Video games & TV - Desenstizing? (Page 2)

Go back and look at the two studis I linked.

Missed that post.  Thanks.  Seems my theory is in good company.

I missed the part in the studies were it showed the kids act aggressive in social situations, more violent to others, or lacked compassion or empathy in actual situations. The studies do show brain activity change but where is the studies on the real life social change?

You must be around different kids than I am......the good ones outnumber the jerks so badly it's not even worth commenting on.

That's odd I seem to recall the title being about desensitization I don't remember saying video games make people violent. 

But here you go:

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103180252.htm

btw there are many more studies if you should care to look for them and read them for yourself.

The good outnumber he bad here too, but the % of bad apples seems to be getting higher...

I read this one and looked up a few others and they all say the rises the risk of violent behavior but none list violent behavior they witnessed or what the actual effects were. Again I think it comes down the kids values that are taught to them by their parents.

No, you are twisting two arguements into one and making an absurd connection.

You asked if video games are desensitizing and and peharps causing violence.  I say NO on to that question.

Then you jump to the rediculous conclusion that since I say there is no connection, then I must think those movies and games are APPROPRIATE for young people and "why take them away?".

Just because I don't think there is a direct connection between violence in games and movies and real life violence DOES NOT MEAN I also think acceptable to allow young children to watch violent games/movies.  There is no connection and is unfare to make it.

I also don't think that watching sex in movies is going to make kids sexual devients.  And as one of the other posts said, they must agree with me in Europe since they show more of that on TV than here.  THEN someone making the statement "well, if you don't think seeing nudity and sex on TV/Movies is harmful to kids, then why not just screw your wife in front of the children and buy them porn if it does no harm?".  Or if someone says there is NO connection between drinking a glass of red wine a day and alcoholism then someone saying "Well, in that case, why not give a 4 yr old a glass of vino every day before going to pre-school".

Not agreeing there is a proven connection between violent games and real life violence does not automatically imply that I think those games are acceptable to young kids and it is unfare and rediculous to make that connection.

Note these are more overview articles and not the actual published papers.  That one was published in the journal Pediatrics.  Most people don't appreciate reading actual science and medical journal articles even if the articles provide fuller detail.  Also unless you have a subscription to the specific journal it often costs money to read them.

I could also argue that it's not the GAMES that are making the kids be jerks online...  But just the fact of being online and annonmus.

Or do you not see how, even on non violent sites like this one, where people (people as in ADULTS) can hide behind a computer screen in annonimity and be complete D-bags, make nasty statements and accusations and such?

So is BT to blame?

There are a number of factors that go into it from the anonymity to the desensitization to increased aggression.  If you want something to point to and say this is it and everything else is hunky dory then you are going to be looking for a long time.  That does not mean that media and video game violence have no effect and it does not mean pornography has no effect.

Right, no you would have to ask Dr. Phil what effect it has on youth... this was about it being unacceptable to be in my house. No place what so ever. The only gaming I ever did was FPS stuff. All PC stuff... Doom 123, Half life. We got Wii and I played COD on it, but that isn't really the platform for that. Shooting demons and cutting up monsters with chainsaws is entertaining. WWII did happen. Men have gone to war. They see things that are real. Me shooting the enemy on a island is just a video game. That's me... an adult. My teenager talking smack and being rude and thinking that is entertainment is not OK.

I used to look at Playboys growing up too. My friend actually had a subscription. My SIL surfing porn on the net about any disgusting degrading fetish he could find was not OK. He lost his computer privileges over it. Now of course he is free to do what ever he wants, but he wasn't going to do it in my home.

I agree.  That's the point.  It's not JUST games/media.  It's MUCH more, and I have said that repeatedly.

Again, me not being convinced there is a DIRECT/ABSOLUTE connection between fantasy violence and real violence does not mean I say there is NO effect.

That's the arguement of the judgmental/narrow minded and I see it all the time.

It's not the games, it's the PARENTS.

I played Unreal Tournament every day for quite some time. Run, hide and shoot ad-nuaseum. I especially liked camping out with a sniper rifle in a good hiding spot.  Loved that game. (And Diablo 2, but the former is the kind of violent game at question here.)

Somewhere around that same time I bought my first gun for protection in my business rounds.

Within a couple years I had a CCW and for 4 years or so I pretty much had a 9mm on me every day.

I have ZERO desire to pull that gun out of hiding.  I am not a violent person. (Well, maybe a little. I scream a lot when I can't find things but not quite the same vein...)

Why would I be pretty mellow and able to handle such violence in games without acting out similarly in real life? Because my parents raised me right.  Taught me right and wrong. Period.

That said, those games now scare me some because I know without a doubt that ridiculous numbers of them are in the hands of kids whom are NOT being given good parental guidance.  Violent games as baby sitters...parents that are too busy smoking or drinking or tweaking etc to pay attention to their kids, much less to teach them any morals.

Don't blame the games, but don't discount them either as inadvertent tools of violence in the hands of the oblivious and irresponsible parents out there.

Considering that crime rates are basically at an all time low.  Why are we even asking this question?  Because of a horrible event in Colorado?  We have to blame something?

Anyone see all the martial arts films of the 60's 70's?  Arms and head being lopped off and squirting blood?  What about current day MMA?  Boxing being a spectator sport for hundreds of years - STILL an olympic sport?  All the grindhouse slaughter horror films of the past.  Football is violent to many.

We does every generation like to think "we got it SO bad" and cornered the market on violence?  Everything was always more peacefull/safe in the past.  Yeah, right.

Based on what?  What metric do you use to come up with that guess? 

Wait....is trinna gonna throw up another "study"? 

Based on because we had a horrible event that everyone is trying to connect to Batman/Movies and games...

So it MUST be getting worse, right?

That, and the media coverage is so extensive these days and they love to report on the tragic, that it feels like the world is collapsing and is full of bad apples, me thinks - even if statistics show otherwise.

(no I don't have current crime statistics at hand, but I have heard from several reliable sources that this is the case).

Based on observation....I'll admit it's not scientific...

But oh yeah, studies and science... who can trust those?

I decided to look it up!  According to the U.S Dept of Justice web site (and I'm just looking at homocides).  In the last 20 years, homocides are down 60-70 percent.  More than HALF of what he had in 1990.

In the last 20 years?  The HEIGHT of the violent video games movies.

Of course, there could be a lag, and the next 20 years may tell a different story.

For the third, and last, time... my post has nothing to do with the CO shooting.  The shootings did get me thinking but I'm not trying to tie the two together.  It is others who keep trying to connect them.

EDIT: You know, forget it... you guys have completely derailed any sense of a debate here.  It has nothing to do with the # of crimes.  Has nothing to do with the CO shootings.  Has nothing to do with "if" the kids act on the violent images.

It was a thought experiment trying to discuss how violence in media might effect children.  But you have your minds made up and I'm not going to change them.

I'm going to just leave it at this. I'm kind of tired of repeating myself.  We've probably beat this to death already.

Cheers...

Well...get it all out of your system....and then I'll post up the actual UCR (uniform crime report) statistics on what has REALLY been the trend in violent crime. 

You can try to make actual violent acts and the desensitization of those acts different ideas all you want...but they are certainly connected.  The fact is, violent crime across the board is at it's lowest level in history.  I know, I know.....you aren't talking about the actual acts.....just the "feelings".

And no....I wouldn't trust a study paid for with grant money further than the wind could blow it.

Uh.....if violence is going down, despite all of the uber violent games, what would that tell you about how it effects them?  You need a study for it?  Really?

The funny thing is that one of the biggest factors that we have a downward trend in crime is demographics:  young people commit the most crime, and young people make up a much smaller percentage of society now compared to the 60s, 70s and 80s.

If you looked at the median age in the last 25 years it has increased significantly.

So the less crime migth not be because kids are better now days, it is just because there a lot less of them...

That was talked about in the Freakenomics movie, very interesting.

Does the UCR take into account the reduction due to the aging of the baby boomers past the general age of perpetration of violent crime?  A part of the reduction in the crime statistics is that you have fewer people in the appropriate cohort.  

Additionally can you show that the reduction in crime is not due to more efficient policing techniques that increasingly use technology to predict trouble and put boots on the ground as it were.

I am sorry but just citing crime statistics in a vacuum doesn't get you to no agression effects.

I will remember what you said about trusting grant funded studies if you should ever need oh say cancer treatment, or heart related treatment, or.......

I do however agree with you that the rates of violence are some of the lowest they have ever been... well except in Chicago.  Exactly what does that have to do with video game effects on aggression?