Poll: Do you believe in the desensitizing effect?

[slipknot4]

It's real but over hyped. I've seen people puking over people being shot in fallout 3 while i laugh at movies like Rambo and Dawn of the Dead.
But i am however very sensitive when it comes to real life murder and fleshy wounds.

 

[omega 616]

I think some people are confusing desensitizing with influencing, playing manhunt will desensitize you violence, not influence you to go out and put a plastic bag over there head and punch them repeatedly!

I actually experimented on myself with this and it worked so I believe in it.

 

[Ph33nix]

yeah for me its the holocaust my school has shoved so much of it down my throat that now when we see images from the holocaust we are just like "gee that looks like it kinda sucked" not the reaction you are supposed to get from those images. even the girls in my school think that way now. (I am a senior at a high school) My school has desensitized me and everyone else in my school to the largest genocide in human history. is it me or is that really wrong? far worse than any videogame could have done.

 

[orangebandguy]

I'm very emotionally stable, and a charming guy thankyou very much.

 

[MelasZepheos_v1legacy]

Real but severely overhyped.

Pretty much everything you ever encounter in life will desensitise you in some way, or else it will fuck you up. Those are the only options. Having sex either begins to desensitise you, or you get neurotic and freaked. Getting into your first fight desensitises you to fighting, or you never fight again.

Movies, books, games, comics, cartoons. Everything we witness has an effect on our brain, generally to make whatever we are watching seem more commonplace, but only within the context of the thing we are watching it in. If I kill people in a game, it desensitises me to killing people inside a video game. I watch people die in a movie and I think it's okay for people to die in a movie. That doesn't translate outwards to make me think it's okay to kill in real life.

So yeah, overhyped, focused too strongly on games, and not taking into account psychological studies which go a good way towards proving that only the deeply insane can make the leap from the fantasy to the real, and it could happen from any medium.

 

[Anihil8]

It's less 'being desensitized to violence/sex' and more being able to destinguish between real life and the computor generated pictures on your screen. Im sure there are people who faint at a small amount of blood, but don't care about the afforementioned headshots in Fallout 3.

 

[Megacherv]

It does the opposite. Without games, the murders would prbably have started by now...

 

[Serge A. Storms]

I think the real question might be "who cares?"

 

[Et3rnalLegend64]

It exists, but it becomes overblown to the point that people think it's the same thing as "become violent." Yes, the media can change the dictionary (at least for the people who stick to their word too closely)

 

[Erisnas]

I have always viewed it as desensitizing but not necessarily a terrible thing. It would be more likely to allow the average person to stay calm in a disaster or critical situation then make them the one causing the incident.

 

[JIst00]

It has a soothing effect on me. If i couldnt take my rage out and kill pixels, I'd have probably commited mass murder by now. God I hate fucking miuth-breathers.

Jessica Rabbit had more of the "sex" efrfect on me than games ever did, i mean Jessica Rabbit is fucking lush =P

 

[flare09]

I must say desensitization is real. But it doesn't come from video games. I'd say being exposed to the internet is more desensitizing, at least for me, than video games are.

 

[Sisyphus0]

Sorry for the wall of text, but I think that these points are worth bringing up.

I based my vote on the desensitizing effect, not on what you were talking about in regard to making people more prone to violence. I'd say that I have become desensitized to violent images, and some forms of real world violence. But that doesn't mean that those who have become desensitized are more prone to violence. The logic doesn't flow, desensitization does not lead to one committing violence acts themselves, merely they aren't emotionally affected when they see others commit violent acts on others.

I will say though, that my opinion, as well as the others who have and will post, are really irrelevant. If I had taken the time to review the research in the area, for and against it, I'd feel much more confident in my response. Right now I just have a general sort of idea of what I think about it, which is useless. If you want to write a paper on this you should review the peer reviewed research, a unqualified persons opinion is useless.

This is why I have a problem with how you worded the question. One 'believing' or not 'believing' in a scientifically confirmed phenomena doesn't change whether it is true or not. I would suggest you reword it to, "Do you agree with the hypothesis that there exists a desensitizing effect, and moreover, do you think that this makes those who are affected more prone to committing violent acts themselves." I really have a problem with the term belief in a scientific context. That word has far to much baggage and really takes away from the scientific aspect of it, it subtlety implies that something has a 50/50 chance of being true, which is almost never the case in science. I would highly suggest that you use another word when you hand in the report.

to my knowledge, there has only been one test done, where 257 people were tested to see the effect of violent games on people. I doubt 257 people can show for the billions of people worldwide. I guess the term "hypothesis" WOULD be the best term to use, but I still believe it is up to the individual to decide the effects of games on their own.

It doesn't have to be specific to video games, there are plenty of psychological studies (I would definitely assume so anyway) in relation to desensitizing. Hell, I can think of one right now, the Milgram experiment. While that isn't related to entertainment at all, it is related to desensitization.

I also strongly disagree with your last statement. While people have the freedom to make up their own minds, which I feel they should do as often as they can, these individuals who decide for themselves the effects of games who have no academic background in the area should be completely ignored. If they want their 'opinion' to be respected by anyone they should have data and a reason for 'believing' the way they do. If the effect has been confirmed scientifically, people who disagree should have reason/evidence for doing so which discredits the possible validity of the claim. Also if one does have a claim, it should be backed with evidence. Your statement makes it seem as if the presence or absence of this phenomena is open to a colloquial debate among non-scholarly people, and that their opinions are worth something at all. This claim should be investigated scientifically, the opinion of one who is not knowledgeable in this field, that being psychology, or not aware of the data which was recorded scientifically, is worthless, and this person's opinions should be regarded by all others as worthless.

Perhaps I was a little harsh in regard to your last sentence, but it strikes me the same way that typical creationist justification does. Their "present both sides of the argument and let the kids decide" argument is so horribly deceptive that when anyone even echos a similar notion in regard to science, I get very annoyed. While I don't think that was your intention, you are implying that all opinions are equal, when they anything but.

In case you are going to accuse me of having unrealistic expectations, I don't hold this level of acceptability to everything. But you are writing a paper on something that is entirely in the realm of psychology. The fact that you are asking people on a gaming website what they colloquially think is in no way useful, unless your intention isn't to discuss the validity of the claim, but the emic perspective of those who are affected by it.

 

[Shoes]

This is actually true, after a childhood of playing horror games im less prone to getting scared then most of my friends

 

[Deathman101]

Of course there is a desensitising effect. That's what I blame for when halfway through Bioshock I saw some more severed corpses and I thought "Boooooring". I mean, damn. I've put more virtual men in my sights than half the combined men in the army. Same affect (or effect?) from movies and other etertainment.

That's the desensitization I believe in as well, and it saddens me because it ruins my god damn immersion!

But on the other hand, who would you rather have beside you in a hostile situation, a freakout who has been sheltered from every form of violence for their whole life, or a concentrated, but desensitized gamer.

 

[Seldon2639]

It has a soothing effect on me. If i couldnt take my rage out and kill pixels, I'd have probably commited mass murder by now. God I hate fucking miuth-breathers.

Jessica Rabbit had more of the "sex" efrfect on me than games ever did, i mean Jessica Rabbit is fucking lush =P

The world of psychology says you're not only wrong, but wrong on almost every level. The whole "catharsis releases rage" thing doesn't work. Giving into anger/rage/whatever else, and then having a release produces endorphins and serotonin which basically trains your brain that giving into anger is a good experience. You're more likely to become enraged the more often you give into your rage, study after study confirms it.

Violent behavior (virtual or real) only feeds more violent behavior. We're hard-wired

 

[RoseBridge]

It does desensitize, I have fun killing and getting head shots in fallout 3 which are ultra violent, but at the same time when I see a run over squirrel or dog in the street with its guts out, i feel very uneasy,grossed out, and sad.
people just need to be aware of game reality and actual reality, and a lot of gamers can tell the difference but there's always one person who is already on the edge of violence.

 

[Lullabye]

Its real alright. If i can be taught that killing is wrong and disgusting by religion and other things, then its a double standard.

 

[dududf]

Well I've been killing Nazis since I was 7 years old.

I'm 15 now and I still fear violence, and seeing dead animals on the side of road makes me very upset.

I truly believe that desensitizing will only occur if someone cannot see the difference between GAME and Real Life.

Just my 2 cents.

 

[crudus]

I have been playing game since I was three and I do not feel the urge to kill things or have horribly pixelated sex. I have seen far more worse things in PG and PG-13 movies than Mass Effect anyway. It may desensitize us to blood (which in my opinion is a good thing since we need more doctors) but that is as far as it goes and that is only in the extreme cases.