Australian Study "Confirms Dangers of Violent Videogames"

[Odysseus]

A new University of Queensland study says there's good reason to worry about the dangers of violent videogames.

The debate over the impact of violent videogames on impressionable minds has been raging for almost as long as videogames have been around. The concern is that their interactive nature makes them far more influential than other media, such as television or movies. Watching a guy get shot on the screen isn't nearly as impactful as pulling the trigger yourself, the thinking goes, even if "pulling the trigger" just means clicking a button on a mouse or controller.

But Dr. Brock Bastian of the University of Queensland's School of Psychology says fears about the influence of violent games are well-founded, as his new study has found that people who play these games tend to see their opponents, and even themselves, as "lacking in core human qualities such as warmth, open-mindedness and intelligence."

The specifics of the study weren't revealed, but players were pitted against one another in the classic fighting game Mortal Kombat. Players were also put up against the computer to see if it "diminished one's humanity" to the same extent, and the results from both studies were compared to a similar one featuring a non-violent game. The results, according to Bastian, suggest potentially serious long-term effects on fans of violent videogames which could result in "chronic changes in self-perception."

But it seems, at least to my untrained eye, that the good doctor might have gone into this study with certain preconceptions that he wanted to confirm. "There are good reasons to be concerned: the negative effects of violent videogames have been well documented and appear to be more significant than those associated with other forms of violent media," he said in a University of Queensland News report. The finding that playing violent videogames would lead players to see themselves as less human was "expected," he added.

"We also expected that, in line with previous work on real-life violence, players would view their opponents as less human when they were the targets of violence compared to when they were opponents in a non-violent videogame," he said. "In addition, we found that although players felt dehumanized when engaging in videogame violence, even when this is directed towards computer-generated avatars, it is only when another player is the target of this violence that they are also dehumanized."

I'm not sure how exactly one measures "humanity" in a scientific study, particularly when the methodology of said study is hidden behind a veil of academic alarmism. I'm also not entirely clear on how the "dehumanization" that takes place when you're trying to kick somebody's ass in the Netherrealm is all that terribly different from that of, say, the high school football field, particularly when the coach tells you he wants to see the opposing quarterback face down and twitching. Other than that, though, it all seems perfectly reasonable.

So what do you guys take away from this?

Here's the link to the original article if you're interested:
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/new...-Study-Confirms-Dangers-of-Violent-Videogames

 

[▽]

You know, a few months ago, a fraud was discovered at a university in our country. His field? Social psychology. Made up entire papers, research and data, but he was exposed. The reason he gave for his behaviour is that he wanted to make truth a little more to that of his own liking. I wouldn't be surprised if this guy will turn out to do the exact same things.

Media involving violence has been present ever since man appeared on the planet. And now, because it involves video games, it will have an actual effect on people. That's just BS of the worst kind. Sometimes subjects may seem to have a veil of science, but ultimately aren't really science.

 

[Pinwheel]

Somebody please remind me again about some of the graphic shit we see in movies nowadays, and why that doesn't get as much shit as video games.

 

[inasuma]

There will always be people who perhaps take fictional things a little too seriously. Whether it's video games, books, television/movies... I just can't take these kinds of research findings to be viable or even credible.

 

[Deleted member 36435]

I don't get what he is trying to say. Of course I don't see the person I am murdering in a video game as an actual human. If my brain thought I was sitting down and murdering real people with a click of a button and I continued on with it I would be worried.

 

[Taochan]

The fact my brain doesn't correlate what I kill in video games as human, even when I'm fighting against another human gamer, doesn't mean my brain will start to believe killing an actual living human is okay. His study sounds ridiculous.

 

[Orion]

Individual studies on this sort of thing aren't worth considering, given how varied and inconclusive even a large range of results across numerous studies can be. I'm sensible enough to not get violent after playing video games of such content - most of the time it'd function as a stress-reliever of sorts.

 

[ChaoticHeart]

I'm fairly certain there were a few surveys done last year that said that people who played violent videogames were in fact less stressed, and less likely to act violent. Good way to blow off steam IMO.

 

[D.D.D]

RAWR, this makes me mad. Let's band together and blow their heads off, because by their logic, that's what video gamers like us are supposed to do, right? Seriously, you think games would help violent people get RID of their anger and take it out on something that won't be hurt because of it.
Do they ever talk about how video games are good for us? Like, how it helps improve hand-eye coordination and puzzle solving skills? How it stimulates our brains and lets us forget about our stressful lives for a little while?
The only time I can agree with 'video games are bad for you' is if they take over your life. Like, if all you do is eat, sleep, go to the bathroom, and play games. THEN it's bad.

 

[Izayoi]

"people get more competitive when they play against real people"

oh my goodness