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Sometimes I wonder if this is really true. I mean, are video games and gaming in general really the cause for bad behavior?
In an article at FoxNews, the American Psychologists Association (APA) are having debates on the subject. They have been relating the violence as seen in TV and film to that of video games. They said that since games have more “interaction” and “immersion”, that, it may play more of a part toward possible violent behavior than traditional media mediums such as TV or movies.
Private-practice psychologist Elizabeth Carll, PhD, and a past president of the of APA’s media division said that kids who watch violent television shows become more aggressive and less empathic. But learning theory says that actually participating in violence — as kids do when playing many video and computer games — has a much stronger effect.
“If you are actively involved in learning, you remember things better,” Carll says. “So in a game you do things over and over again, whereas in the movies or on television you watch it once. And in the game there is reinforcement for it. So if it is killing people that you’re doing, you get a reward for that.”
Here’s more from that article:
“Kieffer and Carll admit that not all studies link violent video and computer games to problems. And Kieffer notes that there aren’t any studies that look at the effects of playing these games over a longer period of time.
The first study actually to do this got surprising results. A month of playing a particularly violent computer game had no effect on player aggressiveness, finds Dmitri Williams, PhD, assistant professor of speech communication at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Williams looked at a particular kind of computer game — a multiplayer online role-playing game (MMRPG) called Asheron’s Call 2 or AC2.
This kind of game is quickly becoming the most popular form of online game. The environment is constantly “on,” and a player creates an alter ego — an avatar — that gains power as play goes on. Huge numbers of players are in the virtual game world at any one time. Cooperating with other players is essential for success.”
In short, it really is up to individual to control these violent urges. Everyone knows what’s right and wrong. Also, it will fall down on parents, to a large degree, to monitor what their kids are doing. Maybe not just videogaming.
But yes, too much of anything is bad. But is Gaming Evil? You be the judge
GM T
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The player is evil one (some of em xD) not the game.
Personally I don’t think it is down to the games itself. There is likely to be a wide variety of reasons for the occurance of bad behavior in a youngster.
It’s the same thing as a guy who gets fouled rather badly in Basketball and a guy who gets beaten rather badly in PvP.
If they feel the same passion for the activities, it’s really up to their character if the basketball player will sucker punch the guy who fouled him and the gamer will walk over computer of his opponent in the shop and execute a drop kick.
Many, if not all, of the games we humans play require some form of aggression. How we handle it, and defeat, really depends on our culture or how we were raised.
Video games, action movies and TV and gangsta rap (or rock music back in the old days) – these things have all been targets for explaining why people become violent.
Sadly, violence is a part of human nature. Read any unabridged history book and you will know just how cruel and barbaric humanity can be, regardless of whether it was 10, 20, 100 or even 3000 years ago (the Bible has lots of vivid examples). There are a lot of factors: family upbringing, personal abuse, psychological instability or one bad thing after another can drive people over the edge.
Blaming video games for it is the excuse of someone who obviously has never played a video game in his or her life. It’s rather simplistic and asinine.
[...] continued here tags: video games, [...]
It’s still up to the person to act. Video games don’t mind control us, so we’re responsible for our own actions.
like dr. phil said, you choose the behavior you choose the consequence. so “you” are the one who chooses to be violent or not, not the video game.
Video games do not cause violence. HEll! For most people it gets it out of their system. Im pretty sure you just were to poor to buy a 360 because of you’re crappy skills as a writer and obviously you’re crappy skills as a human being. Now go shove two fingers up you’re ass and go play halo 3 you winey bitch.
First of all, I applaud Ice Rapture for being so blunt. Second of all, no, just no.
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