Do video games cause violence?

[nikimcbee]

Originally Posted by GoldenRivet

Playing Pac Man makes me want to eat ghosts.

That explains a lot!


I definatly (i'm using steamwake's spellcheck at the moment) see it in some kids when they play a lot.

[nikimcbee]

But seriously, when i was growing up, and even now, playing violent video games never really gave me the message "Hey I can go out and do this stuff too..." I realized, as a person, that I was capable of doing things in a "game-world" or "virtual-world" that I was not permitted to do. I, as a kid drew the line between video gaming and the real world.

Although, when I was playing Red Baron a lot, I did want to paint a giant iron cross on the side of my red car. But I do have a laughing sawfish on my hood though.

[Sledgehammer427]

I woulda liked to see that on the minivan you rented for the SS meet

as for the OT, I remember taking a psychology class, where we talked about how our minds react to things. like, if you scream into a pillow, or, lets say you hit a pillow every time you get really angry, then hitting something else, like a wall or your spouse, will be okay for your moral midset when it gets worse. now, I may be forgetting things but I have a nasty headache.
but in the context of video games, I can see how it would keep us from doing these things (I'm 19, so I'm part of the market)
but I can see how it could bolster our confidence in doing these things.

violence aside, I was a so-so guitar player, one might my friend brought over Guitar Hero and we played it until like 6 in the morning. the next day I was a halfway decent guitar player!
that being said, it takes a certain concoction of psychological assets and certain events to translate video games into violence.

that's my thoughts anyways

[Task Force]

Hmm, the vediogame violence thing again. No, though in theory might do something to a person who is already crazy and would do it anyway. But not a normal person.

Then if they do something, they cant honesetly think the same thing will happen, Real life has no health bar.

[NeonSamurai]

Well this is more or less in my general field, and I have done research into the literature (published research) on this specific topic.

So far this is what we have. Research indicates that children are more likely to behave more violently after playing a violent video game (GTA or Doom or similar), which can be explained as modeled behavior. They also show fairly clear signs of desensitization towards violence (not surprising, strong exposure to anything always causes desensitization). Furthermore research shows that there is generally no catharsis or cathartic release (lowering of stress, or release of negative emotion) when playing these sorts of games, actually just the opposite as they tend to increase stress and arousal levels.

Now this applies to specific types of games, like FPS and similar, that feature high amounts of action and involvement, and high levels of graphical violence. Also the point is that this stuff increases violent behavior, not causes it. Many of these studies are correlational studies which cannot show causation or directionality. This means for example that we don't know if playing violent video games makes kids more violent, or if violent kids prefer to play violent video games, or if there is a third factor influencing them both.

[yubba]

I got a book that you must read before you do something stupid after playin your favorite violent video game, frist page goes like this, Good Idea . Second page Bad Idea. Sorta like that sex manual, first page In, second page Out , and repeat.