Study of the Day: New Evidence Ties Violent Games to Aggression

[The Straight Story]

Study of the Day: New Evidence Ties Violent Games to Aggression

PROBLEM: Last year, much to Arnold Schwarzenegger's chagrin, the Supreme Court sided with the video game industry and struck down a ban on the rental or sale of violent games to children, citing First Amendment rights in the process. Still, just how harmful are these gruesome games?


METHODOLOGY: Researchers led by Indiana University's Tom Hummer recruited 22 healthy men, age 18 to 29, with low past exposure to violent video games and randomly assigned them to two groups. Members of the first group played a shooting video game for 10 hours at home for one week and refrained from playing the following week. Those in the second group avoided games altogether. At the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of the trial, the participants underwent fMRI scans while completing tasks involving inhibitions and emotions.

RESULTS: After one week of violent gameplay, the brain scans of the young men in the experimental group showed less activation in the left inferior frontal lobe and the anterior cingulate cortex than their baseline scans and the scans of the people in the control group.

CONCLUSION: Grisly video games alter brain regions linked to cognitive function and emotional control in young adult men.

http://www.theatlantic.com/life/archive/2011/11/study-of-the-day-new-evidence-ties-violent-games-to-aggression/249156/

[gratuitous]

1. No surprise there

Cue the inevitable "I-play-those-games-all-the-time-and-I've-never-gone-on-a-killing-spree" posts in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1 . . .

[Poll_Blind]

2. +1 to Subject and Message. nt

PB

[leftyohiolib]

7. well then let me not disappoint you

"I-play-those-games-all-the-time-and-I've-never-gone-on-a-killing-spree" it's a valid point like any external event/stimulation it will be proccessed differently by different people. games dont cause violence people do.

[TheWraith]

11. Excuse me, but this remains a bullshit study.

Using fMRIs to "read" a brain is, simply put, junk science at it's worst. You can read pretty much anything into those scans, like a high tech inkblot test.

Meanwhile, studies using ACTUAL SCIENCE have repeatedly shown exactly zero causative link between violent games or entertainment, and violent behavior. At best, you might be able to prove that people prone to violence are also prone to violent entertainment, but there's never been solid evidence going the other direction.

[gratuitous]

13. Oops, I totally forgot!

There are the inevitable "And-I'll-read-into-the-capsule-summary-whatever-I-want-to-pronounce-it-bullshit-without-any-research-of-my-own" posts and the equally inevitable "I'll-compare-apples-to-potatoes-and-pretend-that-that's-what's-being-said-I'm-so-witty-ho-ho-ho" retorts to be posted in--

Ah, I see I'm too late.

[seabeyond]

3. i believe it. and i allow my boys to play them, the ones acceptable.

they also have a variety of games and are more likely to play sports games. so they dont obsess and spend a whole lot of time on the battle games. they do not do the zombie and mass killing games. more strategic games.... battlefront

but i certainly believe the study....

when kids were young, i would observe groups of children's behavior after an aggressive cartoon, compared to non aggressive. i saw behavioral differences.

[Lance_Boyle]

4. fMRI lets 'researchers' see what they want to see

up to and including the consciousness of dead salmon (http://neuroskeptic.blogspot.com/2009/09/fmri-gets-slap-in-face-with-dead-fish.html).

Perhaps it is wise to temper one's reaction to these "findings" with a liberal dose of the entirely opposite findings of all other non-fMRI-voodoo research on the topic.

[Baclava]

5. BWAhahaha - you can read emotions from a "brain scan" now?

22 is your total points on a scale study?


give me a fucking break - go fund some real science and see what else these "study group" people were doing during the 2 weeks.

Maybe the brains of the ones with girl friends were getting aroused in other ways and they just happened to enjoy playing games too - sex and violence, sex and violence.

OH NOES!

[The Straight Story]

6. I'd like em to read my brain waves while I read DU

:rofl:

[MattBaggins]

8. And what a stupid Supreme Court decision that was.

I can't go to the local playground and sell porn to kindergarteners and claim 1st amendment rights. Now if they had based the decision on proof or lack of proof of harm to kids that would have been different.

But no suprise that business making money off of kids trumps actual study of what affect it has.

[TheWraith]

12. So selling video games to adults is the same as selling porn to kindergarteners?

Or are you looking to ignore the fact that games containing violence have the same restrictions on them as R-rated movies?

[redqueen]

14. The OP seems to be misleading, then.

" the Supreme Court sided with the video game industry and struck down a ban on the rental or sale of violent games to children,"

[chrisa]

9. Won't somebody please think of the children!!!

Also, in other news, heavy metal music causes kids to be more aggressive too.

:sarcasm:

[The Straight Story]

10. Worse, if you play heavy metal backwards you hear satan!

:rofl: