Penn & Teller's Video Game Bullshit

**SapiensErus** · 07-14-09, 10:10 AM

Interestingly, there is correlational (not causal) evidence demonstrating a link between violence in video games and increased aggressive behavior. And it is about the same as the increase seen in those after watching a football or soccer game, or a violent tv show or movie, or after playing cops and robbers, etc. WHich means kids ought to be likely to shoot their classmates after video games as they are after T-Ball practice.

Originally Posted by dex71

Just like everything else....it comes down to parenting. Harrison will be ok...he has a great Mom.

This is just this generations scapegoat for shitty parenting. The last one was music. Judas Priest,and Ozzy were both dragged into court because of some things people did,who they never met. Rather than take the responsibility for their lack of action and attention,these parents blamed the posters on their kid's walls. Today,they are blaming the characters on the game boxes. Same shit,different day.

Yes and no, parenting can account for certain behaviors: Religion, political affiliation, and "moral" codes have been correlationally linked to parenting. But something like temperament has been linked to genetics (Billy has his dad's temper!). So aggressive behavior has a biological background. But kids who kill people, or animals, etc. tend to have disorders that show up in neurological scans. They are what is known as "antisocial" and that does not mean they do not like to hang out with people. Some people with APD are very good at schmoozing and being social, but they do not feel emotions as strongly, if all, as "normal" people do (many of them make great CEO's and salespeople). Some of the kids who do these things (violence that some claim is from video games) come from bad backgrounds (in parenting) and others from very good. But most of them show signs of APD; much like any serial killer or "no return" sort of violent criminal. Their lack of emotional empathy makes them do things that are "antisocial." And there is a pile of evidence showing frontal lobe abberations in the brains of those with APD. Although neglect can have a serious impact on a childs self image and therefore other behaviors. But these ultra-violent whck jobs are mostly APD. Something in the water? We don't know yet, but if it were purely parenting then we would have seen these sorts of episodes throughout history and in the same frequency.

But having read many of the studies linking video games to violence, it is largely correlational (which does not imply causation) and those that attempted true experimental studies did a bad job (see the study by Anderson and Dill for example: http://web.pdx.edu/~cqmv/anderson.and.dill.html it is one of the often cited ones as it is one of the few with a "true experimental design") and only show an increase in aggression that is comparable, as said, to that experienced after watching a boxing match or a football game.

The heavy metal dude cracked me up!