Aggression and Video games

An interesting new study from Oxford University

http://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-13...ound-not-be-associated-adolescent-aggression?

Outdated. We knew videogames can't trigger primitivism in RL a decade or more ago. Except ignorant politicians who are always searching for scapegoats, noone needs a new research on the same material.

joxer said:

Outdated. We knew videogames can't trigger primitivism in RL a decade or more ago. Except ignorant politicians who are always searching for scapegoats, noone needs a new research on the same material.

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In science, there is *never* a thing set in stone. New studies are able to switch views on things, as any serious scientists should know.

Remember when Physics had come to an end ? It really did, according to the scientists ! And then came Einstein ...

Alrik Fassbauer said:

In science, there is *never* a thing set in stone. New studies are able to switch views on things, as any serious scientists should know.

Remember when Physics had come to an end ? It really did, according to the scientists ! And then came Einstein …

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lol, you really want there to be a link, (between video games and violence) don't you?

It isn't just that one study though. The science has been very consistent about this.

Now, if you want to talk about violent porn and possible links to societal violence, then there might be something real there.

Well as a gamer since the 1980's I can personally say that games haven't made me more aggressive. Well maybe jaded to violence and other bad stuff but that's a different topic.

As for violent porn sorry to say not my tastes. I prefer soft-core solo stuff.

If the wing beat of a butterfly can cause a storm, surely video games can cause agression, murder, and climate change.

All that and excessive flatulence.

Arkadia7 said:

lol, you really want there to be a link, (between video games and violence) don't you?

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Yes, I do.

And, what's always surprising me is that there are so few games out there - games for men - without violence.

I never understood why. I never understood why it is so hard / so unimportant / etc. to make games without violence.

There must be people out there who do believe that the absence of violence in games does not produce money / profits.

If people believe so, it just shows that violence is something more important than the absence of violence.

And to me, this is still kind of cultural imperuialism : Only producing games that contain violence - and distributing them all over the world - to me, that's a very clear message : Non-violence doesn't sell, so don't do nomn-violent games, no matter, in which country you live.

If violence in games sells that much, then violence must be a *very* important factor in people deciding which games they want to play.

What makes violence so much more attractive than non-violence ?

Adrenaline ? I once came to the conclusion that there could be some kind of adrenaline addiction.

And still - I do believe that "screen violence" might actually affect our unconscious part. Example : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscious_cognition#Unconscious_association

And this as well : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Implicit_learning

This also leads into this direction : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adaptive_unconscious

Research suggests that many of our preferences, attitudes, and ideas come from the adaptive unconscious. However, subjects themselves do not realize this, and they are "unaware of their own unawareness".[7] People wrongly think they have direct insight into the origins of their mental states. A subject is likely to give explanations for their behavior (i.e. their preferences, attitudes, and ideas), but the subject tends to be inaccurate in this "insight." The false explanations of their own behavior is what psychologists call the introspection illusion.

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Last, I still stand by the question : What is so important in violence that non-violent games are not produced in the same amount that violent games, assumed that non-violent games "won't sell", and that even although most of our RL is non-violent ?

Alrik Fassbauer said:

And, what's always surprising me is that there are so few games out there - games for men - without violence.

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Not true, there are numerous visual novels. Rarely translated though as they can't sell as titles that went through multimillion marketing machines.
Beside that, who says Candy Crush Saga isn't a game for men?

In any case you just refuse to accept some things for whatever reason.

1. Videogames are fantasy and not real life. Whatever you do in videogames doesn't change anything in reality (except € in your wallet).

2. In videogames you're not passively watching something that can urge your brain to mimick it later as a must, but are actively "solving" something. An example? Give a kid to play GTA5, after doing it, the kid will be the same as before (although might ask you what were certain two doing at one spot). Sit that same kid in front of Kung Fu Panda tv series, the kid will become aggressive for real. Temporarily though.

3. Sociopaths training weapons use and plane hijacking by playing shooters and simulators don't make every gamer a lunatic. They are there to train, not to have fun with a game. A positive side effect? They never play RPGs. *Singleplayer* RPGs.

joxer said:

Outdated. We knew videogames can't trigger primitivism in RL a decade or more ago. Except ignorant politicians who are always searching for scapegoats, noone needs a new research on the same material.

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What real life.

Violence is structured in vid products.

In so called RPGs, with the quest for power, violence is used on weaker than oneself with a scheme of no group response.

Teenagers usually live in a different context: they are in fear of retaliation from stronger than them.

Of course, vid products can not trigger violence in such context since vid products are about avoiding these situations.

Now war theatres like the Iraqi one delivered another real life context, way closer to the vid product structured violence.

Kids, elders snipped from distance at any pretext.

ChienAboyeur said:

Iraqi

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Ooooh, I wondered who if anyone lives there to share some experiences from that country with us.
Start talking!

An interesting read : "Moral Panic" : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moral_panic

As someone who's played lots of video games and also participated in rugby, baseball, and football contests, I'd say playing actual sports always made me feel more aggressive than any video game ever did.

Last eve ning a vague memory of a study came up in my head, which said that video games don't make people aggressive - and that it was rather the other way round.

And then I thought : Okay, if this is so - then why are big companies only developing for inherently aggressive people ? Still wondering why non-aggressive games like my favourite example, Adventure games (and not Action-Adventure, mind you !) have nearly died out ?

I mean, if this kind of games are not produced anymore, there must be a reason for not producing, right ? Something must be so that decisionmakers say "na, no-one will play that". What is this assumption based upon ?

Buy a gun.
Will you immediately go start shooting people on the street just because you "play with" it?

Adventure games did not die out but changed. Sadly, some of changes so not like PC (2 brothers insist on mushrooms rubbish for example).
Anyway, there are numerous fun new titles around, Observation, ZED, Chook & Sosig, Eastshade to name a few.
Then there are hybrids like Mage’s Initiation: Reign of the Elements where RPG "combat" is simplistic but the game allows you to avoid it completely and play it wholy as an adventure.

If you can't care less about modernization but want everything to be outdated and nostalgic as if we're living in Nokia3310 era and not in 2019., reach to China's production and you won't be sorry, here's just one example:

Detective Di: The Silk Rose Murders is a thrilling point-and-click adventure game where you play as Di Renjie, ancient China’s most famous and gifted investigator, as he tracks a serial killer in the heart of the Tang Dynasty’s capital city.

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Alas, I suggest watching all three Detective Dee movies instead of suffering through "pixelart" on 1080p display.

Anyway, IMO this beating the dead horse thread needs to be locked already.

What I notice and what is worrying me increasingly is the amount of´of aggression of youths in the public. The amount of vandalism and of aggresssion agaibnst policepersons, helpers of any kind (especially after accidents) and against people in general is increasing during the last years. The number of newspaper articles about these things is increasing.

Last weekend or that weekend before a public open air bath had to be closed after a father was defending his family against youths who were doing silly things like jumping over lying people, and more and more youths were attacking him. The amount of aggression against him was so that he had be be escorted out into safety by the police and the public open air bath had to be closed. It had turned out that youths had planned via internet to meet in that bath "to make party". Which can also be translated nowadays as "bullying people". There has begun a slight shift in changes of meaning of some formulations, like downplaying bullying through using other word formulations.
The incident in the press : https://rp-online.de/nrw/panorama/p...te-gegen-eine-familie-im-freibad_aid-39773785
Meanwhile right-wing groups try to exploit that incident by saying "those were migrants" but that's unclear, because the police didn't inspect the aggressive ones.

In other areas, the amount of aggression has also increased.

People of my age of course ask themselves : Where does this increase come from ?

I think if one looks back through history there is no rise in aggression nor are youths any more aggressive these days then in the past. If anything studies have shown, overall, our current age is far less violent and aggressive then most any time in past history (excluding exceptions for certain cultures etc.).

Media likes to play up bad news as that is what garners interest in sells. Would anyone want to read about a peaceful day at an open air bath. Headline "A dozen people spent a peaceful day relaxing at a bath. Nothing happened."

From what I have read about violence is that our current era is better than most - again keeping in mind that somewhat depends on the country, culture, and situation going on. More of a general thing.

Not that it excuses any violence or what appears to be an increase some place. Just that I don't think it is that unusual and that it is easy to think we live in a violent time period when that doesn't appear to the case.

Alrik Fassbauer said:

What I notice and what is worrying me increasingly is the amount of´of aggression of youths in the public. The amount of vandalism and of aggresssion agaibnst policepersons, helpers of any kind (especially after accidents) and against people in general is increasing during the last years. The number of newspaper articles about these things is increasing.

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LOL
And after 100 years of videogames, why don't you eye the possible culprit in something more recent?

Videogames never were and still aren't the hating platform. France is about to fine such platform for basically inciting and profiting from hate.

Because wgd joined the thread: