Study Finds Solid Link Between Video-Game, Real-World Violence

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Violent video games really may make kids more violent, new research suggests.

Previous such studies had a big flaw — they couldn't prove whether the games had made the kids violent, or if already-violent kids were drawn to violent games.

But data from three long-term studies in the U.S. and Japan shows that otherwise peaceable kids first played violent games — and then months later became more aggressive in school, more likely to get into fights.

In a paper published in the medical journal Pediatrics, the researchers found the same effect in all three samples, despite the sharply different relative levels of violence in American and Japanese societies.

Younger kids were in fact more affected. American children 9 through 12, and Japanese kids 12 through 15, became more violent than did the teenagers in a larger pool of Japanese students aged 13 to 18.

"Playing violent video games is a significant risk factor for later physically aggressive behavior," concludes the study. "The research strongly suggests reducing the exposure of youth to this risk factor."

In a related study in the same issue of Pediatrics, a long-term study of kids aged 10 to 15 found a high correlation between exposure to violence on the Internet and self-reported criminally violent behavior, including assault, robbery, sexual assault, stabbings and shootings.
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Not sure where I should have posted this, but...this'll work...at least for now.
 
Obviously violent media can negatively influence kids, especially the younger ones, but I wish this article went into much more detail into the specifics of these studies. It seems annoyingly vague.

EDIT: Never mind, found this. Eh, seems like a recap of what common sense can tell us. ^^ I like that it acknowledges that this isn't the case with all kids, at least.
 
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The link's not giving the whole story (but go figure, it's Fox News...)

http://www.gamepolitics.com/2008/11/03/report-links-game-violence-aggression-us-and-japan

A healthy, normal, nonviolent child or adolescent who has no other risk factors for high aggression or violence is not going to become a school shooter simply because they play five hours or 10 hours a week of these violent video games... [Extreme forms of violence] almost always occur when there is a convergence of multiple risk factors.
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Still, I am not looking forward to the government trying to impose nanny state laws on video games and using this as an excuse. The parents should still be the ones responsible.


(also it's amusing Jack Thompson is posting in that thread under the name "mccainisthefreakinman")
 
Personally, even though people will make it like it will, it should not change anything but influence parents to not by their under aged children M rated games, or games out of their age groups!
 
Again, it's no fault of the video games. The games are restricted by ratings for a reason, to prevent these kind of things. It's the fault of the parents who break these restrictions and expose their children to these things.

It's always been known that younger kids are susceptible to violent influences. The only reason they are affected by video games is because the idiot parents buy them games that are completely unsuitable.
 
Video games didn't turn me violent, it was the US military.

This is just going to cause another uproar from Jack Thompson clones...
 
oh bother. The study is indeed vague and horribly common sensical. Most of this could be said about TV or about witnessing violence first hand. Of course they are going to be affect if exposed to it long enough and begin to think it's the norm. Who writes this type of crap anyways?
 
What I find interesting is that no one talks about the most violent of programs--the tv news. Everything else is actors pretending to get killed, or animated characters fake dying, but on the news you can see real people really dying, and absolutely no one brings that up. And it shouldn't be censored--it's real life and reality is there. Yet FICTIONAL violence is somehow WORSE? There's something fundamentally wrong.

It's not the media that's the problem. It's how people process it.

I think it's interesting how hardly anyone thinks about violent books any more. Some teen book got pulled off shelves because it contained the word "scrotum" in a non-sexual context, but kids the world over are being taught stuff like Romeo and Juliet or Macbeth because they're "classics".
 
TV news rarely glorifies violence the way fiction does, though. There's a big difference there.

And yeah - did they really need to conduct another study to find out that exposure to violent material can negatively influence impressionable kids? I mean, isn't that why we have rating systems for games and movies in the first place?
 
I hope I'm not the only who thinks this is great news. Get kids to be more bold and physically agressive, then train them and teach them to control their impulses. But later they'll always have a deep tendency for violence to draw on.

I think the major difference between Video games and Tv violence, Blackjack, is that you don't actually partake in the violence on tv, you're a passive observer. In videogames you're making your character punch and kick or shoot and blow things up, knock lil old ladies down and rob them, etc.

I wonder if they can lead to a tendency to white-collar type crime too, from playing all those tycoon and business games where you cook the books and sabotage your competitors.

Romeo and Juliet not only had suicide but also 13-year old girls getting married and such. Nice moral lessons, don't you think?
 
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Adamant said:
TV news rarely glorifies violence the way fiction does, though. There's a big difference there.
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Ohhhh yes it does, if not more so. It depends on if it's the "good guys" doing something. Remember when either Iraq war started? The US media was glorifying that like crazy in ways that movies never did (I think some networks even hired movie directors to make it look "good").


Nekusagi said:
I think the major difference between Video games and Tv violence, Blackjack, is that you don't actually partake in the violence on tv, you're a passive observer. In videogames you're making your character punch and kick or shoot and blow things up, knock lil old ladies down and rob them, etc.
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But anybody who translates that to real life has issues far beyond violence--they can't tell fantasy from reality, and that's a lot bigger.
 
It's not that video games make people go out and be violent, it's that the violent imagery stimulates some portion of the brain that makes it MORE LIKELY that they'll be violent. Which, of course, could likely be said of ANY violent imagery (and, I wouldn't be surprised if there were studies done on movies and television shows).
 
The problem with violent video games isn't just that kids are being exposed to violent imagery, but also that it teaches them that violence is nothing more than a game and that killing people is fun.

One time, a perfectly normal boy started playing violent video games. Soon after, he took a knife to school and stabbed his friend in the heart. When asked why he did it, the boy replied, "I thought he'd get back up like they do in the games."
 
That's not a "perfectly normal boy" then. That's someone who can't seperate fantasy from reality, which you're supposed to have developed by the age of six, and fully by around ten. Also do you have a source on that?

If anyone learns from a game that REAL violence is only a game, there's something wrong with THEM because they can't tell where the game ends and life begins. That's not the fault of the developers or the game itself, that's something messed up in their head.
 
Indeed. If I feel the need to punch someone in the face, I can just do it in a game instead of irl. Makes for great stress relief and no one gets hurt, save the in-game thing that was programmed to get punched. Honestly, I think that games like that have saved a few people from bloody noses over here, lol.

If one cannot tell the difference between fantasy and reality, maybe they shouldn't be playing those games, though. Some people are a bit... out there, and one could see them thinking games = real world and vice versa.
 
Yeah it's up to the parents, just like with TV... Naturally you can't take away kids' ability to watch inappropriate programmes, their parents just have to make sure they don't get exposed.
 
Blackjack Palazzo said:
If anyone learns from a game that REAL violence is only a game, there's something wrong with THEM because they can't tell where the game ends and life begins. That's not the fault of the developers or the game itself, that's something messed up in their head.
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But kids with those problems still get games, so the current system doesn't work. If playing violent video games only messed up the player, that would be one thing, but since it's putting the lives of innocent people at risk through those kids' violence, there should be heavier restrictions on violent video games.
 
Parents are to blame for not reading the ESRB.
 
FE 6X said:
Parents are to blame for not reading the ESRB.
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They are to blame, but they still ignore the ESRB, and there's nothing that anyone can do to make them pay attention to it.

The best way to prevent kids who aren't able to distinguish fantasy from reality from buying violent games, which will cause them to potentially harm innocent people, is to require a signed note by a licensed psychiatrist stating that the buyer is mentally stable and able to distinguish fantasy from reality to buy any M-rated game.
 
Shiny Noctowl said:
They are to blame, but they still ignore the ESRB, and there's nothing that anyone can do to make them pay attention to it.

The best way to prevent kids who aren't able to distinguish fantasy from reality from buying violent games, which will cause them to potentially harm innocent people, is to require a signed note by a licensed psychiatrist stating that the buyer is mentally stable and able to distinguish fantasy from reality to buy any M-rated game.
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I'm pretty sure that this is a highly unlikely cause.

1: Parents should have the common sense to know when their kids start imitating violent acts by threatening to kill something, trying to use magic, or talks about death a lot.

2: Parents should be able to read 17 on an M rated game and say either yes or no. And if their chilid has a definicy, I'm sure they will say no.

3: No respected physchiatrist would sign a form so mundane such as that. basically insulting the parent's intelligence and is a waste of time for the prescriber.

heh, I wonder if I should condense numbers 1 and 2
 
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