The World Is Stil In Denial of the Harmful Effects of Violent Video Games

The Tragic Shootings at Newtown, Connecticut elementary school is yet one more " Wake Up Call " in the long list of " Mindless Killings " that are the product of Violent Video Games and Violent Movies.

While many people hop on the " band the gun's " bandwagon, everyone realizes more and more that this " Monstrous Evil Plague " on the nations of the world has it's roots in Violent Video Games and Movies.

Denial is " Not a river in Egypt " and until everyone world wide wakes up to the fact of how our children are " Programmed by " Violent Video Games. These random insane mass shootings will only increase in numbers world wide.

Are Violent Video Games More Harmful than Violent TV Programs and Films?

There are at least three reasons to believe that violent video games might be even more harmful than violent TV programs and films.

•First, video game play is active whereas watching TV is passive. People learn better when they are actively involved. Suppose you wanted to learn how to fly an airplane. What would be the best method to use: read a book, watch a TV program, or use a video game flight simulator?


•Second, players of violent video games are more likely to identify with a violent character. If the game is a first person shooter, players have the same visual perspective as the killer. If the game is third person, the player controls the actions of the violent character from a more distant visual perspective. In a violent TV program, viewers might or might not identify with a violent character. People are more likely to behave aggressively themselves when they identify with a violent character (e.g., Konijn et al., 2007)


•Third, violent games directly reward violent behavior, such as by awarding points or by allowing players to advance to the next game level. In some games, players are rewarded through verbal praise, such as hearing the words "Nice shot!" after killing an enemy. It is well known that rewarding behavior increases its frequency. (Would you go to work tomorrow if your boss said you would no longer be paid?) In TV programs, reward is not directly tied to the viewer's behavior.

Quoted From: The International Human Press

The effects of violent video games. Do they affect our behavior?

by: Brad J. Bushman, Ph.D. Professor of Communication and Psychology, The Ohio State University; Professor
of Communication Science, VU University, Amsterdam, the Netherlands

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Proverbs 22:6 :

" Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. "

Millions of people play violent video games; 1 person kills a bunch of people.




No.

No, no, no.

Nyet, nein, nee, non.

What evidence do you have whatsoever that the CT shooting had anything to do with video games??

Sigh. Our society hasn't progressed one bit from the post-Columbie stupidity of pointing fingers at everything they can think of BUT the shooters themselves.

Big gamer here, and I am very nice I wouldn't hurt a fly.

Does that mean that my mind is too powerful for the programming to have effect on?

I don't believe for one second that violent video games or movies cause any kind of behavior modification in people who play them.

I believe that if someone is going to commit this kind of crime, it is in them to begin with, it is not something they were brainwashed into doing.

I've been a huge movie fan and violent video game player all my life, and I have no intentions to go out and start shooting people.

This line of thinking so flawed that its just an excuse to blame something.

To the OP

are you american?

do you play video games?

have you ever got off with a woman in a night club?

The event just happened today. How do you know the shooter even played video games? I don't think the police have even had a chance to fully profile the shooter, nor has the media, nor would you or anyone else have the opportunity...

You know what?

Electricity powers those evil computers and their evil games!! We should ban electricity... or better still, ban coal that powers the powerstations that power the computers...

or...or... ban the people that dig for the coal that powers the powerstations that create the electricity that powers the evil computers and their evils games.....

SERIOUSLY??

Twas the tinternets fault all along... saw that one coming a million miles away

So where did Ghengis Khan or Vlad the Impaler get his copy of Doom or Grand Theft Auto?

OP, I've had a quick browse through your source and it's a pop science article and a secondary or higher source itself.

It does not cite actual figures and studies, rather says "this is true, if you want to check read these papers."

I'm attempting to find the cited papers and not having much luck, I would appreciate it if you could help. My primary point of interest is Anderson & Bushman 2002a.

Edit: I'm looking through a large number of studies and reports on the link between violent video games and violence, they all do seem to be in agreement that the data from lab studies, field studies, cross analytical studies and longitudinal studies do indicate a causal relationship between virtual violence and violence, but Anderson & Bushman 2002 seems to be cited as the main study for all of these reports.

This is dangerous because a single mistake in that study can affect follow up reports for decades until a respected scientist in the field repeats the experiment and finds evidence he or she is confident enough in to publish.

I would argue that there is not enough evidence to back up either side of the debate, more study is needed and funding is desperately lacking.

I think games can have an effect on weak minded people.

Blaming video games for a lack of parental guidance isn't the best way to go about the situation.

Lets ban football while we are at it, all of the physical violence is going to make people start lashing out at random.

reply to post by chrisb9


You do know the man who shot all those kids was autistic & had personsality disorder, right? If violent video games were actually dangerous the millions upon millions of gamers world wide would have committed violent acts by now. I've been playing video games since I was a kid in the 80s. Fighting games were always my favorite. Mortal Kombat anyone? Guess what, I'm not violent and never have been.

I play alot of racing games and shooter games .. However most people can tell fantasy from reality . I don't drive like I do when playing games launching my car 50 feet in the air doing 300 kph then try to take down cop cars .. I don't hide in bushes all sniper like and pick people off .. I have more respect for human life ..

this shooter you are talking about obviously has some mental issues ..

sorry but you present a really stupid argument that is baseless.. As people in the past who have lost it mostly likely didn't play video games they have only been around since the 70's .. what about the mass shootings before then was it because they listened to that devil music from elvis or mozart

reply to post by chrisb9

Enough with the blame game.

If its the fault of guns or violent games or violence on TV, then why doesnt this happen more often? Millions of people are exposed to the exact same things.

According to this logic, there should be a mass shooting every day, twice a day, but theres not.

People, individuals are to blame, not guns, games or movies.

But where I do see incredible hypocrisy is from the government: torture, pre-emptive wars of aggression, mass murder by the hundreds of thousands, use of chemical weapons, use of nuclear weapons, a giant totalitarian police state, NDAA etc.

Yet these individual acts of violence are "outrageous". Whatever.

i keep jumping on turtles whilst trying to save the princess.
i suppose you want to blame that on video games too.

i thought the weapon was a gun, not a GTA disk.
people are violent and were many many centruries before sonic the hedgehog..

Originally posted by Rikku
i keep jumping on turtles whilst trying to save the princess.
i suppose you want to blame that on video games too.

lmao.
i keep going around a dark room listening to repetative music eating pills

Originally posted by ElOmen
Big gamer here, and I am very nice I wouldn't hurt a fly.

Does that mean that my mind is too powerful for the programming to have effect on?

Are you a child? Have you been raised on violent video games?

Two kids a couple days ago near here an 11 year old and a 7 year old held up a woman with a loaded gun, they wanted her vehicle and money. She asked the 11 year old if the gun was real which made him angry and he told her he was going to "blow your head off".
She hit the gas and got away, they handed these two over to their parents!

Growing up with no one at home and spending all their time on these very violent games must have an impact. I play also and am not against games. I am against violent games raising children for us.

Originally posted by ShotGunRum
I think games can have an effect on weak minded people.

A child's mind is not formed nor firm. A child raised by a psychotic will begin to except the behavior as normal. Constant expose can work on a developing mind.

The study in the United States showed an increased likelihood of getting into a fight at school or being identified by a teacher or peer as being physically aggressive five to six months later in the same school year. It focused on 364 children ages 9 to 12 in Minnesota and was first included in a 2007 book, "Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents." Japanese researchers studied more than 1,200 Japanese youths ages 12 to 18. In all three studies, researchers accounted for gender and previous aggressiveness. "We now have conclusive evidence that playing violent video games has harmful effects on children and adolescents," Anderson said.

www.washingtonpost.com...

I can't stand people like this. To anyone who is not a gamer: Imagine someone saying that any remotely violent sport like American football or remotely violent movie or music that you like is creating psychopathic killers, that is how I feel when people say that video games are causing these problems. It's almost like an attack on anyone who plays video games. You're trying to take something away from people who love it when the vast majority of them have done nothing to deserve it being taken from them.

If video games or any medium are promoting this kind of behavior in certain people, we should be trying to find those people and fix that problem rather than trying to just get rid of that medium all together so that no one is then able to enjoy it, because clearly they aren't effecting everyone this way.

reply to post by AlphaX


There is a reason that many games are rated Mature only... unfortunately most parents don't care are not home.

Many things effect growing children differently then an adult especially if there is no adult imput or supervision.

Not saying this in anyway has anything to do with this particular crime btw.

Part of the increase in aggressive behavior is linked to the amount of time children are allowed to play video games. In one study by Walsh (2000), a majority of teens admitted that their parents do not impose a time limit on the number of hours they are allowed to play video games. The study also showed that most parents are unaware of the content or the Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) rating (see below) of the video games their children play.

www.pamf.org...

Psychological research confirms that violent video games can increase children's aggression, but that parents moderate the negative effects.

www.apa.org...