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

Thanks for those links SA.
The CNN article concludes:

>> In every group, children who were exposed to more video game violence did become more aggressive over time than their peers who had less exposure. This was true even after the researchers took into account how aggressive the children were at the beginning of the study -- a strong predictor of future bad behavior. <<

But as Ed says:
>> We should not settle on the explanation that suits our prejudice.
That's bad science. <<

And I am left wondering if that implies there is such a thing
as good science. Let's not loose sight of the fact that we are
entering into the shady and much poopooed area of the social
sciences, renowned for lacking objective quantifiable data.

Researcher: Hey kid! You with the video game-boy. Is it making
you feel violent?
Kid: (Looks warily at scientist in white coat with clipboard
and pocket protector full of pencils and pens.)
No. But you are.


~jwf~


~jwf~

I've just slapped Isabella of Castille and am mobilising my army to fight hers. Hopefully I'll have won the war before I finish building Mount Rushmore in my back garden.

Copy-cat Civ wars are the worst...

"Yes, on the flip side, playing "violent" video games can act to purge the aggression out of the system - whilst converting the person into an obese or anorexic finger pushing sleepy head."

And totally not active and outgoing people like me and my friends.


"And I am left wondering if that implies there is such a thing as good science."

Yes, baking. Baking is science.

>>And I am left wondering if that implies there is such a thing as good science.<<

Who do you think made the computer you're posting from, and the thing you're posting to, possible? Fairies? Magicians? Or scientists?

Mind you squggles at least you're not wasting your time sat in front of a computer screen, fighting fantasy creatures with only a keyboard, a mouse and the mentality of a teenager. Oh wait...

Engineers, strictly speaking.

Yes Edward, but what did those engineers use?

I'll tell you...

*Dramatic pause*

SCIENCE!

Engineering is another name applied science. But enough of this, Hoo is more than capable of stroking his own ego.

Yeah - but any sufficiently advanced engineering would be indistinguishable from magic.

btw...how many gamers go around massacring dragons in RL?

"btw...how many gamers go around massacring dragons in RL?"

This. Skyrim, for example, is immensely violent in places... bet you won't find it cropping up on any BAN THIS SICK FILTH lists though. Strange that when it's all in the imagination D&D is blamed more than playing war, but as soon as it's on a screen playing war is blamed more than D&D.

Well granted D&D *should* be banned, simply on grounds of common sense and respectability. I speak as a founder member of Rock Against D&D.

AND NO FLARES!!!

Is there such a thing as good science.. yes of course there is.

If one study says one thing, and another says another what do you need to do? A systematic review and meta-analysis of course.. I explained this in detail in my excellent h2g2 article on the subject, which I wrote whilst avoiding actually doing a meta-analysis. A87726900

And lo and behold one has been done on violent video games.

'Oh good I thought, this will confirm my belief that they have nothing to do with violence in real life'...

And then I read the study they combined results from 136 separate studies, of 130,296
children. Oh it only shows that violent video games *are* associated with violence..

http://www.apa.org/pubs/journals/releases/bul-136-2-151.pdf

Interesting that the results seem more pronounced in the US than in Japan though.

Hm. Okay then...

I'd like to see a study done exclusively using games that are actually appropriate for the age group being studied though, and see what that comes up with. Frankly if a parent is buying a game clearly marked as "18+" for a 10-year-old kid there's something wrong before the cellophane has even been taken off.

And actually yes, it is interesting that the results are more pronounced in the US than Japan, because if you want a place where there are some disgustingly violent games available (allegedly including ones based around stalking and rape) on the high street you want Japan.

>>"And I am left wondering if that implies there is such a thing as good science." Yes, baking. Baking is science.

My girlfriend asked me whether I would classify cookery as either an art or a science, if I could only choose one. I said the question's unfair, because it's clearly both an art and a science, but if I had to, I'd call it a science, because you can follow a set of instructions and produce a decent dish.

#211 "... And lo and behold one has been done on violent video games. 'Oh good I thought, this will confirm my belief that they have nothing to do with violence in real life'... And then I read the study they combined results from 136 separate studies, of 130,296 children. Oh it only shows that violent video games *are* associated with violence.. " I suppose they could all be morons? Maybe the use of the word "moron" is used in the same context as "it's bloody obvious" http://h2g2.com/dna/h2g2/brunel/F19585?thread=8290758

But it's not bloody obvious though. Disregarding Z's Great Big Study for the moment it just comes across as so much media scaremongering, and following the completely false scares about video nasties, heavy metal, Dungeons & Dragons, etc. the only thing that was 'bloody obvious' when all this kicked off was that the Red-topped BAN THIS SICK FILTH brigade had found another target.

Also there has yet to be a similarly big study of such games being played by adults, you know the people those games are actually made for and marketed at... children are impressionable, but it strikes me that when a parent buys an eleven-year-old a game entitled "Super Shoot/Stab III: Ultra Gore And Guts And Stuff In Da House" that has a big "18+" on the front there is already a certain lack of engagement and control that could even on its own lead to deliquency and the complete decline of civilisation (this may be an exaggeration for comic effect).

Basically, even with that set of studies in mind the notion that video games cause violence *on their own* is still pretty disingenuous, there will invariably be other factors to consider from appropriateness of age, to the situation at home. I like playing violent games, but I have never been in a real fight or even made a serious threat against anyone.

I think we should make a list of the benefits of these games.

Other than being enjoyable (which is enough reason on it's own, imo), I know off the top of my head they've been linked to helping overcoming Alzheimer's, providing pain-relief for kids having painful medical procedures, assisting cognitive function and helping people recover from hip operations (wii balance). What else?

Z,

> it only shows that violent video games *are* associated with violence..

You have to be a little bit careful about what you mean by that though. As far as I can tell, most (all?) of the studies on the link between computer games and violence are of one of two types. (1) They get people to play a game, and then shortly afterwards do a test designed to see how aggressive they are. (2) They show a correlation between number of hours spent playing computer games and actual violent behaviour.

For my part, I'm pretty happy to rule out the evidence coming from papers of type (2) because of the problem that everyone here knows, correlation doesn't imply cause. Papers of type (1) are more interesting, because they actually tell us something in a controlled environment, and indeed they seem to show an effect that people are more aggressive after playing computer games. However: the effect appears to be quite small; there may be a publication bias; there is not necessarily any link between short term and long term effects. The paper you linked to talks about the link between short and long term quite a lot, but as far as I could tell, they are only speculating about the plausibility of a link, and no actual link is demonstrated. (Not surprising - how would you demonstrate it?)

As an illustration of the sort of speculation in the paper, this sentence struck me: "But violent video games, by their nature, require the activation of aggressive thoughts, whereas nonviolent games do not require it." There was no evidence provided for this statement, and its structure suggests that they think this is something that is obviously true by definition. But I'd dispute it. 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. I imagine many here will share this point of view? (Maybe this is why I'm not so good at the fast action ones though, not enough adrenaline generated because I'm too detached from it.)

Now maybe this just means that I'm "desensitised" to the violence, but I'd rather see it as being able to maintain a healthy distinction between fiction and reality.

<>

I agree, yes.

Thing is that people who talk about the threat coming from computer games on TV and such usually only know computer games from here-say and have never played one. They are just convinced that they are bad and you can often see how uninformed they are. I once saw one of those saying something about the highly violent shooter World of Warcraft for instance. That's how knowlegable the common media is in this respect. They don't even bother to research.

Interesting, I have to admit that I just gave the 'headline' rather than the detailed analysis of the study.. I wouldn't stop a child playing a video game based on the results of this study.

This is typical of the sort of dilemma facing social science research, you can't do a randomized controlled trial of video games.

Well actually you *could*

You could randomize children presenting to a child psychiatry clinic with aggressive behavior to 'stopping video games' and usual care.

You could conduct a cohort study at two similar boarding schools, one where video games were banned and one where they weren't. You could also possibly do a cohort study of children from similar families whose children attended a similar nursery or school. (Doctor's children perhaps?).

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.

I would personally be more interested in real life violence correlated with video game use, and correcting for known confounding factors using various regression techniques. I am not that interested in video game violence that causes a change in some sort of psychological aggression score, which to me strikes me as being some sort of surrogate end point.

If I am a parent deciding whether to let my child play a video game I want to know if they are more likely to get involved in violence, not if they are more likely to get a high score on a regression test.

They used the trim and fill procedure to correct for publication bias, not ideal but certainly better than nothing at all.