Reality Bytes: Eight Myths About Video Games Debunked

[Drale]

A large gap exists between the public's perception of video games and what the research actually shows. The following is an attempt to separate fact from fiction.

1. The availability of video games has led to an epidemic of youth violence.
According to federal crime statistics, the rate of juvenile violent crime in the United States is at a 30-year low. Researchers find that people serving time for violent crimes typically consume less media before committing their crimes than the average person in the general population. It's true that young offenders who have committed school shootings in America have also been game players. But young people in general are more likely to be gamers — 90 percent of boys and 40 percent of girls play. The overwhelming majority of kids who play do NOT commit antisocial acts. According to a 2001 U.S. Surgeon General's report, the strongest risk factors for school shootings centered on mental stability and the quality of home life, not media exposure. The moral panic over violent video games is doubly harmful. It has led adult authorities to be more suspicious and hostile to many kids who already feel cut off from the system. It also misdirects energy away from eliminating the actual causes of youth violence and allows problems to continue to fester.

http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolution/impact/myths.html


Please please PLEASE stop the Mantra that violent video games create violent people. That is just not the case and numerous studies have show this to be a lie. I'm going to take a guess and say the people how repeat this over and over don't play video games. Do you know what you would be if you tried arguing that Global Warming does not exist without real scientific proof?
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You would be a right winger. So please before you talk about a subject you don't have any interaction with, do some research, hell go play some games and you'll quickly find out how fun engaging and fantastic video games really are.

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

1. I agree...

I am a female one year shy of 40. I love to play admittedly violent videogames. I play Call of Duty: Black Ops on a nightly basis. I have yet to go out and kill people. I often play multiplayer with my co-workers who are males and engineers in their 30s, most of whom with families. None of them has gone out on a killing rampage.

I have been playing games all my life - from Pong to the present - and I've always enjoyed shooter games. But I never ever committed an act of violence nor was I ever 'inspired' to do so by the games I played.

[JuniperLea]

2. Video games AND DU make me angrier IRL...

I'm just glad neither was around when I was an impressionable kid. After a month or so of Grand Theft Auto I was actually driving through Los Angeles thinking in terms of heists and killings.

My kids grew up with Nintendo... and I had to routinely ban games from our house because kids got too rowdy, angry, and violent.

The study doesn't take into consideration how many kids are wasting their lives staying glued to games for hours on end, nor does it address emotional and social retardation clearly linked to living a life with a controller in hand. Perhaps the numbers are down due to this waste.

I don't think insults will prove any point you are trying to make... especially right winger slurs.

[joeglow3]

4. I agree

I LOVE video games and could easily play them all day and night. However, I easily recognize possible impact of letting them run my lives (as I have personally witness on many occasions). It is a nice escape in moderation (a few hours a week) that, when taken to extremes, has more negatives than positives.

[KittyWampus]

3. That was so much crap in one place I barely know where to start-

I'll start with:

#2. Linking video games to violence. The author tries to assert it doesn't exist. However, how is he measuring violence? By crime statistics? The fact that misogyny in all its forms is alive and well speaks otherwise. Violence can manifest in many ways within a culture besides outright violent crime.

#3. Trying to argue that videos are not targeting kids as well as advertising and branding is so stupid- no wonder the author doesn't even really try.

#4. Yes, girls play video games. But much like cartoons, it often becomes a factor of women playing games geared towards male sensibilities because boys won't play games/watch cartoons geared specifically towards girls.

#5. The parts of the brain used in military gaming has specific effects on brain development, hormonal release etc. Arguing otherwise is ignorant.

#6. Video games are almost entirely engaging in the use of the imaginative framework provided by others. Children and grown ups both need to use their own imaginations in creative play.

#7. There may be a social aspect involved in video games playing but it isn't a social event where individuals can interact face to face and practice accepted social cues that exist in real life.

#8. The Subconscious mind does NOT distinguish between play and not play.

[enlightenment]

5. I don't believe that violent video games make

people violent - I do believe that they can, not always and not with everyone, encourage thought processes (or, rather, thoughtlessness) that is antithetical to the healthy functioning of civil society.

The games don't create the problems, but they can exacerbate problems that may already exist in some people.

You're entitled to your opinion, by the way - but you are not entitled to apply such a broad brush to those who hold a different position. That is, quite frankly, typical of the lack of thoughtfulness that can exacerbated by playing games that demand nothing but good hand-eye coordination and a willingness to shoot first and ask questions later.

[JonLP24]

8. Those type of shoot first and ask questions later games

actually have been shown to improve decision making according to a study. The reason why according to the study is rarely is the same exact scenario played out for you so you have to respond accordingly, to random situations.

http://www.reuters.com/article/2010/09/15/us-shooter-games-idUSTRE68E65N20100915

[enlightenment]

10. That doesn't show that the decisions made

are sound - just that the person so 'trained' by extensive exposure will react quickly and decisively.

The article also agrees with my belief that in some the games can trigger violent tendencies:

"Research from Texas A&M International University earlier this year found violent video games can increase aggression and hostility in some players but also found that they can benefit others by honing their visual/spatial skills and improving social networking ability."

[JonLP24]

11. Quicker and more accurate

Anyways I don't disagree it affects some like that Taxi movie with Robert De Niro affected the Reagan shooter.

[damntexdem]

6. But if we debunk the myths ...

where will they go to sleep?

[JonLP24]

7. Recommend

[cbdo2007]

9. This isn't really a subject you can make blanket statements about....

Violent video games have been a catalyst that has driven people to commit crimes that they may have or may not have committed anyways, we'll never know. To just ostensibly say that they are completely unrelated though is ridiculous. In most cases there is no correlation but in some cases there are.

[Exultant Democracy]

12. Blanket statement, you can sit at home and play video games or go out and commit crime

more time spent on one leaves less time for the other. The facts are in violent crime has been on a steep decline during the same period in which video games have gotten more violent. Facts are facts.

[RandomThoughts]

15. Actually violent crime has been going up.

It moved from the suburbs into the status quo in the form of economic violence against many people, and is kept secret by information violence by supporting economic violence.

You think the criminal on the street is the problem, and ignore the economic criminals hurting far more people.


And that is by people burning out there conscious, without empathy, and actually violent video games train that.

And once you don't have empathy, you can be a thief in one of the various business sectors, like Enrond laughing about making money by turning off the energy of some grandma in a heat wave. Or you can be turned into a soldier for any war, without though or feeling if it is correct.

And the current wars train that type of thought for many sectors also.


The worst of all rationalizations,

"its only business"

[zappaman]

13. Great post!

I grew up reading everything I could about serial killers.
I was fascinated by them.
Funny....but I'm not a serial killer.
Weird how that works, huh?

[trumad]

16. Yeah---

I played Cowboys and Indians when I was a kid...

And now I gamble at Indian Casinos.

[zappaman]

17. I played doctor and...

oh nevermind.

[seabeyond]

14. Reducing rape with an eraser

http://www.whale.to/a/reisman5.html

how can we believe when we are told violence is down?