Why the Gaming-Violence Connection is So Comforting 125
Warm Coffee writes "It's is well-established that the science supporting a connection between video game violence and real-world violence is tenuous. A new article at Ars Technica examines why society finds a gaming-violence connection so comforting. From the article: 'Sternheimer suggests that gaming is simply the latest in a long series of media influences to take the blame. "Over the past century, politicians have complained that cars, radio, movies, rock music, and even comic books caused youth immorality and crime, calling for control and sometimes censorship." She terms the targets of such efforts folk devils, items branded dangerous and immoral that serve to focus blame and fear.'"
Because it's a simple "answer" to a problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
The names of these "experts" change over the years.
As do their claimed "causes" of the "problem".
But their MO is always the same.
Re:Because it's a simple "answer" to a problem. (Score:5, Funny)
Put "every" other "word" in "quotation" marks?
Re:Because it's a simple "answer" to a problem. (Score:4, Insightful)
It seems to me that bad behavior is the natural course for a child to follow. It's not that "_____ is corrupting our kids!" the kids would have ended up that way either way without the parents actively training the kids to STOP. It'll be easier or harder for some parents depending on the kid's personality. It's their responsibility of course, regardless of how difficult the task may be(Some of you may have read the letter sent to Penny-Arcade from a guardian of a teen who killed a homeless man for fun and then blamed games, the parents seem to have put in quite a lot of effort in raising the kid and failed anyway).
Anyway, another reason it's comforting to blame new and unfamiliar media like rock music, rap, movies, games, etc. for corrupting the youth is that it's a nice shield. It's depressing to think that youth may naturally turn out pretty crappy on their own without outside guidance.
It's not like humanity has a good track record for keeping its behavior in check. It took a long while to develop civilization, training wild humans not to screw each other at every turn for fun or profit. And it's still a work in progress. So it's nice to have games as a scapegoat. Probably why it's popular.
How could such an evil species as us ever evolve? (Score:5, Interesting)
The theory I've read is that genetically we have a cooperative side and a competitive side. Most of the time, we operate in cooperative mode. When things get really tight, we switch over to competitive mode.
Around 4500BC, the Sahara and much of Asia went from being grasslands to desert. The people that had settled there faced famine on a scale never before seen, as in times past, hunter-gatherers just picked up and left when things got that bad. With the surplus and organization that agriculture gave us, we had another option for the first time: go to war.
There is no evidence of fortified towns before this. No weapons that were only for killing humans, not hunting. No mass graves. After that, you see a wave of these things in the archaeological record, spreading out from that epicenter of violence.
The problem was that you had a generation of severely Post Traumatic Stress Disordered adults raising a generation of brain damaged children. Starvation means poor myelin sheath formation over nerves, and brain damage.
What happened is that the competitive mode got locked in, long after it was no longer the most efficient strategy. Most of what we call civilization comes either from this PTSD, brain damaged culture of violence, or the reaction to it.
You can still find tribes in the rainforests of the amazon that have not been impacted by this culture of violence and competition. Look for a book called The Continuum Concept [wikipedia.org] by Jean Liedloff. It talks about her time with one such tribe, and the theory of childhood development she came up with. The kids in this tribe never act out, never rebel, and are completely loving and non-competitive towards each other.
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Traditionally we beleive the teenage rebeliousness trait is a way for the most expendible portion of the pop (young males with no children) to put themselves out for selection and explore new food sorces. It's notable that this age group still has high mrotality rates. As a pop trait it allow
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The "Humans are naturally competitive" idea is no more than a self serving excuse for bad behavior with little explanatory power.
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Feral Children (Score:1)
Despite the show being deeply disturbing, it is also fascinating from a scientific viewpoint regarding social development, language development, and brain function/development.
As it relates to the P/G
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Lord of the Flies? (Score:2)
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Lucky (Score:4, Funny)
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He would say "The politicians made me drink a big ol' cup of poison. I didn't like that."
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hmm (Score:2)
That's an interesting term for it, but don't folk devils play the fiddle? [wikipedia.org]
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and also the robot devil.
oh yay (Score:1)
I quote Chris Rock... (Score:1, Funny)
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Heh... posting as AC 'cause I'm at school, just watched "The Shining" in my Kubrick class, and my verification word is "overlook." Sheer awesomeness.
should read... (Score:2)
people *are* imitative (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:people *are* imitative (Score:5, Insightful)
One thing I have wondered is whether the outrage we have seen since the 70's towards things like Comic Books, Horror Movies, Rap Music and Videogames is (in part) a consequence of both parents working. What I mean is that now a days both parents have to work 40 hours per week outside of the house and then come home and do (roughly) 20 hours of house work in order to make enough money to 'live' and have the house running well; this leaves many parents with very little time to actually parent their children. As a result there are a lot of kids who are running wild, maybe they're not breaking the law (or being caught) as much as their parents generation but they seem to be far more out of control.
Now, in our North American culture it is inappropriate to blame ourselves for anything (and if you said their were consequences to both parents working you're likely to be killed by feminists) so people are looking for an external source to their problems
Jimmy is violent because of videogames
Jane is a slut because of MTV
David does drugs because of Rap Music
Dianne is a goth-freak because of horror movies
The reality is that many children are screwed up because they don't (really) have parrents, and other children are 12 kinds of crazy (and would be screwed up regardless)
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Parent really deserves "+1 Insightful".
Re:people *are* imitative (Score:4, Insightful)
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My grandparents, for instance, forbid my mom and her sisters from listening to that new-fangled rock music back in the 50s.
Music was blamed for "suggestive movements", "inappropriate dress", "rude language", etc. Some of the names may have changed - Grandma didn't approve of The Twist, today's parents don't approve of Freaking. It's really just the
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Re:people *are* imitative (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course. And for small children, violent video games can be a very bad influence because a small child does not have a firm grasp on the difference between reality and fantasy.
I think the imitation behavior is so obvious, that the burden of proof is on the people who deny a connection, who say that humans *don't* get more violent from seeing violence.
As we get older (as in, double digits) and our brains incorporate the concepts of reality vs fantasy, we don't imitate in the same way anymore. We will imitate real-life behaviors, what we see our parents and peers do, but we won't arbitrarily imitate simulated actions in a computer.
It's like conditioning -- it only works if you believe you are experiencing real rewards/consequences. Pavlov's experiment wouldn't have worked if he used fake dog food. For a small child a video game can provide an example for emmulation in a very real sense. For older children, the mental rewards of video games are inherently tied to the act of playing a video game, not to the act of performing those same actions in real life.
A teenager is going to imitate their parents, their peers that they look up to, but not the Power Rangers. It is so obvious that the focus of imitation has shifted from simple monkey-see-monkey-do behavior to more social-oriented sophisticated immitation, that I am going to have to turn it around and say the burden is on you to show that they still mindlessly immitate violent behavior they see in a video game.
The reality is that the only children above age 10 that become violent from playing games or watching a movie are the ones that have failed to incorporate the reality/fantasy barrier into their psyche, or in other words they are nuts. How many people have actually comitted violence they learned from entertainment media compared to the number who consume said media? What is the rate per capita of violent sociopaths in the population at large? I think you'll find the numbers are very similar.
For something that is supposedly so automatic, very few people seem to be conditioned by these influences. I'd say whatever our imitative instincts are, they don't apply to fictional material outside of a few extreme degenerate cases.
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The question is really: at what age (or more properly at what state of maturity) do children manage to separate reality from virtual?
Right. One thing that has always bothered me in these debates is that the anti-games side will say "Children shouldn't be playing GTA!" or "Children will mimic anything!" which I agree with completely... except that they want to extend it to teenagers and I think that's ridiculous.
The answer's somewhe
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The question I have is why isn't this considered in these "video games made him do it!" stories?
I mean, if there was a case of a 16 year old jumping off his roof after reading Peter Pan, and thinking he can fly, you wouldn't hear about the media trying to ban 'Peter Pan' for encouraging, I don't know, "fairy-like behavior", right? So why is it different when a 16 year old decides it'd be "neat" to go on a
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Consider this continuum: in the Middle Ages, priests didn't want people reading the Bible because they weren't s
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Don't be giving Jerry Falwell any more ideas. It was bad enough when he went ranting one of the teletubbies was gay.
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I've got any idea... how about "they can play video games without shooting people in real life" at the same age we determine they can watch TV cartoons without dropping anvils on people's heads?
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For that matter, I've heard old ladies at the supermarket talking about the UFO stories in Weekly World News, clearly thinking that it's an exaggeration of a truthful event. THEY don't seem to be able to
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You are taught to be bad, but you aren't taught to be good? wha??
Good and bad are moral positions, I would argue COMPLETELY learned. There is nothing innate in being nice or nasty. Why don't we eat other human beings? Societally bad. Why do we hold the door for other people? societally good. What if society one day decided that holding doors shows a sign of weakness? Or take the klingons,
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How much? Or how little?
Maybe it's you who's messed up.
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A problem as old as Man... (Score:5, Interesting)
The point here is that for as long as we've had civilization, we have had the compulsion toward placing blame for the wrongs of society on some outside force, hence the term, "scapegoat."
Video games are yet another in a long line of popular items to blame the collective wrongs of society upon in order to keep us from having to confront the real problems in society. Whether these problems are those purely indicative of cultural shift over time, or more serious issues like teenagers murdering their classmates, something easy is always found to blame. Nevermind the fact that we live in an exceedingly materialistic culture (that forsakes the bonds of families and friends for monetary gains) or the fact that parents these days don't seem to pay the same kind of attention to their kids that they used to, it's just a lot easier to blame something popular for the decay of society rather than society itself.
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Unfortunately, however, this is a digression from the purpose of my post. I was simply pointing out that
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I know why I want a chicken sandwich, it's because I'm hungry. I also know why I want a better graphics ca
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The problem isn't that material is somehow inherently bad, it's when people forgo their responsibilities or ethics in order to acquire it. I point this out as a single example of the societal problems which are contributing to youth violence. The point of my post wasn't to say that you can't have things, the point was that there are problems much that are harde
"Yeah... (Score:1)
I blame.. (Score:1)
(meant to be insightful, oh and a little funny too)
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So rather than banning random, innocent stuff like drugs, alcohol, greed, weapons and power, we should be banning the unmistakenly cause of all evil that is air. As soon as all forms or air is gone from the planet we'll be able to live in constant uninterrupter peace.
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Feh... (Score:2)
I'm no fan of FPS games, but I think that the three major western religions have inspired more violence than video games, D&D, M:tG, G.I. Joe, and toy guns put together. When are we all going to get over this whole "my-God-can-beat-up-your-God-so-nyaaah" thing?? Compared to that, video games don't even merit a mention. They're more likely to keep violent types *out* of trouble, says me...
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* that's what people really refer to, even if they say something like "all organized religions."
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*shrug*
Just a thought. It's not really a religion (scam is more like it) but it's certainly done its share of damage.
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The influence of Christianity is constantly downplayed because people hate Christianity and Western culture. I'm not sure what caused this immense and uncritical self-loathing in the Western world, but things like post-colonial guilt complex* and postmodernism are probably part of it.
* strangely enough, colonialism is never wrong if it's done by non-whites, but that's another st
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When are we all going to get over this whole "my-God-can-beat-up-your-God-so-nyaaah" thing?
I would submit the vast majority of violence is perpetrated by governments; and historically, it likely has more to do with power or control (politics or territory) rather than religious differences in most cases. Think about most of our (US) wars: Revolution, War of 1812, Civil War, American Indian Wars, Spanish-American War, World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I & II. How many of these were religiously motivated conflicts, or even had a significant religious context at all? Or, per
A Witch Hunt (Score:3, Interesting)
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And to logically continue the sequence: (Score:1)
13: Profit!
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Comforting, and illogical. (Score:5, Insightful)
Our children are ultimately our legacy on this planet. Some people get to be in history books, but most of us don't. Whether or not there is an afterlife is irrelevant, what remains behind are our children and grandchildren.
In effect, many people feel as though their children are the measuring stick of their lives. This may not be concious, but it is there. When you are dead and gone people will look at your children and judge you by them.
Thus, what happens when things go wrong? Even the best of parents can have terrible offspring. Suddenly, good and incompetant people alike are presented with the possibility that their only legacy on this world will be a serial killer, a school shooter, or any other socially damaging aberration.
It doesn't matter whether or not they were loving or negligent, people have an inherently cruel judgement built in. They will see James Q. Killer in the paper, and assume much about Mr. and Mrs. Killer. They could be the sweetest and wisest people in the world, but the callous eye of society will comdemn them with their child.
This principle works even on lesser problems, such as stubbornness, bad grades, and direputable behaviour. Whatever is wrong with a child can gnaw at their parents.
While the wisest and kindest of parents may not turn desperately for a scapegoat, most people aren't that strong. 40-50 years into life, no one wants to hear they've been doing it all wrong. Facing this would mean accepting that, on some level, you've wasted half your years.
And so we have our "Folk Devils". These are comforting because they delude people to the truth and the difficulty of dealing with it. That this doesn't solve the problem means nothing, only that it takes the burden of responsibility off the shoulders of parents.
It's a flawed way of dealing with reality to be sure. The moment one engages in scapegoating, it is inherently admitted that one was never in control. This premise is essential, or else the scapegoat isn't sufficient. With control, some blame still rests on the parents. Without control, are we not blameless?
It also only compounds the problem. Scapegoating isn't a solution. Anything that might actually be causing or contributing to whatever issue there is with the child will remain unchecked. The parents are only concerned with Bad Influence(TM) X.
It's a lie, but a comforting one. To admit the truth is painful.
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Do you really think people can be born bad?
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Born moderately bad.
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When you are dead and gone people will look at your children and judge you by them.
No, lol. Nobody does that.
And them some people leave some other legacy than just their children, well depends on people, to some people (losers) their ultimate goal in life is to reproduce. That's so animalesque.
Well, to be fair (Score:4, Insightful)
Modern society is depraved according their standards. The fact that we don't see it that way makes it even worse.
Maybe the causal relationship isn't firmly established. But if you went back in time to visit somebody who thought listening to black music (rock) would lead to horrible things like miscegenation, and showed him what the future was going to be like, his worst fears would be confirmed.
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We can't prove that there isn't a teapot orbiting around the sun. That doesn't mean that there is.
Yeah, because it's just so much harder to say interracial dating.
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Err... we can prove that there *is* one, though. I've got a teapot sitting on my desk right now, and this whole planet is orbiting around the sun every 365 1/4 days or so....
But yes. Your point does stick... a lack of evidence to disprove something's existence isn't proof of its existence. Welcome to the great theological debate.
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While there is obviously a connection between interracial dating and miscegenation, they mean distinctly different things. He was referring to specific people and their mindset and their specific worst fears. The word "miscegenation"... and even the very concept of miscegenation itself... has (thankfully) become fairly obscure and almost archaic, but miscegenation was absolutely correct and indespensable term to use there. What they feared was
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It's basically an argument between whether or not people made a form of media popular because they shared those views or because they were attracted to its 'forbidden' nature (and were consequently entrapped by it.... '...you don't change the devil; the devil changes you' and all.
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By what metric? Violence, no it's gone down. Murder, nope also went down. Petty crime, about the same. White collar crime, about the same. Mores? maybe but they always shift. What was rightous and good circa 1600 is not the same as 1900.
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He gave that metric:
if you went back in time to visit somebody who thought listening to black music (rock) would lead to horrible things like miscegenation, and showed him what the future was going to be like, his worst fears would be confirmed.
The metric was their own view and definition of depravity in society... in particular "horrible things like miscegenation".
His point was pretty much the same as yours: What was rightous and good circa 1600 is not the same as 1900. He basically compared
it's all so simple (Score:2, Informative)
We do not count as "tame" animals (Score:2)
Translation: "We dislike accepting responsibility for behaving like our primate relatives, so we blame it on anything and everything (except ourselves) we can".
Welcome to Darwinian evolution, Reverend. We made it to the top of the food chain by violence and aggression, quite literally killing off the competition. Only cats have us beat for pure love of cruelty, but VERY fortunately (for us) w
Also... (Score:3, Interesting)
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Placing blame on the unknown (Score:2, Insightful)
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It's always been easy to place blame on something yes, but it usually involves placing blame on something that isn't well understood, researched or generally accepted by society.
Imitating what we see and do is something that exists on the micro level.. yes we've all learnt as a child and we imitate what we see. But you don't see three year olds acting as a leader for groups of people and they probably wont be a factor in changing society as a whole
'folk devils', I like that (Score:1)
Yeah, what a load of ... (Score:2)
My wife once heard a parent at a school blame the behaviour of an early primary school aged child on the father who played all those violent video games. Of course my wife said, what about my children, their dad plays games like that all the time, and so do they.
Of course her explanation was brushed aside. Since obviously the blame for a ratbag child should be pointed squarely at the computer games, and has nothing to do with parents who refuse to show their children when their behaviour is wrong...
Marylin Manson said it best (Score:2)
This reminds me of something in Bowling for Columbine. When asked what he would say to "the kids at Columbine or the people in that community", he said:
I never much liked his music, but that stuck with me. In all of our rushing around to find a scapegoat, pointing fingers at each other, making political careers out of made-up statistics...
I
Video games are how much older the violence? (Score:1)
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This comment has been checked for sanity and been found lacking...
It's a generation thing (Score:2)
Now the first generation of role players has g
Why I like violent video games (Score:2)
I decided to finally write this down in response to some people asking me why I enjoy immeasurably violent video games and movies. This explanation is written using the game "Manhunt" as it's primary example, mainly because of it's subject matter (which can best be described as a "snuff video game"). PLEASE read it in it's entirety before respond
Listening to a clergyman (Score:2)
1. This guy really believes in the existence of all these creatures, and he releated it to Dungeons and Dragons and basically said that kids were "going insane" because they were contacting malevolent entities. (So, I assume he believes in Gelatonous Cubes and Owl Bears as well as the more traditional creatures). He thought he was among friends, so he didn't spout the pseudo
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This is just a phase. (Score:1)