It's everyone's favorite whipping boy, but when you look at the studies held to date, there remain a lot of problems in drawing solid, actionable conclusions from them, including questions like:
a. The link between "increased aggression" (where found) and actual violent behavior.
b. The persistence of long-term vs. short-term aggression effects.
c. The effects of short-term vs. long-term exposure to such video games (playing 20 minutes in a lab vs. playing multiple hours per day for weeks at a time).
d. Whether kids play violent video games because of aggressive predisposition or acculturation, vs. aggressive results coming from the games. Assuming, of course, that all kids behave the same way to the same stimulus and for the same reasons.
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25 Video Game Violence Studies, Summarized
With video games so consistently a topic in the mass media’s examinations of the recent Sandy Hook shooting, we decided to take a look at the studies that try to determine what effect—if any—video gam…
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Agreed. The link between violent video games and gun massacres is very tenuous at best. We need more research before we blame the games.
While I don't think you can blame video games for violence, I do know that if my 8yr old son plays TOO LONG any game…be it Minecraft or Planetside 2….he gets a mean attitude. We have to severely restrict his time playing.
Nice survey of results – and interesting food for thought. I'm an avid gamer, and my personal takeaway remains the same – video games are probably more a reflection of our cultural love of violence than a cause of it. They certainly reflect a certain worship of testosterone and violence. But no more than other popular media. I don't think you can separate the medium from the environment that produced it.
You can't really tell people what sorts of stories to like and not like, and I wouldn't want to live in a place where we did. I'd love to see the results of a similar study taken after watching Tarantino films, for instance.
On the other side … I am often troubled by the sense of nihilism that is present in many modern game developers, and the resistance to the idea that maybe we have a personal responsibility for the messages we put out into the world. When I make art – even troubling art – I do it because I think I'm communicating something important and I really do want the things I produce to be constructive even when they are disturbing or challenging.
I could talk about this subject for days – the complexities of the interaction between medium and audience fascinate me. To be honest I'm less troubled by violence in games than I am by the subculture's persistent misogyny, blinding whiteness, and knee-jerk fear of the Other.
I think there's no question that media send messages. That's often the whole point. As you say, when one writes, draws, creates, there's something that you mean to convey. Even when purely for "entertainment," it conveys a message.
The question becomes how influential a message video games are, vs. all the others in then environment. I find it ironic that some of the folks on the Right who criticize violent imagery in movies and video games themselves use violent imagery and terms in describing the menace of their opponents — but then wash their hands of any responsibility when some guy who heard that the Muslims are going to destroy our country and Jesus on Rush or Beck goes out and shoots some Muslims.
(And, yes, there can be similar knee-jerk blindness from the Left — which also seems quick to ascribe video games magical berserker powers while not taking responsibility for some of their rhetoric — or, more often, the violence in their Big Media sponsors.)
I heard a story on NPR last week about how competitive games (violent or not) also increase aggressive behavior. Clearly, we need to stop trying to find simple answers to complex questions.
What? Our entire political system is built around simple answers to complex questions, @Avo! What are you, some sort of pointy-headed intellectual?