Video Games raise physical aggression?

[HappySqurriel]

Mummelmann said:

This again? I still call bullshit, the most violent folks I know of never touched no videogames... Many who spend a lot of time engrossed in videogames are antisocial, which is a disorder that can (and often) leads to aggression or relationship aversion of some kind. They'd see the same traits in other antisocial individuals that spent their alone time doing completely different things.
I'm not saying that everyone is immune to violent input of the graphic kind, but many are seeing the links because they want to when in reality it could tied to a slew of other factors instead/as well.
Bullying, domestic violence, antisocial or other disorders are the most common backgrounds for aggressive behaviour and I somehow think that this study took measure of none of those, focusing solely on the fact that they played videogames.
Maybe some kids with violent tendencies play games to escape a dreadful reality? Like watching movies, reading comics or books or listening to mood music. (No, not everyone who does these things is a miserable sulk, but it is a common factor among many depressed people)

Rap music, movies, videogames and many other things have been blamed for a few societal problems, especially the ones related to violence. However, if you look at human history, you'll see that kids and people of today are quite a bit more sensitive to and a lot more against violence than they were before. We don't watch public hangings and beheadings anymore and stabbings occurr very rarely in petty quarrels out on town as a general rule.
The human race is a violent one, but go out in the world and explore and then tell me whether the people with or without videogames are more violent (I suggest places like Africa, South and West Asia, Central and South America and a few parts of Eastern Europe to begin with).

Violence happens for a multitude of reasons but only once every three blue moons does it happen on account of videogames. In my very honest opinion. Why don't parents step up and take responsibility and teach their kids other than hate and stop accusing the world of corrupting them in their own homes where mom and dad rules (or are supposed to).

 

I wouldn't say that it is bullshit, but these studies are never as conclusive as they pretend to be ...

As a child I remember that after watching cartoons like TMNT or GI Joe my friends and I would act out the behavior we saw in the show which was (generally) pretty violent. There were several cases where someone would get hurt but nothing that was all that bad. There is nothing I have seen which would indicate that the link between short term increases in violence lead to a longer term trend.

At the same time, it is likely that an individual who has socially unacceptable tendancies will seek out a way to express these behaviors in a more socially acceptable way. For someone who has a very violent nature it is highly likey that they would take part in violent sports or play violent videogames ... The problem is that these people still have a very violent nature and (given the correct situation) they will probably act out in a very violent way.

The last problem is something I have seen growing in society for awhile ... Young children (as young as 3 or 4) are spending more time in front of a TV or videogame system than they are with real people and are not developing basic social skills to be able to cope with society. These people are (probably) far more likely to act out violently when they are put into a situation which they are not equiped to handle.

 

Basically, I think there is reason to believe that there is a correlation between videogame playing and violent behavior but (outside of short term behavior between young chidren) I'm not sure that videogames cause violent behavior. At the same time, in most cases, decent parenting would be able to identify and solve a problem long before it became a problem.