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It doesn't seem like anyone has directly looked at my concern, which is the political effects of war gaming.

Last edited by XYZ (2006-01-26 4:34 pm)

XYZ wrote:

It doesn't seem like anyone has directly looked at my concern, which is the political effects of war gaming.

While I'm mulling over your previous posts, I'll just say this: I think the problem is that no one understands what you're trying to say about the political implications of violent video games.

Farmerkev wrote:

XYZ wrote:

It doesn't seem like anyone has directly looked at my concern, which is the political effects of war gaming.

Does Carl Rove spend hours playing violent video games?

Cute, but stupid, just like the "is Rove behind a plot to make young men play video games" nonsense.

How about arguing something based on what I've posted?

XYZ wrote:

Farmerkev wrote:

XYZ wrote:

It doesn't seem like anyone has directly looked at my concern, which is the political effects of war gaming.

Does Carl Rove spend hours playing violent video games?

Cute, but stupid, just like the "is Rove behind a plot to make young men play video games" nonsense.

How about arguing something based on what I've posted?

It's the name of your smurfing topic for christ sake!

Fascinating, Captain. Fascinating

XYZ wrote:

http://www.psychology.iastate.edu/faculty/caa/

Professor Kawashima is quoted by The Observer as saying "There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children - who play computer games - that we have never seen before.  The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic."  He appears convinced that children who play computer and video games excessively will not develop their frontal lobes and may be more prone to act more violently as they grow up.

http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/family … deojap.htm

Research published in 2000 demonstrates that playing violent video games can increase a person's aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behavior.  Two studies by psychologists Craig Anderson and Karen Dill published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology looked at the effects of violent video games in the lab and in real life.  This powerful combination of two studies presents persuasive evidence that violent video games do indeed increase aggression in some players.
....
The present research demonstrated that in both a correlational investigation using self-reports of real-world aggressive behaviors and an experimental investigation using a standard, objective laboratory measure of aggression, violent video game play was positively related to increases in aggressive behavior. In the laboratory, college students who played a violent video game behaved more aggressively toward an opponent than did students who had played a nonviolent video game. Outside the laboratory, students who reported playing more violent video games over a period of years also engaged in more aggressive behavior in their own lives. Both types of studies–correlational—real delinquent behaviors and experimental—laboratory aggressive behaviors have their strengths and weaknesses. The convergence of findings across such disparate methods lends considerable strength to the main hypothesis that exposure to violent video games can increase aggressive behavior. (Anderson & Dill, 2000)
http://mentalhealth.about.com/cs/family … olence.htm

Mangled?

So lets take that student playing games getting rated as more violent.  You are trying to assert causation, that because those students play violent games, they are more violent people.  But the study only asserts correlation.  It could be that students with poor interpersonal skills get rated as more violent because they cannot relate to others as well.  But because these students do not find interpersonal relations as fulfilling, they are more likely to get relatively more out of playing video games in general, especially the ones with easy to understand, non-interpersonal based skills.  Thus the violent students do not become violent because of the game, but play the game because they are violent students.  You have mangled what the study says.

XYZ wrote:

According to McVeigh, Kawashima was in need of funding for his brain imaging research, so he decided to investigate the levels of brain activity in children playing video games hoping that his research would benefit game manufacturers. Kawashima presented the findings at the annual conference of the private learning program Kumon Educational UK.  His findings are unlikely to win him any friends in the video game industry.

Kawashima made use of new techniques in computer imaging that can tell us which areas of the brain are being used in real time.  Kawashima compared brain activity in children playing Nintendo games with brain activity in children doing an exercise called the Kraepelin test, which involves adding single-digit numbers continuously for 30 minutes.   The Nintendo group was found to only be using parts of the brain associated with vision and movement, while the arithmetic group had activity throughout the left and right hemispheres of the frontal lobe - areas of the brain associated with learning, memory, emotion, and impulse control.

Is a task such as the Kraepelin test a fair comparison?  I believe that it is more than fair.  Adding single digit numbers is a very mundane task that does not sound like it would require much of the brain.  If video games use even less of the brain than the simple task of adding single digit numbers, then imagine how much less of the brain that they use than more complex activities such as socially interacting with peers.  Frontal lobe development is necessary for learning to control behavior, as well as for developing memory, emotion and learning.

How are the results mangled?

So here you are asserting that the spread of areas being stimulated in the brain is more important than the amount of stimulation, or amount learned, etc.  Mangling the study.

kb5zhh wrote:

So lets take that student playing games getting rated as more violent.  You are trying to assert causation, that because those students play violent games, they are more violent people.  But the study only asserts correlation.  It could be that students with poor interpersonal skills get rated as more violent because they cannot relate to others as well.  But because these students do not find interpersonal relations as fulfilling, they are more likely to get relatively more out of playing video games in general, especially the ones with easy to understand, non-interpersonal based skills.  Thus the violent students do not become violent because of the game, but play the game because they are violent students.  You have mangled what the study says.

Professor Kawashima is quoted by The Observer as saying "There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children - who play computer games - that we have never seen before.  The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic."  He appears convinced that children who play computer and video games excessively will not develop their frontal lobes and may be more prone to act more violently as they grow up.

This is just one quote that conflicts with your appraisal.

XYZ wrote:

kb5zhh wrote:

So lets take that student playing games getting rated as more violent.  You are trying to assert causation, that because those students play violent games, they are more violent people.  But the study only asserts correlation.  It could be that students with poor interpersonal skills get rated as more violent because they cannot relate to others as well.  But because these students do not find interpersonal relations as fulfilling, they are more likely to get relatively more out of playing video games in general, especially the ones with easy to understand, non-interpersonal based skills.  Thus the violent students do not become violent because of the game, but play the game because they are violent students.  You have mangled what the study says.

Professor Kawashima is quoted by The Observer as saying "There is a problem we will have with a new generation of children - who play computer games - that we have never seen before.  The implications are very serious for an increasingly violent society and these students will be doing more and more bad things if they are playing games and not doing other things like reading aloud or learning arithmetic."  He appears convinced that children who play computer and video games excessively will not develop their frontal lobes and may be more prone to act more violently as they grow up.

This is just one quote that conflicts with your appraisal.

You stupid fool.  I was not making a claim on what the study meant.  I was pointing out the limits of the study.  You refuse to recognize these limitations.

XYZ wrote:

Since the mangled herring has been addressed, how about debunking each study, carefully and directly?

so by addressed, you mean grabbed a random quote by some guy.

kb5zhh wrote:

XYZ wrote:

Since the mangled herring has been addressed, how about debunking each study, carefully and directly?

so by addressed, you mean grabbed a random quote by some guy.

It's not a "random quote" and he's not "some guy".