April 2, 2008
The body of game violence research gets a bit more cluttered and confusing with today's release of a new study which holds that violent gaming can actually be relaxing and make players less angry.As reported by Game Daily, Researcher Jane Barnett and a team from Middlesex University will present their findings at the annual conference of the British Psychological Society. From Game Daily:
For the study, 292 male and female World of Warcraft players, aged between 12 and 83, were given a questionnaire on anger, aggression and personality. The participants then played the game for two hours and then completed the survey yet again. Ultimately, the results showed that "the gamers were more likely to feel calm or tired after playing – but there were differences depending on sex, age and personality."
Said Barnett:
There were actually higher levels of relaxation before and after playing the game as opposed to experiencing anger but this did very much depend on personality type. This will help us to develop a emotion and gaming questionnaire to help distinguish the type of gamer who is likely to transfer their online aggression into everyday life.
GP: While it's always welcome to see a study which shines some positive light on gaming, we're not so sure the T-rated WoW is the game by which to make that call. It's rather a different playing experience than, say GTA or COD4.
Comments
Nothing is as calming and soothing as cutting open a pinky with a chainsaw in Doom and Doom 2.
yes, these games are really good stress relief and will make kids less likely to lash out
I mean think about it: who's more likely to go kill someone, a person who let the stress pile up or someone who just took it out in a completely consequence free environment?
As for the 83-year-old WoW gamer...WTF?
I just had a a mental image of my grandpa saying "1 pwnz j00 n008s!!!!1!!!!@!!2"
And it says something that's been needed to be said it depends on the person weather or not anything truly bad is the outcome.
It also helps me to keep my aim somewhere around correct.
"Ok we're gonna sit in this one spot for 30 minutes talk about how we're gonna kill this first mob."
"Ok it's been 30 minutes w're now gonna to perform random amounts of ready checks because I feel like it for the next 30 minutes"
"Ok I'm bored of random ready test everyones on vent so lets kill the mob"
"Ok someone wasn't on vent be ause we're all dead and it's there damn fault I wouldn't let the priests heal.
Can I get a: "Duh!"
See, think of it like a punching bag. By it's very nature, a punching bag is a violent pasttime, training and strengthening your punches. According to most of the British washed-out daytime talk hosts and insane washed-out Zeroth Amendment lawyers a punching bag should make you angrier and more violent the more you use it. However, it's actually a great stress reliever, and you feel less frustrated and less angry afterwards.
It got to the point that when someone would say, "Let's go on a raid!" I would just log off.
I might have liked Raids in WoW if pick-up groups weren't so flakey.
The rating may be T but the game in itself can be taken seriously to the point, like some videos you can find on youtube, where it's like dying is a major setback and the person that just died flips out and goes entirely insane for like.. 30 minutes or more.
Ah. Duly ignored. Next!
I've been told that since I was a kid (is 21), and I've been saying for years that video games can be used as a punching bag for the same reasons.
The choice of game is ironic. If anything you are more likely to get angry from playing this (what with the fustration one gets from noobs or other nonsense) as opposed to any dumb shooter.
The only thing that pisses me off about games is playing on-line and having to interact with asshat people. Which is why I don't play on-line very much. Game to anger me, people do. :)
Now, the hypothesis is that there is a direct relationship between games and violence.
Srudies have reported a WIDE array of statistics. Every thing from positive to negative to short term only to over a long period of time only.
I have to tell ya, if I'm trying to find a conection between A and B, and A is relatively constant but B is all over the place... I'm going to be hard pressed to find the connection.
What people are doing is cherry picking the results to meet with their preconcieved notions or their agenda. Pretty much they are saying things like "A >B" (if we disregard results where A
Picking up where it let off:
... is less than B) or "A =2B" (for these two studies where A =4, B =8 and A =5, B =10).
Even people in the comments show this when they say "Games make me feel this way... except when this happens."
If I come home from a hard day's work, and I get online, and some griefer follows me around, even to other servers... yeah, that would make me angry.
If I'm kicking back on a stormy Saturday, and I'm playing Ace Atorney 3, and I just proved my client innocent, I'm going to feel pretty mellow.
The old ideas will die off as the older generation loses their say in the matter. Look at the current batch of naysayers. It's obvious that they are already in their dotage, some even show signs of dementia.
Who would have guesed that.
I guess some people get vilent easily,others are more relaxed,and games have no relation to it.
It is funny to make people angry and make their on-line game experience less enjoyable? Man you are just a jerk for saying that.
Not always another person, in cases where it's NPC mobs another person can save you from getting ganked
Heh, reminds me of a comment from Warcraft 3's Dwarf Gunner.
"Guns don't kill people, I DO; ha ha!"
I could tell you the answer to that right now.
True that man! LOL!
If there was a true direct link between playing these games and violent acts, you wouldn't be able to leave your apartment without running into some looney on a GTA Frenzy gunning people down.
Do all the studies you want, but crime has gone down nationally every year since 1980. Violent game sales have increased every year since 1980.
In fact, even as a gamer I can't help but draw the same conclusion myself.
games are my vent and i admit it.
when i was stationed on board the JFK i had very little time to my self before i had to be asleep or end up losing sleep.
for a long time i just tried to doze early, or watch vids on my laptop.
after a time i found if i didn't loadup a quick run of Doom 3 or something for kicks and relief my frustrations would just buildup.
so for me a good game is like a punching bag to others.
its a way for me to vent my frustrations (or at least put them aside and forget'em) without actually doing any real harm or damage to anyone/thing.
@Keith K
"officially" shrinks deny cyber addiciton exists (despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary...)
but who knows, maybe they'll accept it as reality just to make an argument about it.
That is a very good point! If violent games really did make people psychos America would be bathed in blood ten times over. If would be like that movie "In the Mouth of Madness" with every one running around with axes and machetes hacking people down.
Obviously this is not the case.
So you've never heard of The Older Gamers (www.theoldergamers.com). There's about 20,000 of us now in the community alone covering everything from FPS to strategy games to MMORPG's. Sure the entrance is from 25 onwards, but I know a more than few grandparents that play WoW.
Gaming is NOT just for youngsters you know.
The interactivity to gaming changes things from a passive observation to active participation. That's why they're used in the classroom; they teach so well. And yes, in some cases, it can influence a person to violence.
On the other hand, why is a kid going to knock over a liquor store and get busted when he can do it in GTA with no consequences?