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May 12, 2008 |
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Grand Theft Childhood May 12, 2008Read more Announcements , Games , Home Entertainment , PC
If you’re the sort of person who feels growing concern for the impact of violent video games on the youth of today, Everyone's heard the theory in the past, but recent research conducted by two Harvard psychologists could be the proverbial rocket-launcher that obliterates the myth.
Dr Lawrence Kutner and Dr Cheryl Olsen conducted a two-year study of 1250 children and 500 parents to discover a link between games and children’s behaviour. The study reveals that there is no evidence to suggest that violent games result in violent people, and in fact that violent crimes in the US over the last 20 years have actually gone down as videogames have become more popular. However, there could be a link between violence and children who play adult-related games, though it isn’t clear whether this is simply a case of more aggressive children being more anxious to play them. The results of the couple’s research were published last month in the book “Grand Theft Childhood: The Surprising Truth About Violent Video Games”, which should make for some interesting reading. – Paul Lester Post a new comment |
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Editor and Contributor | Martin Lynch
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Comments
Great to know these studies are being done... I always groan when I hear about video games getting such bad press for violence etc. It's usually ignorance and an inability of parents to monitor the games their children play. Xbox even has parental controls BUILT IN TO the console for crying out loud!
It would be interesting if there is a similar study on horror/graphic violence in movies. That hardly ever gets a bad wrap, with films like Hostle and Saw being far worse that GTA IV... in my opinion anyway!
As a student of psychology its great to hear about these kind of studies, I'm sick of all ignorance and hatred there is towards violent video games, its nice when studies like this comes along, though they are far to rare and infrequent.
"It would be interesting if there is a similar study on horror/graphic violence in movies. That hardly ever gets a bad wrap, with films like Hostle and Saw being far worse that GTA IV... in my opinion anyway!"
The difference being, of course, that movies such as you've mentioned depend on the viewer identifying with the plight of the victim to engender the feeling of Horror. Games like GTA, cast the player in the part of the villain protagonist and not that of the victim, and glorify in the evil that said protagonist can perpetrate.
Next time you're playing GTA, try instead to cast yourself in the role of the prostitute who is forced by socio-economic forces into the position where she has to sell her own body in the back of a car (with your avatar) to make ends meet. Then your avatar will beat her to death her with a baseball bat to retrieve his ill gotten gains. What a great game that is...
Don't misunderstand me. I'm totally anti-censorship and I don't believe games like GTA should be banned (even though the concept behind the game is abhorrent to me personally) because I believe that adults should be allowed to chose their own pleasures as long as it hurts noone else. I just refuse to accept this often (mis)quoted similitude between violent video games and horror movies. They are nothing alike.
"I just refuse to accept this often (mis)quoted similitude between violent video games and horror movies. They are nothing alike."
I agree entirely and I often make a similar point myself. As a viewer of a film like SAW, you're watching the bad man do bad things. In GTA, you're being asked to *be* the bad man and not only watch, but to directly control the bad things he does. It's a world of difference.
Before computer games and the aggressive and violent movies of today, there where the horrors of WW2 and countless other acts of violence in humanities History.
It would be quite ignorant to blame the build up of violence in humans on video games or movies.
It's only through education and the practice of concious awareness that a human can control his or her violent tenancies.
its good to see someone finnaly did this, playing video games doesnt make you violent, playing video games wont make the slightest difference if your that kind of person, i too groaned when the day after release i saw an article in the newspaper about people complaining about GTA4.
Maybe now they will stop jumping on the same bandwagon... I doupt it but it would be nice