NationStates Jolt Archive


Does video game violence cause real life violence?

Ogiek
09-02-2005, 04:48
Let me say up front that I don't get video games. They seem like a pointless waste of time and energy to me and there is no doubt there are some real sicko games available to kids.

That said, do violent video games breed violence in young people?

Although there are many studies suggesting a link between video violence and the real thing US Dept of Justice crime statestics for the entire population show crime rates have dropped every year for the past decade, hitting a record low in 2003, and crime rates for teens have done the same, dropping 78% in ten years. This during the biggest boom in video game sales ever.

So, although I don't much care for video games, it seems to me there is no massive teenage crime wave to correspond with the increased hours kids spend playing Grand Theft Auto and Halo.

If you have another argument I am open to listening to it,
Adrian Barbeau-Bot
09-02-2005, 04:54
no, not in the least bit. in my history, i have killed millions of nazis among other things.. now, if i were to see one in real life i would steer as far away as possible. in the gta games i have taken a flame thower and cooked several dozens of people, but if i had one in real life i would probably just take down a forest and an empty building or two. just a few examples, to start off.
Macnasia
09-02-2005, 04:55
Good to know that I'm not the only one who watches Law & Order: SVU :P

And no. I've played video games nearly all my life, many of them violent, and I've never felt the need to kill someone.
WiNA
09-02-2005, 04:56
also, only about 50% of those kinds of studies claim video games breed violance, the other 50% claim the exact opposite ...

then again, 73% of the population knows that with the correct statistics you can prove just about anything ;)
Neo-Anarchists
09-02-2005, 04:57
Hmm, the only people that I've known that got violent ideas from video games were already unbalanced beforehand.
Adrian Barbeau-Bot
09-02-2005, 04:59
also, only about 50% of those kinds of studies claim video games breed violance, the other 50% claim the exact opposite ...

then again, 73% of the population knows that with the correct statistics you can prove just about anything ;)

and 79% of all percentages are made up on the spot.
Arenestho
09-02-2005, 05:01
IMHO it's like what happened with Satanism in the 80's. Note that I am not trying to implicate Satanism in anything, I am using it as an analogy. There was also BO in the early 1900's, it was another common thing that was over played by fear mongers, but wasn't a real problem. There are many throughout history that I could've used, this one was more recent, more well known and quite similar.

In reality, it either wasn't happening, or it was a case that would've happened anyways. The same thing happens, someone who is mentally unstable goes out and kills someone then blaims a scapegoat that will make them seem justified. Before it was, "Satan made me do it" now it's "Video games taught me it was okay"; same excuse, same bull shit, same fear mongers who can't take a change in the way people live their lives spreading unfounded propaganda. Video games don't promote violence, mentally unstable people use it as a scapegoat.
Raust
09-02-2005, 05:01
Video games contribute to the violent acts caused by people too stupid to know the difference.

Same thing goes with religion, movies, music, family dogs that "talk to you".. etc. etc. etc.
Ogiek
09-02-2005, 05:17
Hmm, the only people that I've known that got violent ideas from video games were already unbalanced beforehand.
Video games contribute to the violent acts caused by people too stupid to know the difference.

Ok, fair enough, but allow me to play devil’s advocate. What about the impact on young kids? Do you think playing Grand Theft Auto for three hours a day every day would adversely affect the emotional or cognitive development of an otherwise normal 9 year old?

Certainly the same argument about causes of violence have been made in the past about everything from Saturday morning cartoons to Black Sabbath records, but those seem pretty mild compared to a child taking on the role of a gang banging pimp and killing prostitutes or chain sawing cops.
Reconditum
09-02-2005, 05:39
Let me say up front that I don't get video games. They seem like a pointless waste of time and energy to me ...

And posting here isn't? ;)

Do you think playing Grand Theft Auto for three hours a day every day would adversely affect the emotional or cognitive development of an otherwise normal 9 year old?

WTF is a 9 year old doing playing a game like GTA?
Neo-Anarchists
09-02-2005, 05:45
Ok, fair enough, but allow me to play devil’s advocate. What about the impact on young kids? Do you think playing Grand Theft Auto for three hours a day every day would adversely affect the emotional or cognitive development of an otherwise normal 9 year old?
If the kid hadn't gotten to the point where s/he could reason properly, then I would assume that a game like GTA could mess him/her up a bit.
Rovhaugane
09-02-2005, 05:45
Persionally I love graphically violent and bloody video games and movies. GTA is good but it isnt really that graphic, although it is getting there I hope. Stuff like manhunt and vampire - bloodlines are good. Theres nothing like cutting some ones head off with a machete and hearing graphic real sounds or making some one explode in a shower of blood then picking up their arm and killing people with it.

But I still think it is bullshit that people try to blame real world violence on games and movies. Sure they do cause a small amount of it im sure, but nothing like what they say it causes. I dont find the need to wrap some ones head in a plastic bag and punch them in the face after playing manhunt. Suprisingly I dont
go out and kill people with a severed arm or smash them round the head with a sledge hammer after I play vampire. Its just good old violent fun.
Krark the almighty
09-02-2005, 05:47
Yes, they do caus violence. But not much. If you were to give the game to a kid without making them understand that the actions the character makes in the game are wrong then that is a problem, but meh- most kids are smart enough to work it out for themselves.
Reconditum
09-02-2005, 05:51
For those of us who can tell the difference, graphically violent games are a perfectly harmless (except maybe to our social lives) way to release our more animalistic tendencies. Of course if you have difficulty distinguishing between fantasy and reality (as some children do) I can see the possible problems that may or may not have a chance of cropping up. That is why ESRB ratings really ought to be taken more seriously. I know they're pretty arbitrary, but they're better than nothing. Also, if people respected them more there may be greater reson to revamp them so they more accurately reflect the realities of how people mature.
Colodia
09-02-2005, 05:51
The only rise is the amount of bitching mothers complaining that we aren't all uniformed blonde white children who listen to what they say.

But do video game violence cause a rise of violence...in ANIMALS?
Cyrian space
09-02-2005, 05:54
I figure, there are certain levels of maturity when a person can handle different levels of violence and not let it affect them. Sure, a little kid can get messed up by playing GTA3, because they don't know the real world well enough to know that the game is different. It's a line between fantasy and reality. Those who can't tell the difference are usually insane.
Sumamba Buwhan
09-02-2005, 05:57
dont be talkin bout my beloved video games! they dont cause violence! now take that back or I will hunt you down and kill yoo

0_o
Rovhaugane
09-02-2005, 05:57
Yhea I cant believe how they rate games. It was pretty sad that they baned Postal 2 and Manhunt. They could have easily just been R18 which is understandable for their content. People would take the rating far more seriously if it actually made sense for the content of the game/movie.
Armed Bookworms
09-02-2005, 06:05
no, not in the least bit. in my history, i have killed millions of nazis among other things.. now, if i were to see one in real life i would steer as far away as possible. in the gta games i have taken a flame thower and cooked several dozens of people, but if i had one in real life i would probably just take down a forest and an empty building or two. just a few examples, to start off.
Heh, Wolfenstien.
UpwardThrust
09-02-2005, 06:09
people like to emulate things ... games are not nessisarily the cause of the violence but thoes suceptable choose to model after them

If not that then something else
Lacadaemon II
09-02-2005, 06:13
Wait, I thought poor people commited violent crime because they couldn't afford things like video games. Which is it again?
Rovhaugane
09-02-2005, 06:14
That makes alot of sense. I know if I couldnt afford a game I would be out there hidding in the shadows waiting for the right point to shove a crowbar through the back of someones head....
Lacadaemon II
09-02-2005, 06:17
That makes alot of sense. I know if I couldnt afford a game I would be out there hidding in the shadows waiting for the right point to shove a crowbar through the back of someones head....

Exactly. When I was a young kid, we didn't have no fancy GTAs and HELOs games. We had to make our own violence. In the streets, with bats and bits of bricks.

Kids today, no imagination. That's the trouble.
Rovhaugane
09-02-2005, 06:21
Yhea your right, I stole that idea from a video game. I think the problem with video games is it destroys your imagination.. sort of. But im not really complaining.
UpwardThrust
09-02-2005, 06:22
Yhea your right, I stole that idea from a video game. I think the problem with video games is it destroys your imagination.. sort of. But im not really complaining.
Yet stratagy games have open my mind up in some ways (tactical thinking) not to mention still loving books and movies and just plain ol sitting there and daydreaming and I am a fairly typical 20+ year old video game generation member
Shaed
09-02-2005, 06:24
The media has, once again, got things backwards. It's not that violent videogames make people violent, it's that violent people buy violent videogames.

But the thing is, there's often zero correlation between 'wanting to shoot at computer generated figures' and 'wanting to shoot real people'. So even if violent games are successful, it doesn't mean there's going to be some massive increase in violence.
Andaras Prime
09-02-2005, 06:24
I played Halo 2 yesterday, I killed many thing in it. Does this mean I'am mentally predisposed to killing people. Man that makes sense :rolleyes:

Video games are entertainment, pure & simple. So for someone to play killing someone in a video game and then do it in reality would effectively make them the most naive, pliable and downright stupid person ever. Society implants from birth morality and right and wrong, that it is wrong to kill someone or hurt someone etc... I think this issue is nothing but a problem being misdirected.
Raust
09-02-2005, 06:26
Certainly the same argument about causes of violence have been made in the past about everything from Saturday morning cartoons to Black Sabbath records, but those seem pretty mild compared to a child taking on the role of a gang banging pimp and killing prostitutes or chain sawing cops.

While overly violent imagery can desensitize younger children to the impacts of real violence and perhaps, at a lesser extent, teach the child there are no consequences to violent acts, it is not the game manufacturer's or the movie producer's responsibility to make sure that only mature people use their products that are specifically rated for mature people. That responsibility falls to the legal guardians of young children and, to a lesser extent, the people who distribute the games and movies (retail stores and theaters).

If little kids are watching R rated movies or playing Grand Theft Auto, then it is the legal guardian's role to intervene and teach the child that there is a difference between pretend violence and real violence.

It seems to me like you are asking why the video game and movie companies aren't making it easy for bad parents to use their products as babysitters and role models for their little kids and quite simply, its not their job to do so.
Ut-Jor
09-02-2005, 06:32
One time I played Vice City for like a week straight. Then, one day while I was driving to work, I saw a motorcycle and the first thought that came into my head was "Hey, I should hit run over that guy and take his bike." I quickly realized what I was doing and decided to cut down on the gaming.
Point being, it may not be the virtual violence itself that changes behavior, but perhaps frequency of play, the idea of getting so into a game that your subconscious has difficulty separating it from reality.
Of course, a lot of this video violence with kids thing could be prevented by enforcing the rating system, i.e. requiring consumers to be 18+ to buy an M rated game. But either everyone's afraid of implementing such a system, or people just aren't savvy to the rating system.
Xenophobialand
09-02-2005, 06:33
Let me say up front that I don't get video games. They seem like a pointless waste of time and energy to me and there is no doubt there are some real sicko games available to kids.

That said, do violent video games breed violence in young people?

Although there are many studies suggesting a link between video violence and the real thing US Dept of Justice crime statestics for the entire population show crime rates have dropped every year for the past decade, hitting a record low in 2003, and crime rates for teens have done the same, dropping 78% in ten years. This during the biggest boom in video game sales ever.

So, although I don't much care for video games, it seems to me there is no massive teenage crime wave to correspond with the increased hours kids spend playing Grand Theft Auto and Halo.

If you have another argument I am open to listening to it,

Nah. I'd like to shoot the idiot who first came up with that idea. . .;)

Seriously, though, video games don't contribute to violence. They just make a very facile, quick-to-blame target, they are something most people in the dominant economic and political group (namely, baby-boomers) don't use, and they make for handy visuals when shown on the TV. Left unsaid is that whenever you see a game like Doom on TV, they have the gore level turned up to max, whereas most people who actually play Doom only have the gore level on low, because the mess prevents you from seeing what you are shooting at sometimes, and that can kill you. The only reason many people play with gore at all is because on dark levels, it's often the only quick way of telling whether you can hit anything at all. So the idea that the reporters are peddling is being skewed right from the get-go.

Further, a lot of the big reports they've done on the subject have been skewed/biased as well. For example, there are routine reports about how the military uses games as desensitization tools, which leads many people to suggest that they have the same effect on civilians. What is left unsaid is that if I were in the military, I would be expecting to kill people, and even a 101 psych grad can tell you that expectations play a pretty big role in the psychological implications of any action (see: The Placebo Effect, for example). As a person who just likes to play games, I don't expect to need this later on to keep me alive, so I don't see it as a necessary connection that I therefore must be desensitizing myself to violence.
Andaras Prime
09-02-2005, 06:44
While overly violent imagery can desensitize younger children to the impacts of real violence and perhaps, at a lesser extent, teach the child there are no consequences to violent acts, it is not the game manufacturer's or the movie producer's responsibility to make sure that only mature people use their products that are specifically rated for mature people. That responsibility falls to the legal guardians of young children and, to a lesser extent, the people who distribute the games and movies (retail stores and theaters).

If little kids are watching R rated movies or playing Grand Theft Auto, then it is the legal guardian's role to intervene and teach the child that there is a difference between pretend violence and real violence.

It seems to me like you are asking why the video game and movie companies aren't making it easy for bad parents to use their products as babysitters and role models for their little kids and quite simply, its not their job to do so.
Yes at a young age children can be very easily influenced so parents must be very cautious about what they let them see etc.. and movie and video ratings are their for that reason, so when someone sees them they will be mature enough to view it as simply as entertainment and enjoy them which is what video games are meant for. But what I would really like to see is a statistic that say how many murders or crimes were committed by those who were incited to do so by influence of a video game, not many i would. Compared to Alcohol and drugs it is tiny, I think their are greater causes.
Incenjucarania
09-02-2005, 07:13
Some people have certain natures which are susceptable to excuses.

Me, my non-violence is outright innate. My father used to beat my mother when I was a kid (so young I had to be told that this happened), and, one day, I just stood up to him and said "Don't hit my mom!" or somesuch. Worked to this day, too. This is also a family where hunting is a normal thing, I was used to dead things bigger than myself being piled in the garage (or, since we had a nutty cat, smaller dead things piled in front of the door). Also spent a lot of time as a kid having to hunt mice down for killing, to make sure they didn't infest the house. Ever had to crush a mouse with a log? Several mice? And then point the dog at it to chew its innards in to a fine paste to make sure it was dead?

Didn't make me a bit violent. I'm a big softie -unless- someone threatens someone I care about.

Then the mice were lucky.

But nobody's been that stupid.
Domici
09-02-2005, 07:53
Good to know that I'm not the only one who watches Law & Order: SVU :P

And no. I've played video games nearly all my life, many of them violent, and I've never felt the need to kill someone.

I don't know, after that damn remote control airplane mission in GTA San Andreas I've been pretty tempted to do something nasty to David Cross.
Cocopuff
09-02-2005, 07:58
Let me say up front that I don't get video games. They seem like a pointless waste of time and energy to me and there is no doubt there are some real sicko games available to kids.

That said, do violent video games breed violence in young people?
Absolutely! After playing "Resident Evil," for instance, I went on a spree killing every zombie I came across! Not that St. Louis has a lot of zombies ... but that's mostly because I wiped them all out!
Spearmen
09-02-2005, 08:01
The type of violence of which you are speaking, does not arise from any cause in individual, but that is the sum of many. To indicate and to isolate one of them, are a easy and cheap measurement for those who "directs the circus"
Hammolopolis
09-02-2005, 08:17
One time I played Vice City for like a week straight. Then, one day while I was driving to work, I saw a motorcycle and the first thought that came into my head was "Hey, I should hit run over that guy and take his bike." I quickly realized what I was doing and decided to cut down on the gaming.
Point being, it may not be the virtual violence itself that changes behavior, but perhaps frequency of play, the idea of getting so into a game that your subconscious has difficulty separating it from reality.
Of course, a lot of this video violence with kids thing could be prevented by enforcing the rating system, i.e. requiring consumers to be 18+ to buy an M rated game. But either everyone's afraid of implementing such a system, or people just aren't savvy to the rating system.
I know what you're talking about, but I don't think it to do with violence itself as much as game mechanics. When you do something, like play a video game, that requires you to think in a certain for a long time you have trouble breaking out of that mindset. You're so used to doing things the right way in the game it becomes second nature. Go right from playing a video game to something else and you are still in that mindset. Its might take a millisecond longer for you to realize the right way to do things in real life. It just so happens that in GTA violence is usually the best way to do things.

Play a strategy game for to long and you'll wonder how many resources it take to make a pizza, or an RPG and you'll wonder how many XP you need to level up. Its weird as anything when you catch yourself doing it, but pretty much anything works that way. For example, go drive bumper cars for 2 hours straight and then jump on the freeway. You'll be thinking of the easiest way to knock the guy next to you into the wall.
Scienistan
09-02-2005, 09:21
Play Tetris for 6 hours and you'll know what it's like to be uncontrollably OCD until the effects wear off :)
Its too far away
09-02-2005, 10:09
Ha anyone who truly plays video games doesn't have time to be violent in "real life" :p
Neo-Anarchists
09-02-2005, 10:12
Play Tetris for 6 hours and you'll know what it's like to be uncontrollably OCD until the effects wear off :)
:eek:
But Tetris is bad for children!
It promotes acts of violence against little funny-shaped colored blocks!
:D
The Imperial Navy
09-02-2005, 10:37
They are a scapegoat, so the government can blame somone else for the failings of the police force. Games do the opposite, and take away my agression after a hard days work. If it werent for the fact after work I could crush a few Nazi soldiers, I'd probably rip my boss's head off.

video games rule! Stop using them as a scapegoat!
Adrian Barbeau-Bot
09-02-2005, 10:42
Heh, Wolfenstien.

heh - wolfenstien was just the beginning. every ww2 based game from wolfenstien to call of duty. the amount of nazis i have killed is astonishing
Neo-Anarchists
09-02-2005, 10:47
the amount of nazis i have killed is astonishing
Am I the only one that finds this line of conversation really funny?
Adrian Barbeau-Bot
09-02-2005, 11:15
Am I the only one that finds this line of conversation really funny?

ha, maybe i should specify that they are in a game?


...nah.
Gauthier
09-02-2005, 11:53
And let's not forget the wisdom that is attributed to George Carlin:

If video games influenced how people behave, we would all be sitting in a dark room listening to repetetive techno music while munching on pills.
Adrian Barbeau-Bot
09-02-2005, 11:57
And let's not forget the wisdom that is attributed to George Carlin:

well there you have it, discussion over. anything george carlin says is the truth.

and no, im not being sarcastic, hes awesome.