Jack Thompson, the hippest stuck up psycho suer in the history of mankind, has been saying since the Super Nintendo, that Violence in Video Games negatively effects our youth, to the point that it makes them into mindless killing machines.

Can you blame him? When you play a video game, assuming you don't suck at it, and you aren't playing with any of your friends in the same room, you'll usually have this blank stare on your face, which is precisely the same as the look on the face of a man going on a real life killing spree.

Jack Thompson refers to video games as "Murder Simulators" and says that they provide an environment that allows you to rehearse your school shooting, or ways to kill a person. Dr. Phil, Hilary Clinton, and all of those other people that your parents watch on TV agree that Violence in Video Games has a detrimental effect on the youth of America.

Do you agree? Sure, most of those students who shoot up schools (except for the Virginia Tech Shooter) since video games have been out have enjoyed violent video games, but at the same time, it'd be a little difficult to find any male at the age of 18 that hasn't enjoyed a first person shooter at some point in his life.

What do you all think?

Facts:
-Video games sales have went up up up since 1993. Youth arrest have went down 77%.
-Studies have shown a link between violence and violent video games, other studies have shown no link between violence and violent video games.
-Suicide and aggression are two things that are very tough to predict from a psychological standpoint, at least according to a professor that is a clinical psychologist.
-Work place shootings happen more often than school shootings, yet we almost never ask whether the person who did it played video games.
-Studies have shown positive effects of video game play.
-There are professionals out there that disagree with violent games causing violence. http://www.asanet.org/galleries/default-file/Winter07ContextsFeature.pdf just as one example.
-Many stores now have a policy where someone under 17 can't buy an M rated game.
-Many of the studies that have shown a link between violence and violent games have either been correlations (correlations do not equal causation) or have had a very small difference.

There is no clear answer to the ultimate question, but (I'm guessing) Jack Thompson and politicians don't understand enough about stats and research to fully understand what the research says. One study says that violent games do have an effect on violent behavior but that the effect is smaller than that of violent TV. If they are so bad for you why don't we have a school shooting everyday? The worst school shooting in US history was in 1927 if I remember correctly.

The Columbine shooters had a lot of stuff wrong with them, possibly Anti-Social Personality Disorder. Noticed how all the media jumped on the bandwagon when V Tech went down. Within hours Jack Thompson was proclaiming the guy played video games, we later find out that wasn't the case at all, in fact it's highly possible he had Schizophrenia which usually does not cause a person to be violent, his is a very rare exception if he had it.

I don't really have a blank stare when I play games particularly with friends. What you are doing is focusing your attention which is done by the fontal lobe. Have you ever lost a pencil while working on something without getting up from your seat? I know I have. You're concentrating so hard on what you are working on you forget where you put your pen or pencil down.

The bottom line is right now we do not know what the answer is. You also have to consider that if a person is naturally more aggressive then they will probably look for more violent forms of entertainment, which would show up as a correlation between violence and violent video games, and some people will say that the video games are causing the violence when in fact it's the exact opposite.

Video games may have a positive effect on violence, they may be a stress reliever just like going on and running or playing golf or punching a punching bag. Violent games may allow a person to reliever their stress/ aggression on a character in a game rather than on the person that cause it.

Actually the worst school shooting in US History WAS the Virginia tech, one... but I see what you're saying.

Thank you for your post, Mike.

What about anyone else? If nobody has any opposing views, I'll take the opposing side, and say that Violence and Violent Video games are directly related, and that they should be banned from society...

You're actually sort of wrong still about the school stuff:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bath_School_disaster in 1927.

and you provide no "proof", therefore your argument is dead. Plus I've done quite a bit of research based studying on this topic already.

I don't believe there is a link between violent video games and violent people. If there is any link its the fact that if you play 40hours of video games a week, your not getting much human interaction, thus not naturally developing people skills, and knowing how to treat people.

We've only ever had 1 school shooting (that I know of) and it was at a University. If you really wanted a gun in Aus its not that hard to get one. Surley we have just as much (percentage) people playing video games as you's... maybe...

technically speaking vash, thats not a school shooting its a explosion, and the guy wasn't a teen. lol i bet i'm the only 1 who read that before it was linked by vash but thats what happens when u go from:
kurt cobain
generation x
generation y (our generation, interesting read)
Columbine School Shootings (went on to find someone made a rm2k game for it :O)
Bath School Disaster

Hence I said he was "sort of" wrong.

You don't need proof for an argument, MichaelVash7886. I doubt you have any proof that there's no link whatsoever. It's logically impossible to prove that something can't be done (yeah yeah, I see the paradox...).

Just because not all drunk drivers get into accidents, and just because not all car accidents involve drunk drivers doesn't mean that alcohol does or doesn't make you more likely for an accident. Personally I believe that this sort of thing is baseless conjecture. Video games may infact insight violence in individuals that don't do anything violent in their entire lives; or they might lessen the violent tendencies of serial murderers, but just not enough to stop them from doing anything; or maybe it does nothing at all, and nobody

Nextly, there's nothing wrong with my statement, if you feel like splitting hairs.... I said "Shooting," not "bombing." Thank you Neojazex, for pointing this out before I did. I've heard nothing of bombings being linked to violent video games, at all, actually. All you really did was enhance on a point that I made, already, while trying to make me sound wrong.

To call my "argument" wrong, when it was a statement that helped you doesn't seem very nice. The Virginia Tech "Shooting" was the most deadly "Shooting" in US History, and No games were involved in it.

Hell, I didn't even take a stance yet... Granted I provided more information about one side of the argument than the other, but I figure that this was for rather good reason, as most (all) of the board members have the same opinion on this (the one I didn't present). I was asking if I should take that side, before I started the debate... Your personal attack on my lack of proof, when I didn't even state any opinion, other than the opinion of other's, seems a bit over zealous, and callous of you.

Anyway, let us get started.

I would like to note that Video Games tend to be more addictive to children than TV or Movies, as many studies (that I could probably find with google, but don't feel like doing right now... I just read it in the San Francisco Chronicle) have shown. Children are left indoors for hours upon hours on end, and are less likely to go outside and play, than to sit inside, interacting with only the machine. The correlation between depression, and video games, is quite obvious. A lack of friends can lead to anti-social and negative behavior, and video games, when played in excess, lead to a lack of friends outside of school, unless the child is lucky enough to have friends come over to play video games with him.

Those studies that I mentioned above have shown a few very consistent effects: Increased Aggression (behavior, thoughts, affects), increased physiological arousal, and an increase in antisocial behavior (or rather a decrease in social behavior) making the child less likely to help others, and making them more likely to become sociopaths.

While the murderous gamers had Anti-Social disorder, it's very possible that that disorder itself was brought on by their addiction to the video games they played.

I freely admit that video games wont make everyone in the world a violent person, but if there's an unexploded missile sitting in the middle of the street, sensitive to the touch, and everybody knows not to touch it, but you just run up and kick it, are they going to blame you, or the fact that the bomb is explosive?

Just because the children were prone to snap, doesn't mean that video games aren't at fault for making the kids snap? Kids pick up things that they see on TV like it's a shiny dollar coin.

If there wasn't violence in video games. Such as godfather or GTA then there probably wouldn't be people hopped up on videogames. Not as many people would be addicted. And like most times when people are addicted to something, they get violent... So i think that violence in videogames makes people want to play it, and when they play it too much they get addicted... and when they are addicted they get violent... So i think yes violence in video games in a way makes people violent.

It seems Negative enough to me...

My point was not really about a school shooting in and of itself, but rather that something similar to school shootings happened before video games were created but yes the Virginia tech thing does support the pro video game side. ASPD actually has quite a list of things that must be filled to technically have it. A person would be this way since before they were 15, maybe not killing people but there would of been something wrong with them beforehand.

And could you please define anti-social behaviors? Many think that people with ASPD don't talk to others, when that is not the case at all. People with ASPD will talk to others in order to manipulate them. They will show emotion (though any remorse they show is faked) to get to their goal.

As for your argument I was saying provide some evidence, proof was the wrong word, and I probably did come on a bit strong. All you had said was that I was to suppose you though video games should be banned. I was trying to ask why you came to that conclusion.

As for the study concerning children not having friends outside of school, I'd have to read the study itself, but if it involves there's no way to tell what is actually causing something. Did the study take into account that some people are naturally more introverted and don't care as much about being around people all the time? And you mention depression is linked to video games, what caused the depression?

"Those studies that I mentioned above have shown a few very consistent effects: Increased Aggression (behavior, thoughts, affects), increased physiological arousal, and an increase in antisocial behavior (or rather a decrease in social behavior) making the child less likely to help others, and making them more likely to become sociopaths." Cna you provide a link to these so I see what you are referring to?

Now where I will agree with you is there are some people that shouldn't be playing violent video games. I don't think 8 year olds (in most cases) should play M rated games. But why should we throw out all violent games because SOME people can't handle them? Some people get addicted to alcohol after one drink, yet we still have it legal.

And lastly as I said earlier I've seen several studies that show a link (some using correlations that don't get the job done and others with questionable links) and I've seen other studies that show no link. I said in my post that right now there is no final answer, but I felt it necessary to provide some evidence as to what Jack Thompson has been saying might not be the case.

Edit: First I never hear about people getting addicted to games like GTA or Godfather but WoW or another MMORPG. And if that's the case, it's the person's fault not the game's.
Secondly I was also going to say that many of the studies that have shown a link often had very very small differences, and who's to say what those differences would of done to a person? Can you show the precedent for a person scoring 2 points higher on some particular aggression test to be the difference between not getting aggressive at all and killing someone? While some of this research shows a link, A it's really hard to get a causal link if not impossible in this case and B how can we apply the statistics.

I just get irritated by people like Jack Thompson because he doesn't look at a lot of the research. There are studies out there that do not show a link between the two.

The Link you requested about the aggressive blah blah blah blah

Ha, I personally actually believe that addictive substances such as alcohol, cigarettes, and crystal meth are very very supposed to be illegal. ^^ I have my issues with coffee, but I suppose that that isn't as bad as other things.

Anyway... This subject is very close to the subject of creationism vs scientific explanation. There's no real answer. Ugh... I hate it when it ends like this, but I doubt we'll get a good answer for this debate.

Anyway... Get to voting people! Vote for what you believe. This is a poll after all...

But hey, leave the thread open, in case others have points to make. Maybe the board will spawn the true answer after all.

Hey um...
Bro?
Did you um...
Make an argument that you dont support?

i gotta say there is probably a link between video games and depression... as depression for our generation is quite high. video games / computers are most likely reason for this.. not very social activities, even though there are message boards and the like... but social types of video games(online) are less then nurturing.
but hey theres probably evidence to support this if you're willing to hunt for it, rest is just logic and knowledge.

But why is there depression? Think about it for a second. Often times there was a huge negative stigma attached with seeing a therapist in the past, now however it's not considered bad. Furthermore what causes what? Does a person get depressed then get into video games/ computers or vice versa.

bit of both... someone without friends might find video games... or someone plays video games and loses friends...

or... it depends on the person... but it definitely effected but society... like u said vash, not long ago seeing a therapist was a bad thing, so fewer people were diagnosed, now maybe more are... however, suicides are also high so it kinda eliminates the argument its normal for this many people to be depressed...

i dunno where i'm going with this, theres no point, just throwing out thoughts

I think it all depends on who is playing it. Most people have enough common sense realize it's just a game.

Sometimes when my brother finishes playing games he likes to jump around and carry on and stuff, and yeah he gets violent but he has an overreactive imagination, like most of my family.

i think im more violent when playing game with other people

*kills player of person in room*
*player jumps up and yells abuse*
*i taunt player*

Stuff like that...

Oh uhh i missed out on the start of it but Bob and i studied influences in the media, imo, the results were inconclusive, but if i were to choose i would say media CAN influence but i find media mostly jes nudges you, its something far more psychological then a video game or even a movie... an event of a close friend or relative for example...

Do you mean like how we studied in yr 12 media?

I dont think that games make a person violent, I think that that person has to have violent tendancies otherwise they are not going to play a game like GTA to begin with.

Mmmm... Well, I was just running around yesterday shooting grandmas in the head (in GTA-SA of course..), does this make me have some violent tendacys. Or is it because im mature enough to distinguish between real life and a video game?
I think i've been playing these kinda games since I was an early teenager.

GTA1, GTA2, Red Alert + Retaliation. Although they are not all that violent, or even that graphical, does that make any difference?