presentation of the impact of violence in video games

1. Script:
For as long as there have been video games, there have been people lobbying against them,
claiming that they are having a detrimental effect on education, attitude and what I am here to
talk about today, the impact of violent content.
In 2000, The American Psychology Association performed a study to determine the relationship
between college students consuming violent content and a rise in aggression. This study
showed that there was indeed some correlation between those who played a violent game and
increased aggression as opposed to those who played a nonviolent game. Another study
showed that students who reported playing violent games achieved lower grades than students
who played far less frequently.
However, surely the latter could have been inferred without the need for extensive research. To
me it seems fairly obvious that the more time spent playing any games means less time
studying. The thing is, that this is true for basically every activity except study. If the subjects of
the experiment spent an equal amount of time reading, watching television, or exercising, the
time spent studying would be equally as low.
This is what I believe to be the biggest argument against these studies. Correlation does not
equal causation.
Whenever terrible events like the Columbine and Sandy Hook shootings occur, the cries go out
that it must be those damn video games again corrupting the youth of today. The fact of the
matter is however, that violent criminals make up an insanely minute portion of players of these
games. If violent games had that extreme of an impact on consumers, you would expect the
number of shootings to be much, much higher.
Villanova Associate Psychology Professor Patrick M. Markey, along with his wife, Charlotte N.
Markey, a Rutgers University associate professor, conducted a study that shows violent video
games do not incite violence, unless a person has certain personality traits.
Most school shooters, were often described as, angry, depressed, anxious, aggressive etc
before the event, and this research showed that people with traits like being easily upset or
being indifferent to the feelings of others were more likely to be drawn towards playing, and be
adversely affected by violent video games.
Markey still cautioned that even people with these traits were not guaranteed to end up as serial
killers. He says that while some people are more likely to act like jerks from playing games, it
does not mean their behaviour would rise to the level of violence.

2. An interesting opinion expressed by Andrew Przybylski (shuh-bill-skee) and his colleagues
share, is that it is not necessarily the violent content in games that can lead to increased levels
of aggression.
In 2004 a study had been performed that after playing nonviolent “Glider Pro 4” and FPS
Marathon 2, those who played the violent game showed more aggression Przybylski, took
notice that while Glider Pro 4 utilises just 2 keyboard keys to navigate the game, Marathon 2
requires the use of a mouse and 20 keys to play. He argued that it was possible that this
aggression could be arising through frustration in using the controls. Przybylski performed
several experiments relating to how players experience a game. 2 of these included the widely
renowned nonviolent game Tetris. I’m that most people would show heightened aggression if
the controls were randomised, or if the game was constantly giving you the worst block for every
situation. This is exactly what Przybylski subjected people to, and the results he obtained.
While his experiments did not address whether violence induces violence, it did show that there
is more to analysing behaviour than just how much red is on the screen.
So are video games just the scapegoats of our generation. Something that can be easily
blamed for social issues wherever possible. New media has been the fall guy for social issues
for decades. In the 50’s it was comic books causing juvenile delinquency, in the 80’s it was rock
music corrupting the innocent and today it’s video games.
Psychology professor Dr. Christopher Ferguson, has several issues with how researchers have
gone about their research. This include the lack of real agreement between different parties,
problems over how to actually measure aggression and the possibility of publication bias.
Ferguson presented his own study, this time rather than target games, he turned his attention to
other clinicians performing studies of violent games.
He found that the older the clinician, the more likely it was that they would link video games, to
violent behaviour. It also revealed that those who view young people negatively are more likely
to think games are harmful.
This doesn’t help the validity of many of these previous studies as two clinicians could interpret
the same data completely differently. Overall there does not seem to be any agreement and
only 40% believe that games cause violent behaviour.
This panic is the same as what happened with comics and rock music. Are we doomed to
repeat this with every form of new media? Historically the pattern would assume that yes we
are, though for the first time, we seem to be reflecting on initial reactions.While you would be
unlikely to find newspaper headlines saying “actually Ozzie Osbourne is fine for kids” we are
starting to see that exact thing for video games.