Beefy's Corner - The Off-Topic Chat Thread

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tomw19:5438265 said:
TheSecondStain said:
As committed exponents of GTA, would you say that playing it might encourage someone, scraping along, on the fringes of society, to steal..? Maybe a youngster might a get moral value or two slightly skewed, or is it purely a place to unburden yourself, as in a catholic confessional, only in this case, you enjoy it..?

Semi-serious question, I think.
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Well you do hear of people doing stuff in these sorts of games and doing it in the real world. I remember someone killing their friend after playing COD or something like that.
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I remember a story not too long ago, it was a man in his 30s, playing his neighbour who was a young kid of 14 or something. Obviously the kid was much better (more time in his hands), so he kept killing the adult(and no doubt mocking him while he did it), until the adult went round there with a knife and killed him "irl", as it were.

This story is less about someone copying the game, more to do with someone being frustrated because of the game, I suppose.

I don't buy the link between violent games/ movies and them being carried into real life. Did people start choking on pennies after Pac Man, or getting run over after Frogger? Although, he movie Trainspotting does make heroin loom like a good laugh...
 
TheSecondStain said:
Personally, I think a game like GTA could become a contributing factor to an evolving mind, but no, I agree, it won't change one on its own.
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I agree in a way, but you need to have some level of psychological difficulties as it is, to struggle to differentiate between real life and a game. These people would surely be triggered by something else somewhere down the line, it's basically impossible to avoid exposure to violence etc today.
 
Dan said:
I agree in a way, but you need to have some level of psychological difficulties as it is, to struggle to differentiate between real life and a game. These people would surely be triggered by something else somewhere down the line, it's basically impossible to avoid exposure to violence etc today.
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As part of a academic study I once wrote a psychology piece on young children exposed to a diet of violent television. Not ultra violent, but violence where the consequences weren't realistic. Such as cartoon violence, like Tom & Jerry, for example. Acceptable stuff still to this day, in many parts of the World. I proposed an experiment in which there would be TV's quietly showing cartoon violence while children were at play in a nursery environment. The children would be monitored by closed circuit cameras and the nature of their behaviours recorded. For a control I proposed another class where the TV background would be totally non-violent TV. This control group would also be monitored. Both groups would contain a cross section of nursery children.

This was in the era prior to the internet, so imagine my surprise when a lecturer came up to me one day and said she'd seen my piece and did I know that actual tests had been conducted in the USA, [I think] during the 1960's where the content of violent TV was monitored for its effect on young children in a controlled environment. In all the tests, the behavioural change in the children being shown the violent TV was statistically significant. In fact, in a lot of cases the children copycatted the behaviour even though there was little actual evidence that were they'd been even looking at the TVs. The control group children's behaviours did not change.

If I remember rightly, the change was so dramatic that the tests were cut short after protests were made by the parents, although I may have not remembered that last bit correctly. I think the experiment series has only been tried once. I might even look it up. There must be some stuff about it on the net.
 
TheSecondStain said:
As part of a academic study I once wrote a psychology piece on young children exposed to a diet of violent television. Not ultra violent, but violence where the consequences weren't realistic. Such as cartoon violence, like Tom & Jerry, for example. Acceptable stuff still to this day, in many parts of the World. I proposed an experiment in which there would be TV's quietly showing cartoon violence while children were at play in a nursery environment. The children would be monitored by closed circuit cameras and the nature of their behaviours recorded. For a control I proposed another class where the TV background would be totally non-violent TV. This control group would also be monitored. Both groups would contain a cross section of nursery children.

This was in the era prior to the internet, so imagine my surprise when a lecturer came up to me one day and said she'd seen my piece and did I know that actual tests had been conducted in the USA, [I think] during the 1960's where the content of violent TV was monitored for its effect on young children in a controlled environment. In all the tests, the behavioural change in the children being shown the violent TV was statistically significant. In fact, in a lot of cases the children copycatted the behaviour even though there was little actual evidence that were they'd been even looking at the TVs. The control group children's behaviours did not change.

If I remember rightly, the change was so dramatic that the tests were cut short after protests were made by the parents, although I may have not remembered that last bit correctly. I think the experiment series has only been tried once. I might even look it up. There must be some stuff about it on the net.
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I'm not sure if it's the exact study, but this is relative. The criticisms all seem fair enough to me to lessen the effectiveness of the study - I'm just not convinced it's applicable in "real world" situations. If the kids were put to play in a room with other kids and went around punching them, then it'd be telling, but I suppose that's too unethical to experiment.
 
Dan said:
I'm not sure if it's the exact study, but this is relative. The criticisms all seem fair enough to me to lessen the effectiveness of the study - I'm just not convinced it's applicable in "real world" situations. If the kids were put to play in a room with other kids and went around punching them, then it'd be telling, but I suppose that's too unethical to experiment.
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Good find Dan.

That's not the experiment as I remember but it is highly relative. Especially near the bottom of the page where it is explained that children were exposed to live, filmed and cartooned versions of the same violence and they all reacted in a heightened aggressive manner. Yes, it would be unethical to repeat it as the experiment may actually set an undesirable behavioural pattern in the child that may not be changed thereafter.

You know what, I may be mixing up my own piece with what I was told by the lecturer, and that may indeed be the experiment. Anyway, the significant behavioural changes are surprising. Young impressionable minds, eh..?

EDIT: BTW, I read your answer Oli.
 
TheSecondStain said:
Good find Dan.

That's not the experiment as I remember but it is highly relative. Especially near the bottom of the page where it is explained that children were exposed to live, filmed and cartooned versions of the same violence and they all reacted in a heightened aggressive manner. Yes, it would be unethical to repeat it as the experiment may actually set an undesirable behavioural pattern in the child that may not be changed thereafter.

You know what, I may be mixing up my own piece with what I was told by the lecturer, and that may indeed be the experiment. Anyway, the significant behavioural changes are surprising. Young impressionable minds, eh..?
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There may well be others, but yeah, that's the one I immediately thought of. There are a few more aggression ones at the back of my memory, one related to video games I think, which would be particularly topical - if I remember any level of detail I'll bring it up in here.

Thankfully those young impressionable minds aren't playing GTA - or at least the ones with competent parents aren't!
 
Dan said:
There may well be others, but yeah, that's the one I immediately thought of. There are a few more aggression ones at the back of my memory, one related to video games I think, which would be particularly topical - if I remember any level of detail I'll bring it up in here.

Thankfully those young impressionable minds aren't playing GTA - or at least the ones with competent parents aren't!
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You know when I said I might look some of this up..? Jackpot..! http://crx.sagepub.com/content/21/4/516.short

Our survey said... Ping..! Top answer - violent video games. I think I'll bookmark that site for now. ;)
 
Even without studies, it is obvious that exposure of young minds to excessive violence and pornography is a bad thing. Children are little human beings who are in the process of learning about the world around them by observation and mimicking: monkey see, monkey do. Children in good homes will probably suffer less by such exposure than those in bad homes...sadly the worst exposure is in the latter group. Children who are not set good examples and who are not really wanted or cared about will be affected more by violent images or become desensitised to them. I imagine that the increasing reality of cartoon images may make this worse...Wiley Coyote being squashed by an anvil is obviously a long way from reality. It is all about balance: a happy child playing a computer game for a short while but also being with his family and playing sport will be minimally affected when compared with an unloved child whose only social interaction is with a tv screen.
 
I remember learning about the Bobo Doll experiment in A Level Psychology. I think we concluded it was more to do with the kids immitating the actions of adults rather than the violence per se.

Dan said:
There may well be others, but yeah, that's the one I immediately thought of. There are a few more aggression ones at the back of my memory, one related to video games I think, which would be particularly topical - if I remember any level of detail I'll bring it up in here.

Thankfully those young impressionable minds aren't playing GTA - or at least the ones with competent parents aren't!
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This is the real problem! I'm pretty sure those squeaky voices I hear when I'm playing COD/ Read Dead Redemption/ GTA are not 18! And the graphic violence is only half the problem, what about my graphic language? Parents don't seem to take the certificate on a game as seriously as the one on a movie. Or maybe the shops aren't taking them as seriously? Does anyone remember being under 18 and walking into HMV or Game and buying an 18 certificate game? I had GTA III and GTA Vice City back in the day, I'm sure I bought them on my own with my own cash!

fran-MLs little camera said:
Even without studies, it is obvious that exposure of young minds to excessive violence and pornography is a bad thing. Children are little human beings who are in the process of learning about the world around them by observation and mimicking: monkey see, monkey do. Children in good homes will probably suffer less by such exposure than those in bad homes...sadly the worst exposure is in the latter group. Children who are not set good examples and who are not really wanted or cared about will be affected more by violent images or become desensitised to them. I imagine that the increasing reality of cartoon images may make this worse...Wiley Coyote being squashed by an anvil is obviously a long way from reality. It is all about balance: a happy child playing a computer game for a short while but also being with his family and playing sport will be minimally affected when compared with an unloved child whose only social interaction is with a tv screen.
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The porn thing genuinly worries me. Of course boys will watch porn and grow up thinking that stuff is normal. Hasn't this already happened?
 
On_The_Bus said:
Is this the best play in American Football history? I think so...
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Heh, that looks to be high school level, and if so that play would've been/should've been called back. Hurdling an opponent is illegal for safety reasons.
 
Dan said:
There may well be others, but yeah, that's the one I immediately thought of. There are a few more aggression ones at the back of my memory, one related to video games I think, which would be particularly topical - if I remember any level of detail I'll bring it up in here.

Thankfully those young impressionable minds aren't playing GTA - or at least the ones with competent parents aren't!
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It seems to be one of those areas where many people have opinions but there is not huge amounts of (high quality modern) research. Someone could do a survey of how many violent crimes are committed by video game players but I suppose it's not as simple as that. My guess is that it could be a minor factor when combined with things like low quality education, lack of responsible parenting, peer pressure, and all those other social + economic things which are a lot more difficult to fix.
 
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