May 29th, 2021
1
Video games DO cause violence
I know this might be the most unpopular opinion here, so go ahead, downvote me to hell if you want. But I truly believe video games do cause violence.
I'm a math tutor for around a dozen fourth graders, and I decided to run a little experiment. I polled my students to see how many of them played video games: it was basically 50/50. Then, during tutoring hours, I began giving all of my students two types of word problems: violent and nonviolent. An example of violent would be: "Jack is at the shooting range. He has 23 bullets in and there are 6 targets, etc. etc." A nonviolent problem would be "Jack has 23 cupcakes and 6 friends, etc. etc."
And guess what happened? Yup, the students who played video games did better at the violent examples and the students who didn't did better at the nonviolent ones!
I'm sick of people saying video games don't cause violent. Are they fun? Sure. Do they improve hand-eye coordination? Absolutely. But they also spawn aggression. My little experiment is not the only proof of this. You think people who spend hours shooting ducks on their phone are not affected by what they do just because its virtual? Then how does hand eye coordination from video games translate into the real world? Because there is a correlation.
Oh, one more thing: I play video games. I love video games. So don't try telling me I don't understand. And I can tell you with certainty that I never thought about beating the shit out of a random bloke until after I played grand thief auto.
May 29th, 2021
1
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1
Groenboys
Yeah, I am gonna be straight with you: Your expirement is absolute trash.
Disregarding the fact that for scientific sake it is laughably unprofessional and is more akin to being anecdotal evidence, even if I would take your expirement seriously: How did your expriment proof anything? Why do the gamer kids doing better in "violent" problems prove that playing games can lead to violence? What if all of those kids have lived with guns their entire lives so they can awsner "violent" problems more easily? And even if the games were the only factor to contribute to awnsering "violent" problems easier: How does awnsering "violent" problems easier make you violent? Does a gamer knowing about different types of guns make him automatically violent?
The subject of games and violence is a very layered one with many nuances. With people being so unique from one another and the event of playing games making you violent being a very specific and vague one, it is hard to study it and make definitive conclusions. I personally think there is a small connection between agression and games, especially with vunerable people, but the way you tried to prove that connection is laughably garbage.
10
LuciusDickusMaximus
I think answering violent math problems better is obviously correlated with violence. We are better at word problems that reflect our views, hence why textbook writers tend to not use politics in their word problems: only half the classroom would benefit.
OJStrings
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OpaqueGlass_
Yeah, I don't see how being better at performing violent math problems make you more likely to commit violent acts.
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LuciusDickusMaximus
You want to give me the funding to do that research?
[deleted]
People with more funding than you have done more accurate research than you. I trust my psych professor a lot more than a guy who doesn't understand the scientific method and minimum statistic values, and no peer review.
3
Bokbreath
You are confusing words with actions. The word 'bullet' is not violent. Being able to count bullets is not violent. Preferring to count bullets to cupcakes is not violent.
What would be interesting is to compare the actual scores. Did either cohort of students perform better in terms of their ability to
count ?
Now to address the question with real numbers let's look at violent crime stats in the US. To make it interesting we will start in 1998 because GTA was released in 1997. If your hypothesis holds water we should see a rise in violent crime that tracks the playing of GTA. So what are the numbers ? Well in 1998 there was roughly 560 incidents of violent crime per 100,000. That was the last year it came even close to that number. By 2019 the rate had dropped to about 380 incidents per 100000 (source https://crime-data-explorer.app.cloud.gov/pages/explorer/crime/crime-trend). So on a pure read of the relevant data you are wrong.
6
LuciusDickusMaximus
Well your data is biased because violent crime does not encapsulate all violence. I guarantee more children are having tantrums now than in 1997.
Bokbreath
You'll have evidence for that of course
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