Examining The Causal Relation of Violence and Gaming |
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Just several days ago, we posted a news here at QJ about a guy killing his 17-month old baby for pulling on the cords of his game console in the middle of a game and causing the console to fall. And then there's this story about a 25-year-old man going on a shooting spree over at Dawson College in Montreal, taking at least 1 life and leaving 19 others wounded just last September 13th. The media was quick to point out that the gunman enjoyed violent video games and once again, we see how video games, the violent ones at that, are conveniently pointed to as the necessary cause of violence in real life. A scapegoat? Maybe.This led Nelson Rodriguez over at Planet Xbox360 to examine exactly if there is a causal relation between violence and video games. More particularly, which came first? In his article, he points out that if video games do influence gamers' behaviour, especially the young, impressionable ones, then shouldn't it be the case that there would be more people attracted to, say, sports?
He surmises that if, for example, researchers would pool in a group of kids who have never played sports and introduced them to Madden NFL, ten years later, when they track down how these kids turned out, they should take into account how many of these kids actually pursued football. After all, "being a pro athlete is much more appealing and socially acceptable than committing murder and spending your life in prison." Therefore, following through this logical syllogism, "if games truly lead to widespread copycat actions, sport-hating nerds will line up at the Jets tryout camp every year." But the reality is that it does not really result to that.
The only probable reason then is that gamers get into the kind of video games that give them what they are naturally inclined to or interested in to begin with. To say that the violence-simulating games like Saints Row are to be blamed for the violent tendencies of people is assumptive at best. Afterall, crime has been in existence for as long as mankind has been around. And no, we didn't need video games for it to happen. Thus, he sees no reason why gaming has to be tagged as the culprit for murder-inclined dispositions of people, with most parties making it sound as if a game directly transformed an innocent person into a raving killer.
Yes, the sweeping generalizations and accusations can be really unforgiving and unfair, especially since there are a large number of gamers who could very well prove this hypothesis wrong. But it is no wonder how media can so easily pre-judge the character of a person based on his everyday activities. It just so happened that more often than not, the culprits had the common trait of being gamers, then put in the factor of easily putting the blame on something which you don't understand, and voila! You now have an excuse to give to the concerned citizens.
It would seem that gaming is the most convenient scapegoat for media and the authorities when it comes to pinning the blame on some gruesome act committed by a person. But the point is, as eloquently elaborated in the article, it does not necessarily follow. The sad truth is that, in spite of the wide reception and the fact that gaming is enjoyed as a budding culture, it still remains to be one unfathomable cryptic phenomenon for others, which causes them to repel it. As they say, "You fear what you cannot understand."
Via Planet Xbox 360
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Comments [refresh]
Suck on that you nooooobs
if videogames are the reason, then someone that mentally unstable, shouldnt play those games.
and no-one particuarlly cares you are first and why should we suck on that
Killers are killers for ***** sake. Just because they play games all this ***** springs up.
The majority gamers are sane people who would never perpetrate such acts.
so seeing what they say i have to be a *****ing serial killer....ive played thousands of hours to gta from GTA I to San andreas i ve played sniper games and fighting games, and ive never had in my life a fight with anyone nor killed a fly....i think im the most pacific person in the world.
I like to kick asses in those games, but no in real life...I think they have to find another excuse for their no skills at work, admit that they dont know why it happens and leave us gamers alone.
this is not a 'be all and end all' of this debate, in fact the logic used to compare violent games to sports games is so flawed this study is in fact totally pointless.
when someone plays a violent game it puts them in a situation they normally would not experience, that is they're ALLOWED to commit violent acts and can get away with it... they feel no remorse for killing in game characters, and this is a dangerous situation.
people who play sports games are not necessarily going to 'go out and play sports' because the experience is a different one, you don't have that 'forbidden' aspect. anyone is allowed to play sports at any time in the real world; they are not allowed to shoot and kill people in the real world.
the problem with this debate is that it hinges on someone having a slight psychotic tendency, normal people playing violent games are not affected by them but a psychotic person (and it doesn't have to be severe) may find the lines between reality and videogame a lot more blurred and less well defined. That's why they end up doing these terrible things, they're not quite right in the head.
i don't believe there is 'blame' to be placed on the head of videogames because the kind of person who is impressionable like that could also take their cues from the movies or television. Games do give them something movies/tv doesn't, and that's a certain amount of validation to their violent tendencies. this might make it easier for them to justify their actions in their mind but it's still the fact that they're psychotic which is the real danger.
unfortunately people kill people, and it happens all the time... a 'normal' person can just go crazy and start killing, it doesn't have to be videogames.
in fact, in today's society there is a lot of pressure on teenagers and others to conform and fit in and being inexperienced in life and not having the kind of self confidence that comes with age they find they can't take it. more and more kids seem to be losing their childhoods too early, there are too many burdens on them from an early age.
don't blame the games, i agree. but the reasons this guy gave are bunk. it's more complicated than that, what we really need is some way to tell people who find that the pressure is too great or that they are considering going postal that there is a way to get help and that they are not alone.
the dude going on a shooting spree prob wouldnt happen if you couldnt get a gun so easy in the US...
We never had murder before videogames so naturally videogames are the root cause of all societies ills. I suggest we all go and kill ourselves before we all go on a large killing spree murdering thousands of innocent non-game playing people.
Back in the real world, mentally unbalanced people will go on a killing spree whether they have violent games to play or not. In fact I'd suggest the outlet of playing games would stall how long it takes them to go on a killing spree.
This argument might not be complete *****, if it wasnt for the millions and millions of ppl that play video games and never even consider killing people. Crazy ppl are crazy, games have nothing to do with it.
Of course they(we) don't feel remorse! Because we know we are not killing a living being!! IT is a DUMMY! get the difference?
And it is obvious that the guy that went on a killing spree is a part of a generation in which EVERYONe plays.... As we all watch movies, listen to music, eat and whatnot!
Come on.....that's ridiculous......Blame his godamm parents for what he did.....I've played violent videogames all my life....but my parents always taught me to be a good kid...
some website called vampirefreaks, or vampiregods ... .com.. i'm not sure the url, but the same guys who shot up the columbine highschool and the montreal killings were posting pictures of there guns and had blogs of how they wanted to kill people...
I don't think video games have anythign to do with there already deranged minds.
The other thing common between the school attackers is they were ridiculed there entire life from bullys... always the outcast... (so the news states)
Maybe violent video games were there escape from reality. But they had much bigger issues that are non-video game related to pull the stunts that they did.
Actually, I -do- feel bad when I kill 'people' in games. Remorse? No... The feeling goes away rather quickly once reality sinks back in. Of course this only happens in games where I feel any emotional attachment at all. Games I don't like don't affect me.
Anyhow, the whole 'violent people play video games' correlation is the same as venganza.org and pirates/global warming. Yes, there is 'statistical evidence' to link the 2. It doesn't mean it's even remotely true.
THE TRUTH......
I CAN SEE WHY VIDEO GAMES MAKE PEOPLE VIOLENT. THERE ARE PEOPLE OUT THERE WHO ARE OBSESSED WITH VIDEO GAMES. I MEAN, LOOK AT ALL THE HALO LOVERS ON THIS WEBSITE THAT DRESS UP IN HALO OUTFITS AND STUFF!!!! THAT'S WIERD. OR HOW ABOUT THE DEAD RISING PARTY IN ENGLAND WHERE PEOPLE WERE PRETENDING TO BE ZOMBIES. IF PEOPLE ARE THAT QUEER THAT THEY ACTUALLY BRING VIDEO GAMES INTO THE REAL WORLD, THEN BAD STUFF STARTS HAPPENING.
I THINK THEY SHOULD STOP HARDCORE GAMING NERDS FROM PLAYING VIDEO GAMES, TELL THEM TO GO OUT AND GET DRUNK AND LAID, AND QUIT BEING SUCK TOOLS!!!!!
He says people should take up sports if they play sports-related video games, if the comparison to violence is true. He says that people don't go out and play American Football. But what about Tony Hawks? That skateboarding game caused a surge in interest in skateboarding throughout the world and turned it mainstream...
That is true, some people on this website have no control. They play Halo and think they really are Master Chief! It's really lame. For example: Gaming nerds are so obsessed with gaming that they spend hours modifying their system to look like a laptop and stuff. They also dress up in gaming character costumes and re-enact what happens in games. Its people like that who take it to the next level...........
Ok, being an engineer that's been taken a few sociology courses I think this black and white picture is flawed from the start. Most people are complex, enjoy more than one thing, define one self using a multitude of labels etc so going all for the marxistisan, structural explanation was abandon some 35 years ago. Even so, combineing individualistic studies with strucural ones gets a few things across that seems to be global:
1) As a group, men kill/abuse women and other men. This is an expression of the now accepted idea of unequality between men and women.
2) Problemsolving is taught in school, in homes and everywhere in between but the TYPE of "lessions" differ vastly depending on socioeconomic factors, family, country, age and so on. As a group, males use violence more often than women.
3) As a western country, most US of A citizens (certain states?) has little or no trouble getting a gun it's not a US-only problem but having EASY ACCESS to guns plays a part. Not just the laws but the widespread use of course.
4) Media, videogames and any other cultural aspect IS IN FACT influencing the ones that "do it" to a certain degree so you cannot say that it's a rediculous reasoning. Getting exposed to a lot of graphical violence during ones' 10-20 years period should (with all sociological and psychological reasearch) have an effect.
Sorry for crappy english, not my mothers tounge. Sorry for the somewhat antiUS post but please realize I do understand every country has a few murderers, rapeists and rotten eggs, still, it seems the US has relatively more of them.. But I'm not sorry for the anti male parts :) We're sadly setting the norm and always takes advantage of it..!
As an anti-gun advocate, I play fps all the time and love it. There is just as much violence in entertainment with programs, movies and news broadcasts always trying to get the big ratings.
If people watched less news they wouldn't have such bad impressions of things. It's funny how people see something on the news like violence in a supposed bad part of town then think that's all that goes on in the area shown. Like if you go to So. Central or Bronx, you're going to run into violence everywhere. It's funny how many people think they need a gun for protection.
Dude I'm an American and I agree with you on all points. The problem why we have more bad people, I believe, is because of the degeneration of relationships for a lot of people in society. From freinds and couples and familial relationships, which are all simply relationships, quite a few people don't know how to be part of a relationship. I don't know if this stemmed from the hate your father cause he beat your mom in the 50's, the free love and do whatever is best for yourself in the 60's - 70's, or the rebel without a cause in the 80's. Whatever the case its a problem that is passed to the next generation cause they don't learn from their parents how to build and maintain a good relationship. I actually realized how bad it was when I saw a series of public service announcement commercials that tried to instruct people on how to be good parents.
Another problem is a lot of criminals are repeats because they have little to fear about our punishment system.
Actually I don't agree with you on the guns statement, its our right to own arms, our freedom. The other problems are more dire, I mean probably .1% - 1% of all firearms in the US are used in crime(I'm just guessing based on the knowledge of how many crimes can be committed vs. how many guns my dad and uncle have and we only target shoot, we don't even hunt). Oh yeah guns are a great investment because they don't depreciate in value.
some one killed a kid for pulling out a cable? That's sick! People who have problems like that should be forbidden to play video games. But I still don't believe video game violence cause real violence (expect for that one lunatic), I'd rather think real violence combined with media is attracted to virtual violence.
Well Said, and well writen Comedy. I agree 100%
@12
1. To much Caps, theres a little button below tab that will help ya on that.
2. Those people in the dead rising video were paid promoters.
3. What are you 12, most gamers are regular people, with regular jobs. Im a profesional, with a girl firend. But oh look, i also used to run 3 gaming servers and headed up a clan. Its called a hobby, and really has nothing to do with how said "Geeky" someone is. And if your in highschool. Well those so called geeks, will be your boss someday.
Parents are to blame IF "IF" a kid has a violent game that might induce him to copy the actions portraided by it. Thats why a rating system was implemented. Why do they follow it on tv viewing and not games, its there for a reason. Im sure a parent wont let his 10yr old go wath a rated R movie, why do they let them play an M rating game. The fact that its a movie isnt just a movie its an "R" "pg-13" or "G" movie it isnt simply for anyone and the same goes for games. So parents with all due respect quit youre *****ing and step up and admit that what happenes is a result of YOU being IRRESPONSABLE parents.
Violent video games don't make people psycho and want to kill people. It's Psycho people that want to kill people who are attracted to violent video games!
I'm not saying everybody who plays violent video games are psychopaths, i'm just saying IF there is a connection between violence in videogames and violence in life... that's the ONLY one right there!
I've been playing the most violent and bloodiest shootem'ups since I was like 10 and I won't kill a person just cause of that!
People who do this have something wrong in their brains, that's all, nothing to do with violent videogames, those stoopid discussions about videogames and violence just get me mad! LOL
nocomment
that madden analogy is one of the stupidest things he could possibly have mentioned. the answer is obvious: it takes years and years of daily dedication and work to become a professional athlete, but any dip***** with a gun can pull a trigger.
--mu
the problem is this..... it is a personal prblem that these people have, not gamers as a whole. All these people who decide to cap all of their schoolmates have screws loose to begin with, so maybe they do enjoy shooting people in video games (if you were a psycho who wanted to balst someone with a shotgun wouldn't you enjoy it in halo?). This doesn't mean that they were a result of endless shoot-em ups and "killtaculars" in video games... these people need to get their heads out of their A$$ES and find another scapegoat to beat on. This has been going on for WAAAAAt too long (remember the blood code in mortal combat? and power rangers going to court). Blame society and their parents. meh i am rambling now.....
because the violence in thos particular games can be directly equated to the violence that is happening.
Someone said the kids have guns and so do the games so the games caused the kids to fire their guns because children do what they see is being done.
That logic is flawed because it assumes kids are flat out stupid, have to be told when and how to do every little thing every single time, don't have an opinion nor are they intelligent enough to formulate one, and all of them are the same. (There are adults who truly belive this!)
The sad thing about it all is that this form of logic is used to describe the cause of these violent acts even when the "kid" committing it is a teenager or even an adult.
("People ask, Is it the movies? Is it the music?, Why can't they just be crazy?" -Chris Rock (Comedian)).
It is perfectly okay to break a reciever in half with the 'HIT STICK' in MADDEN, blow up a car in Twisted Metal, or shoot someone in Medal of Honor, Shoot down a plane in Ace Combat, but it is not okay to do these things in Grand Theft Auto.
These studies are illogical because they don't consider the fact that some see some of this stuff in real life on a daily basis. And on top of that you can turn to HBO and watch Tony Soprano blow some one's head off or one of the ladies from Sex in the City Having sex.
Yet they single out the one thing that they can link to the largest amount of people.
At the base of it all, there are just a bunch of people (politicians, lawyers, psychiatrists, etc) playing off this just so they can become popular with whichever groups of people they seek popularity in and of course, as always, money.
Before we had all these "game" problems, we had "radio" problems, "television" problems, and "movie" problems.
This will never end. People will try to blame whatever is popular from a particular sub category (My previous points were in the area of technology as a sub category in popular culture. Poke'man cards, South Park, The colored braclet game, or whatever else has caused this kind of backlash from the media, governments, medical community, etc.) and what they see as a cause of unintended reaction among "kids"
Say there was an electronic item that is very popualar among teenagers on a national or global scale. Everyone brings this item to school and where ever else they go (The iPod for instance.). Teenagers start to listen to them more and "professionals" opinions it could be doing 'harm'. Out of nowhere, the media will show anything someone important says about the item on TV everywhere. Parents will get concerned, studies will be done (those studies will waste millions of dollars and lots of time just to acquire inaccurate statistics of course). Most of the nation will go with whatever is the conclusion.
What started out as a cool mp3 player is now a device that is destroying our youth's minds, brainwashing them, has the possibility of causing medical problems, and whatever lies anyone can add to the list just so they can get thier name on the list and be popular as I said before.
this guy was crazy and want to kill already, he just play to kill waiting for his gun to come before he can kill, so he plays games 1st then when he can get his gun, then he started to kill, so he was a killer before he played games, then peapole know it and said he played games that how he became killer.
Look at history.
First dancing was blamed for bad behavior
Then Music was blamed.
Then came the TV, and so violence on TV was blamed.
Now since the 90s they've been blaming video games, and more recently the Internet is now being blamed (re:recent Montreal rampage)
Nobody ever just wants to admit, that some people are just funked up peices of shiat!
Not to mention the first place to really look is in the persons living conditions (parent/siblings/peers/anyone else that has regular contact with the person). You usually need to look no further.
Exactly!
What ever is popular and, in some society's opinon, causes "problems in youth" gets blamed for all of youth's proplems.
In the blog about the violence in videogame study, I jokingly concluded that good parenting is out of style.
this topic has some of the largest comments
As human beings, we're forced to living in a structured society in order to survive. Our shortcommings won't allow us to change this way of life. The problem is that each individual is different. Where theres difference, theres always going to be complication. Throughout the beggining of mankind, people had to live with each other and somehow work around the various kinds of personalities we all possess.
Trying to tolerate our differences often leads to violence. Among social issues are the factors that "could" inspire us to commit violent acts toward one another. These include but are not limited to: Religion, Class, Race, Gender, Sexual Orientation, Nationality/Ethnic Background, Appearance, Personality, interests, viewpoints, Social Affiliations, etc. Media is merely a reflection of what humanity has already presented to itself throughout it's history. Of course some of these reflections are modified to the point where you could classify it as fantasy, but even that has the basic characteristics of how human beings interact with one another in real life. (Love, hate, depression, jealousy, violence, etc.)
Now, do these reflections harm an individual? It depends on who the person is. If that person didn't experience that kind of media, would it have prevented the individual from recieving inspiration to commit a violent act? I doubt it to some degree, but again it depends on the person and the environment he/she lives in.
All I'm really trying to say is that if video games weren't around as a scapegoat, something else will surely be there to take it's place. IMHO, if video games weren't around, there'd probably be more violence since more people will spend time outside socializing with others. Unfortunately we all come across people we just can't tolerate, or we come across people who can't tolerate us. That's where the violence begins.
killing your 17 month old? what a stupid redneck
the files from the governments websites clearly show that murder rates in teens and 20's dramatically drops as video games get more and more popular.
....theft has increaed though, but no one mentions that.
Hey blame bad PARENTING & RELIGION and not VIDEO GAMES.
" "if games truly lead to widespread copycat actions, sport-hating nerds will line up at the Jets tryout camp every year." But the reality is that it does not really result to that."
i think its easier to get a hold of a gun then join a pro-athelete team.
those killers had an issue before playing games. Something wasn't right. Im not just saying oh they had problems they're crazy.
Not everyone that plays games kill people.
Playing games is an output, but so can anything else.
Games don't kill people.