dismissed as a correlation, whereas short-term evidence is dismissed as, well, short-term. It's like looking at the evidence that early reading skills correlate highly with later school performance and dismissing it as a correlation (i.e., seeing dedicated parenting as the root cause). That's totally fair, but then if someone were to cite a short-term study between controlled groups and the immediate to long-term benefits of early reading skills, it's as if that evidence would then get dismissed as lacking any long-term implications. It isn't perfect, but you can only provide evidence in these two ways. And if both parts are there, the bigger picture becomes more clear.
The counter argument goes:
A) Short term studies don't matter, as they don't address the issue.
C) The correlations are weaker than child abuse, weaker than the neighborhood you grow up in, weaker than the school you go to.. etc. etc. At what point do we get to say: an honest reading of the data shows very inconclusive results?