Re:Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, ... a ...
by nitrogen on Saturday August 13, 2011 @04:24PM
(#2881907)
Like letting people play and provoke them afterwards, measuring the different reactions when playing prior an ego-shooter or Sims.
It would be interesting to test various ways of mitigating violent behavior, like whether or not subjects are reminded before and after playing that "it's just a game." You'd also need to compare playing a video game for x hours to watching a movie for x hours, reading a book for x hours, or being made to wait quietly in a room with nothing to do for x hours. Finally, comparison to other pseudo-violent pastimes like high-contact sports would also be enlightening.
Edit: it should also be considered whether the benefits of video games outweigh any negative behavioral influence they may have.
Measuring long-time-effects is hard. You probably could convince me with a well-done study that violence in games has a short-term effect on aggression. Like letting people play and provoke them afterwards, measuring the different reactions when playing prior an ego-shooter or Sims.
But long-term-effect? Just a have a look in the study. Using factors like the VGV-general measure fails to convince me that they didn't just discovered that violent people like violent games, or that people of the working-class or lower prefer to play (and are generally more aggressive) and so on.