What's that? Science cannot prove that videogames forcibly take control of any child's mind and deny them the reasonability of free will against thoughts of emulating acts as violent as ripping another's heart our with only bare hands and attacking nubile undressed females with their mutated mandible claws? Well, now I've heard everything.
The Report on Youth Violence by the Surgeon General U.S. Public Health Service has finally been completed and published. Commissioned by President Clinton in April 1999 (originally begun to study the reasons behind the Columbine High School tragedy, although research used in the study has been in progress since the 1980s), the report rides the tides of a flurry of attacks on the entertainment business and often the videogame business specifically for violent imagery and the possibility that exposure to such violence raises aggressive behavior levels.
If you are one of those children who has been directly influenced by a videogame to breathe explosive fire from your mouth and incinerate your friends or neighbors with a cackle resonating through your skeletal fleshless head, the Surgeon General's report may have some shocking news for you: One, you seem to be in the minority for behaving in this way, and Two, you are still indeed at fault for the immolation.
Though based on limited evidence and inconclusive to a degree (the Surgeon General was careful to point out that violence in videogames has not been studied as extensively as film entertainment), the report concludes that videogames do not seem to be as lethal as critical pundits make them out to be.
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"A recent meta-analysis of these studies found that the overall effect size for both randomized and correlational studies was small for physical aggression... and moderate for aggressive thinking. (Anderson & Bushman, in press). In separate analyses, the effect sizes for both randomized and cross-sectional studies was small. The impact of video games on violent behavior remains to be determined.
In effect, the evidence found as part of the report indicates that not only is the tendency for increased physical violence as a result of playing a videogame relatively rare, but that gaming also increases aggressive thinking. Aggressive thinking -- that's capitalism, baby! Quake is making you more American.
Furthermore, the report draws conclusions that mitigating factors beyond violent content in videogames might be more influential in aggressive and physical behavior. If evidence in this research proves true (after further investigation to follow), it is hoped to be able to conclude that a person's gaming frag record may have less to do with a sudden burst of violence than the brutal physical and sexual violence (causing emotional distress and permanent disdain for human life) inflicted by respected authorities early in their childhood that many violent young offenders often experience.
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Research suggests that not all youths are affected in the same way by viewing media violence. Factors that appear to influence the effects of media violence on aggressive or violent behavior include characteristics of the viewer (such as age, intelligence, aggressiveness, and whether the child perceives the media as realistic and identifies with aggressive characters) and his or her social environment (for example, parental influences), as well as aspects of media content (including characteristics of perpetrators, degree of realism and justification for violence, and depiction of consequences of violence)...Studies of responses to violent television and films and violent video games have found that people who were initially more aggressive than other subjects were more affected in behavior, thoughts, and emotions (Anderson & Dill, 2000; Bushman, 1995; Bushman & Geen, 1990; Friedrich & Stein, 1973; Josephson, 1987). Research in this area clearly suggests that the impact of violent television, film, and video games on aggression is moderated by viewers' aggressive characteristics.
A fascinating study, but now what's to become of the phrase, "The videogame made me do it!"
--Marc Nix
Are we out of line jesting about these results?
Or has the politically correct movement gone too far?
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