Article:
PC WorldA little excerpt:
Then, researchers randomly assigned each of those 70 people to play either a violent or a non-violent game for 25 minutes. "We found that the people who were randomly assigned to play the violent game were more aggressive than the people who were assigned to play the non-violent game," said Bartholow. "We measured this by the level of noise blast that our subjects set for a perceived opponent in a competitive task. People who played the violent game set louder noise blasts with their opponent."
If you're wondering what a "noise blast" is, it's a procedure used in studying aggression. Subjects are told that they're going to be competing against another subject in reaction time. The way the game works is that you try to beat your opponent by seeing who can respond most quickly to some stimulus that appears on the computer screen. For example, a yellow square will turn red or green and the first person to hit the button wins. Before the game starts, each opponent is able to choose the level of white noise that will be blasted in the loser's headphones. Players of the violent games almost always jacked up the level of noise they dished on their opponent.
I like that last line because I think scientists are getting it wrong. "Violence" is not punishing your opponent with really loud noises. That's just being competitive and/or being a dick. Winning is better than losing, right? So when the person who won turns up the volume really high on his opponent is now violent? I disagree completely.
What I think is that violent video games attract violent people, not violent video games making violent people. A regular person who doesn't play video games isn't going to instantly like playing a violent video game and then become violent themselves. I do believe that a person who is violent will definitely be turned on by a violent video game, and maybe even scratch his violent side. The difference is that someone who is violent can take it out on a video game instead of, say, his wife or children or pets. I've seen plenty of VIOLENT people who have never touched a video game in their lives, but I've also seen violent people who do play violent (and non-violent) video games. I really don't think by playing a violent game you become violent yourself, but maybe it's more of a way to prevent REAL violence in our world (bullies, thieves, etc.).
Personally speaking, the most violent thing I've ever seen someone do is throw their dog out the window of their car on the highway because he had ROAD RAGE. This man looked like he was 45-50 years old and I would find it hard to believe that he played video games at all. I play violent video games, but I'll be damned if I ever mimic anything I do in a video game (cause you know, I'm smart cookie!). Then again, I rarely get angry at all cause anything that does get me angry usually is never really worth doing anything about it. As with anything in life, it's never so black and white... but more shades of grey.
Thoughts? Opinions? Questions?
