New Study Links Youth Violence to Depression & Peers, Not Video Games
New Study Links Youth Violence to Depression & Peers, Not Video Games
September 14, 2009
Dr. Christopher Ferguson (left) of Texas A&M International University dropped GamePolitics a line this morning to say that he has published a new study with some interesting findings about media violence.
Ferguson's new work (co-authored by Claudia San Miguel and Richard Hartley) appears in the Journal of Pediatrics and maintains that youth violence is linked to depression and peer delinquency, not consumption of violent media. Ferguson summarized his findings in an e-mail to GP:
We examined multiple risk factors for violence in a sample of 603 mostly Hispanic youth... We assessed results across seven separate measures of youth violence and serious youth aggression, including the Child Behavior Checklist aggression and rule-breaking scales as reported by both children and their parents, involvement in violent and non-violent criminal behaviors and bullying behaviors against peers.
We found that depressed mood and association with delinquent peers were the strongest and most consistent risk factors for youth violence across outcome measures. Parents' use of verbal cruelty in domestic relationships and the child's antisocial personality traits were also reasonably strong predictors of violent behavior. By contrast video game violence exposure and television violence exposure were not found to be predictors of youth violence.
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DarkSaber: knell? Don't you mean Neil? Anymore of tht and I'll dub thee Zippy The Soecnda
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DarkSaber: JD's feeling rather desperate it seems.
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ZippyDSMlee: JD:I know they are intimate friends of yours...
Posted 11/20/09 at 03:44pm
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Neil and Bob?
JDKJ: @Zip: You know Neil and Bob?
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Comments
Duh. My peers depressed me long before I found video games.
On an actually serious note I have suffered from depression and social issues for a good deal of my life, video games didn't even enter the picture until late second grade early third.
This should not be surprising. It's too bad they couldn't find a sample more representative of the country as a whole, but you have to take what you can, and it was conducted in Texas. Still a good bit of research.
Isn't this kind of an obvious conclusion? I bet next we are going to hear that poor exonomic conditions also contributes to violence...
One needs to state the obvious for the ass hats who choose to ignore it.
And for the ass hat to continue ot ignore it ,at least it's out there.
Talkin about Jack Thompson?
We found that depressed mood and association with delinquent peers were the strongest and most consistent risk factors for youth violence across outcome measures. Parents' use of verbal cruelty in domestic relationships and the child's antisocial personality traits were also reasonably strong predictors of violent behavior. By contrast video game violence exposure and television violence exposure were not found to be predictors of youth violence.
This is where I blame bad parenting, poverty, and the child's psyche for the youth violence not video game, or TV. I've seen and hear report that youth violence was caused by bad parenting (even abuses like sexual), and sometime a child can be born with antisocial personality, or sociopath. How do you think Ted Bundy, Son of Sam, Charles Manson got those from? Video game? Yeah, I bet Son of Sam killed people because he played Grand Theft Auto 4, and I bet Charles Manson killed women in his apartment because he was a big fan of Manhunt series.
No, it was never video game, it was on how the child was raise or/and how they were born. IT WAS NEVER VIDEO GAME THAT MAKE THEM DO IT!!!!!!
*cue JT, Anderson, and Bushman saying Ferguson is a tool of the industry and covering up the true cause of youth violence in 3...2...1*
I understand they're always going to be people like them crying foul...And the traitor john bruce & the immoral crusaders cares more about money and attention than "for the children."
Hoping the study is accurate.
one phrase comes to mind
NO $**T SHERLOCK
dammit, beat me to it.
---
I once had a dream about God. In it, he was looking down upon the planet and the havoc we recked and he said unto us, "Damn Kids get off my lawn!"
Ferguson given a look at his history of doing Psychology at Texas and the way he does his research should be an interesting comparison compared to the likes of Anderson, Bushman and other people who have tried many times to link violence in Videogames to real life violence.
Hey, even politicians who seem to be so busy running their countries and singing in laws don't have enough time to study the facts hard enough to realize that their legislation on violence and pornography in Videogames is not really solving any of society's problems.
And on the flip side, violence and pornography in videogames when done right might also be better as it talks about the strong and uncomfortable themes of society's problems done though an entertainment medium and not though the news that can be even more distressing because the news (claims) to report on real life events, where videogames and movies can be fictional where the themes are used to portray the story about issues in real life.
It is only just my idea from what I have seen/played though videogames though, but my opinions can be different compared to other people on here.
Currently taking a Effects and Prosses of Mass Communication class, where we talk about just this. The professor took a poll at the begining of class. "How many of you watch Violent shows?" Everyone raises there hands. "How many of you actualy participate in Violent crimes" Nobody raises there hand. Point is, Violence doesn't occur becuase you see it or play it on a video game. It occurs when you are prone to it anyway. Usualy that means your eather not right psycologicly or you have other issues such as Depression.
Reminds me of another point I learned in my years of being bullied. Bullies Bully only because they suffer from there own personal issues. The only way they can make themselves feel better about themselves is by hurting others and making themselves feel more important. Nothing to do with video games.
Duh.
The only reply on the planet that fits this article
Never underestimate the power of idiots in large amounts.