Swedish Study Says Videogames Do Not Cause Aggression

[BrotherRool]

This article has misrepresented the truth slightly. Bad journalism! The title is awful it's should say 'Swedish Study Says Videogames Haven't Been Proved to Cause Aggression' to be anything like close to the truth. That's what the quote means, you've just truncated the 'there is no evidence' bit, which actually has an important meaning.

Please don't do a Fox

So what they are saying is that nobody knows what the hell is actually causing these kids to be agressive just that they are.

No it's not saying that. It's saying one of two things are true. Either a) Videogames make children more violent, or b) Violent children are more likely to play videogames

This study has proved a link, we just don't know the direction yet. It's not saying that there is a scrap of evidence suggesting videogames don't lead to violence, just that all things can go two ways.

Which in itself is not surprising, proving a causal relationship in _anything_ is really hard. Especially if you want long term affects, because then you can't even mess around with the variables in an experiment.

For instance, I could take constant surveys of people who've just been in the sea and what I could show is that there's a relationship between swimming in the sea and being wet. What this study is pointing out is that doesn't prove it's necessarily the case. Maybe the only people who want to go swimming are people who are wet. Maybe being wet causes swimming.

The only way to prove the truth is to take surveys of people before and after they swim. So we need children who aren't violent and have never played videogames and then many years later having started playing games, they are now violent. It takes time and a lot of good data because many things can change in a child as they, you know, grow up.

 

[JesterRaiin]

In other words, "There is no evidence that violent computer games cause aggressive behavior," the council said.

It took one blink of an eye to invent this whole fairy tale with games and aggression.
Years later and tenths of serious studies proving otherwise there are still some that don't and probably won't ever believe it.

We're very strange species...

 

[Robert Ewing]

Because Sweden is among the enlightened god tier countries, I expect nothing less than solid truth from their scientists.

Today, I got that.

 

[Braedan]

"As parents, we can stand and freeze on the sidelines of a football pitch or listen to out of tune recorder concerts - but we can't engage in their computer gaming,"

I think what you mean to say is that you can't engage in their computer gaming. People engage in other people's gaming all the time. The fact that a larger gaming community exists is proof of this. So I find it hard to believe that a parent couldn't engage in their children's gaming experiences.

I believe that was meant to be a question.
"but we can't engage in their computer gaming?"
Asking why parents don't, rather than say they can't.

 

[BrotherRool]

In other words, "There is no evidence that violent computer games cause aggressive behavior," the council said.

It took one blink of an eye to onvent this whole fairy tale with games and aggression.
Years later and tenths of serious studies proving otherwise there are still some that don't ant probably won't ever believe it.

We're very strange species...

You haven't understood the meaning properly!!!!

They have said there is clear evidence that people who play videogames are more violent. What they are saying is there's no evidence that it's just that violent people are the sort of people who play videogames and non-violent people have other hobbies.

So it's not a 'fairytale' this scientific study said there is no evidence of a causal relationship but strong strong evidence of correlation. They haven't just haven't proven it either way yet. What would confirm your view is if they said 'There is evidence to suggest that there is a causal relationship between violent behaviour and playing videogames'

Or 'There is evidence to suggest there is no relationship between violence and videogames'

'There is no evidence to suggest a causal relationship between videogames and violent behaviour' is something completely different.

Science phrases things oddly, we're just falling into the natural trap that people fall into when they harp on about the word 'theory'

 

[gigastrike]

I stopped caring about these studies a long time ago.

 

[BrotherRool]

No it's not saying that. It's saying one of two things are true. Either a) Videogames make children more violent, or b) Violent children are more likely to play videogames

That actually was the point I was actually trying to get across. Except I decided to use a little more swearing and a little less coherent.

I'm so sorry, I missed two very important words in your sentence that changed the meaning completely 'they are'

I apologise for trying to lecture you, most of the people in this thread (and the article ) seemed to have missed the difference between the two things

 

[AugustFall]

People in the media need to learn that correlation =/= causation. Bidirectionality and 3rd variables make it impossible to tell what causes what.

Firstly, I agree with you and have absolutely no quarrel with this article, but you raised an interesting question in me that I thought might be worth sharing. Is it the medias responsibility to learn that, or is the onus with the individual reading any given piece to apply such filters?

That is a good point. I would say since the titles of the headlines take scientific research that shows a correlation and package it as scientific fact that "this causes or does not cause this" it is the media's responsibility.
Incorrectly stating facts that cannot be derived from the research you are citing is terrible journalism. If you do not understand what you are writing about then do not write about it.
There is some onus on the reader I suppose to understand that if they want information they should look for scientific journals. However these are not welcoming if you are not versed in the vocabulary used as with many scholarly journals and publications.
People are taught to look to the media to filter out the uninteresting stuff and explain things. That is their job in my opinion.

 

[The Floating Nose]

That sums up what i have to say about that .

 

[TheCruxis]

Finally, a study from an actual socialist country that don't have corrupt suit-monkeys paying it off to make "item X" look bad.

Sadly we aren't socialists anymore. We have a right-wing goverment since 2006 and they have done a good jobb of screwing our country up in a short amount of time.

Sorry, offtopic I know. But I couldn't care less about this. I have never belived that games make people violent and I will never belive it, but it's always fun when our small nation in the periphery gets mentioned.

 

[Yopaz]

I love these articles.

Video games cause violence? "DOWN WITH THE ARTICLE, IT'S BIASED".

Video games don't? "UNBIASED ARTICLE PEOPLE! HELL YEAH".

But yeah, at this point nobody's mind is going to be changed. There's been so many studies well, yeah, at this point you'd expect everyone to have their minds made up.

That is because this is one of the few articles that actually states that there's no proof between violence and playing video games. That better parenting is probably the key to prevent violent behaviour. Because other articles contains scientists that say something along the lines "We see brainwaves from x spiking as they x in the game indicating that they react in x way to violence in a virtual world" leads to headlines "Videogames will cause you to murder someone!".
This article doesn't dismiss the claim completely. It is simply saying we don't have any clear connection that says games -> aggression.
In simple terms this is a better article because it doesn't say anything conclusive because there's no conclusive answer to this. Games is one factor of our lives, but our lives are more than games.

 

[awesomeClaw]

Finally, a study from an actual socialist country that don't have corrupt suit-monkeys paying it off to make "item X" look bad.

Sadly we aren't socialists anymore. We have a right-wing goverment since 2006 and they have done a good jobb of screwing our country up in a short amount of time.

Sorry, offtopic I know. But I couldn't care less about this. I have never belived that games make people violent and I will never belive it, but it's always fun when our small nation in the periphery gets mentioned.

I agree, a right wing goverment in Sweden is a bad idea.

But honestly, I can´t blame people for voting on the Moderates. I mean, the Social democrats are falling apart, especially since they hired a goddamn tax cheater for their leader. The left need to make a full revamp, because right now there´s a good chance the moderates will win pretty much all elections withing the next two decades. And none of us want that.

OT: This is why I love my country, despite it´s faults. Ever the realist, aren´t you, Sweden?

 

[Dango]

I'm still gonna go with the studies that say they do cause aggression, just in such small amounts that they have absolutely no real effect unless you're naturally an aggressive person.

Because that way both sides can stop caring.

 

[Something Amyss]

This makes the most sense, if any of the other "studies" that said violent video games cause violence were true, the world would be in anarchy by now

Not to mention, what they tend to say is the same thing. Aggressive kids play video games.

They don't actually come up with evidence to support they cause aggression.

But that's hardly a headline worthy statement.

 

[Excludos]

I usually hate the "videogames don't cause violence" as much as the opposite articles, as they're usually biased as hell and only exists to have their different fanbases go "mhm, yes, yes!".

But this one was actually very well written.

 

[JesterRaiin]

In other words, "There is no evidence that violent computer games cause aggressive behavior," the council said.

It took one blink of an eye to onvent this whole fairy tale with games and aggression.
Years later and tenths of serious studies proving otherwise there are still some that don't ant probably won't ever believe it.

We're very strange species...

You haven't understood the meaning properly!!!!

They have said there is clear evidence that people who play videogames are more violent. What they are saying is there's no evidence that it's just that violent people are the sort of people who play videogames and non-violent people have other hobbies.

Thanks for explanation, but naaaaaaaaaaaah, i'm sure i understood it like i was meant to.

"Not causal" means one does not cause another. So, perhaps violent people tend to play more aggressive games. Perhaps thanks to this activity they are 25% less violent. Perhaps the opposite. However there's no evidence that playing aggressive games change people into bloodthirsty monsters and that's the bottom line i guess.

 

[mad825]

...So in short.

We cannot find anything and now have given-up. We declare it has no effect however make sure you continue to monitor the content in which the child is exposed to.

Great work Sweden. No need to prove a counterargument huh?