h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I think that repeatedly being defeated in a game makes me more aggressive than the act of hitting somebody with a sword or shooting with a gun in an obviously unreal environment. Loosing *can* make me angry, at least for the next 20 minutes and depending on how much effort I put into whatever I failed to do.

Z,

> I find that a study consisting of this number of subjects is a little hard to ignore based on personal experiences. I was surprised by the result as my own experiences were that playing games didn't make me more violent.

Ah, I'm not ignoring it but I want to very clear about precisely what it is they've shown. In my opinion, that's some effect (maybe) in the very short term, and speculation about the long term. Well, that's not enough for me to buy into a well-rehearsed moral panic discourse that dates back hundreds of years and has, for all those hundreds of years, been proved over and over again to be baseless.

Here is a topical Calvin and Hobbes strip on the subject:

http://www.gocomics.com/calvinandhobbes/1995/02/15

Transcript for the link averse:

Graphic violence in the media.

Does it glamorize violence? Sure.
Does it desensitize us to violence? Of course.
Does it help us tolerate violence? You bet.
Does it stunt our empathy for our fellow beings? Heck yes.

Does it CAUSE violence? ... well that's hard to prove.

The trick is to ask the right question.



Have studies been carried out on the first few questions?

Oh, and answering that earlier question about what computergames can teach us or how they are good:
I think they really teach you teamwork.
They also teach you to stick with a problem until it's solved I guess.
Tactics, thinking in new directions (good games do that).
MMOs definitely teach you about people. All kinds of people, the whole demography.
I got a lot of fun out of them by helping others.
I think I also learned new stuff by looking up things that appeared in games. Like mythological stuff, but also technology from sci-fi games. It's also interesting to analyze.

#218 "Unfortunately, I can only do so with anecdotal evidence: when I'm playing a 'violent' computer game (one with killing in it), I'm not usually thinking aggressive thoughts about the virtual things I'm killing, I'm working out optimal strategies. I'm treating it, essentially, as a puzzle to be solved."


Wonders whether to invoke Godwin's Law.

#223 I like that cartoon

Anecdoetally the game that causes tthe most actual violence form me is Pro Evolution Soccer. I have over the years smashed up cloise to 10 xbox and 360 controllers in frustration.

To the extent that I have just stopped playing it now as it was costing me too much money!

FB

#227: I wonder whether there are any studies linking the act of "football supporting" and violence.

I know what you mean FB, it's often the games involving the least amount of violence that make you most aggressive. As I said, these newspaper guys generally don't know what they are talking about.

Hmmm for that matter I wonder whether the act of "defending an argument" can lead to violence. Looks around H2G2 for "evidence".

Dogster.

I think we agree.

I don't propose buying into the moral panic, because moral panics have been proven again and again to be baseless. However in the process of not-buying into the moral panic I don't want to make false statements about the evidence.

You know, I saw a really nice video about what kind of nice people gamers (computer, larp, tabletop) really are. A 'this is the reality' video that should show that we all are not agressive addicts without a job that sit somewhere in a dark cellar and plot the end of the world. The guy wanted to sell it to TV stations, none of them wanted it because it didn't fit to the picture they wanted to create. Unfortunately it's in German so I guess posting it here would be useless.

Z,

My own objections weren't about lack of evidence of a relationship. But there's certainly no evidence of the games -> desensitisation -> violence hypothesis.

That's right!
There are no flames here!
No evidence of fire.
Just some smoke and a few glowing embers.

~jwf~

Can I give you another examples, Squiggles. Ice cream sales and beer sales are highly correlated. Is this evidence that people need beer to wash away the taste of ice cream?

There's no accounting for taste.
But it sounds like a good plan to me.

~jwf~

But only if you're going on a trip down the coast to collect octopodes.

(Cryptic reference to the beer milkshake incident in Steinbeck's 'Sweet Thursday'.)

Damn, I was catching up on this thread and had drafted this post before I realised my lovely husband had beaten me to it. With the opposite point. It does however endorse the points made most clearly by Tavaron.

For what it's worth, this is what I'd drafted:

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

On the canard about computer games sapping one's moral or intellectual strength:

Before the film of the same name was released, there was a book published called "The Kids are Alright" (sic) with the subtitle "How the Gamer Generation is Changing the Workplace". It's published by Harvard Business Press and has a respectable academic and research heritage; well, as respectable as social science can get.

It found that compared with the Boomers and Gen Xers, "The Gamer Generation" are

Less afraid of failure
More willing to be experimental
More determined, flexible and inventive
More willing to ask their peers for help
More willing to help their peers
Confident in their ability to learn
More likely to assume a complex problem can be solved

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Kids-are-Alright-Generation-Workplace/dp/1422104354

It concluded that gamers are good employees for workplaces where people are required to think.

It did include all games, from Pong, through Solitaire to World of Warcraft. It pre-dated the Wii, I think, by a year or so. It's this matter of genre which stumps the generalisers.

Ben

My friend has a strange compulsion to stack oddly shaped furniture.