Why oh why is there so much hate

VioletSky

Video games have nothing to do with hate

Most video game platforms and developers have very strong policies against hate speech and ban users for it.

A lot of game platforms also celebrate LGBTQ and Black history month.

I am on the playground every day amd watch children act out their favourite games and it's not violent. For something like Fortnite where you are thrown into an arena with 100 other players till 1 wins, the mechanics are that no-one actually dies, they are projections.

And what do children bring to school? The little dances their characters do.

What makes children grow up violent is growing up in violent households and areas or other kinds if abuse or neglect that makes them hurt and defensive.

When I deal with violence at school 9 times out of 10 it is children who both think the other is the bully and have both been told at home, "if x annoys you punch him" or "if x punches you punch him back harder".

When the rules are different at school than they are at home, that's when we come up with issues.

A naive and current view. Damage of pre moderation/ legislative gaming is already done

Desensitisation is the cause. How would one explain the high prevalence of so thought " well off" and privileged offenders? They learned their abhorrent behaviour at home? Modern gaming has nought to do with the cassette loaded rubbish watched and played in isolation by the generation now offending and the generation now the inhabitants of prisons?
Road rash / mortal Kombat/death wish all seemingly innocuous but not so. LGBTQ+ and BLM mentions do nothing to address or reverse the damage done by extremely violent and misogynistic rubbish produce and devoured by kids in 80/90s. Seems the adults need to learn some lessons about the real dangers in life before pontificating.

I agree Galaxy violent games just like violent films do impact on young minds. The glorification of violence is not good for young and impressionable minds.

That's just personal opinion

People are aware of that right?

Studies suggest otherwise

And again this thread is about hate leading to violence

Hate has existed before videogames

Or have we forgotten the hate driven atrocities committed in wars and concentration camps?

Some studies do not suggest otherwise. I'm not disputing that hate existed before video games. Violence isn't the only way of expressing hate but when it is expressed in that way, video games and films play a part.

VioletSky

And again this thread is about hate leading to violence

Hate has existed before videogames

Or have we forgotten the hate driven atrocities committed in wars and concentration camps?

.

Fear is the greatest driver if discrimination and so named " hate" crimes I believe. Humans fear those things which we do not understand or which we perceive to threaten us. Fuelled by lack of facts and knowledge, very difficult to educate and inform.. you can drag a horse to water.......

The masses feared annihilation by collapsing state and were ripe for directing their fear to a common enemy or cause of said collapse.i.e. the Jewish community ,and/or anyone not native to their country. It happens everywhere all the time. And posters, air drops bills posting were the equivalent to messages carried on internet and in gaming platforms.same dross different method of delivery.

I'm a gamer, and it's a hobby shared with my children

I am a member of a lot of gaming communities

Many are some of the kindest most helpful people you could ever meet

Some aren't

Same as any demographic

Good post Gabrielle. I was thinking the same about the rise of anti semitism in the lead up to the holocaust. The gross caricature representations of Jews, the posters etc which as you say were the equivalent to messages on the internet and just as damaging.

I'd like to see links to studies that prove there is no link between video games and violence. They are incredibly difficult to carry out.

Firstly, who is going to put their child forward for participation in a study that will expose them to even potentially dangerous material? Even if parents did want to co-operate, research would have to go before an ethics committee, and they are (understandably) very tight on anything involving children.

Secondly, how do the researchers screen out other influences, to be sure that it is games, and not other things that have caused any violence that they find?

Thirdly, children who have never played games are relatively rare, so who will form a control group, and how typical of their peer group are they likely to be?

Fourthly, studies take time, and ones looking to show cause and affect are usually longitudinal. Games evolve all the time, so those being played at the start of a study are likely to be out of date by the end, so results become invalid.

To summarise, finding correlation in topics like this is relatively easy, eg that X% of children who play games commit violent crimes - more general findings such as 'become violent', or 'carry out violent acts' are based on subjective definitions of what is meant by 'violence'; but finding causation is much more difficult, as both control groups and willing participants are hard to find, and as games technology is fast-moving, studies can be out of date before they are published.

Studies into more general impact of the media (eg TV, film and so on) tend to show that violent children (and adults) have usually watched more violent media, but not that more consumers of violent media have become violent than not. It's all very inconclusive. I haven't seen any recent studies about games, but I would be interested to see the methodology as much as the results.

Google is your friend there

www.cybersmile.org/news/new-study-reveals-no-link-between-violent-video-games-and-real-life-violence

Thanks, PaperMonster, I'll take a look.

If we all just googled there would be no discussion, and no need for GN, VS. I think you brought 'studies' up, so I assumed you might have some insights into how they carried out the research, and it would have added something to the debate.

Interestingly I heard that boys who committed the Bulger murder were neglected all day, didn’t go to school, were left to themselves and spent the time watching horror videos. Chucky being one of them.

If online porn can affect young women’s appearance so much as we see now (trout pout etc etc), it seems to me that there must be an eroding of sensibility with a constant onslaught of violence.
But as the video games business is so profitable, ‘they’ would say otherwise wouldn’t they?

I don't really like posting links anymore

It has wasted a lot of my time and they aren't often received well for various reasons

So I think it's best people have a look for themselves and choose a few to read

It was never established that Thompson and Venables had seen Chucky. One of their dads (Venables I think) had rented it, but there is no evidence that they had watched it. Gita Sereny wrote an excellent essay on the case, which is published in 'Cries Unheard' the story of Mary Bell. The book is a very good read for anyone interested in why children kill. Bell committed murder in the 1960s at the age of 11, so would never have played a video game or watched a violent film.

I believe Thompson and Venables covered the child in blue paint, which is what happened in the Chucky movie where they were trying to kill the evil doll. It would seem the boys may have been playing a 'game' based on the movie, or why else the blue paint?

Thank you PaperMonster but for me "no evidence to suggest" a link still leaves room for doubt.

I seem to remember that too Chestnut and the parents coming in for a lot of criticism from the media for not supervising what their boys had access too.

Both cases are very disturbing, especially the level of violence in the murder of that poor little boy.

I think it's dangerous to put personal opinions before research etc for mental health reasons

I agree that 'no evidence to suggest a link' is not much different from 'no evidence to suggest that there is not a link'. It's the sort of headline used in PR or journalism to make the point that the author wants to be true.

It's such a difficult area for the reasons I outlined above. It is always important to check who is doing research of any kind, and look for a possible source of bias, and also important to look at the methodology, which in this case is even more difficult to get right than in other areas of social science.

I think that a 'common sense' approach would be to think that games will influence children, but if that is the case then so would other media, and the jury really is still out on that - and that is after decades of research into media of all types, including studies carried out when ethical considerations were pretty much optional :grin:. My heart says games are likely to have an impact, but my head says that they probably don't, so basically I don't know.

That's why I suggested looking yourself doodledog

I've gotten to know you a bit

There isn't much difference Doodledog and neither substantiates a definitive conclusion. My head tells me that violent games and films can have an impact especially if what's being played and/or viewed is considered inappropriate for the child engaged due to their age, which is why so many are certified by age, and if there's no input from a responsible adult.