Here is an interesting webpage asking the question “Do violent video games contribute to youth violence?”

http://videogames.procon.org/#pro_con

This webpage then lists numerous arguments making the case for and against. What’s quite interesting is that the Pro side argues that violent video games increase aggression, increase desensitization and decrease empathy. While the Con side argues that violent video games do not increase violent crime.

Unfortunately the Pro side ignores the fact that violent crime rates have gone down substantially. This is, I think, a mistake. The whole issue of violent crime rates going down, while at the same time sales of violent video games have gone up, should be dealt with. It could very well be that violent video games (and violent TV/movies) do indeed contribute to violent crime, but that this effect is masked by the enormous increase in the incarceration rate. Basically, the question should be “if we had the same rate of incarceration as we did in the early 1960s, would the violent crime rate be as low as it was during the early 1960s?”. Or in other words “could we release 80% of the prison population without an increase in violent crime?” Personally, I think not.

http://tvsmarter.wordpress.com/2012/01/15/do-violent-video-games-reduce-violent-crime/

Meanwhile the Con side focuses on the issue of violent crime, pretty much ignoring the issue of increased aggression and decreased empathy. Their attitude seems to be that as long as violent video games don’t increase violent crimes that any other effects don’t matter.

Personally, I do believe that violent media was the main cause of the doubling of the homicide rate from the early 1960s to the late 1970s and which stayed very high until it finally started to come down starting in the early 1990s. But it is impossible to prove this one way or another.

But let’s say, for the sake of argument, that violent media (for whatever reason) has not contributed to increased violent crime. Nevertheless increased aggression, increased desensitization and decreased empathy do lead to other bad outcomes. Note the term ‘aggression’ is used by researchers to mean “willingness to harm others”. So what are the effects on society when more and more children are being taught (by violent TV/movies and video games) to be more willing to harm others?

Could all this violent media be contributing to:

• more physical bullying
• more non-physical bullying, such as name-calling and spreading ugly rumors
• more cheating, fraud and lying inside and outside of school
• more glorification of guns
• more glorification of violence
• more glorification of torture
• less civility
• less ethical behavior
• less kindness
• less interest in the common good
• a coarsening of the culture
• a meaner society

We do live in a society that has gotten meaner and uglier. Personally, I believe that violent TV, violent movies and violent video games are a big reason why.

“Television Viewing and Forms of Bullying among Adolescents from Eight Countries”

http://www.bullylab.com/Portals/0/Television%20viewing%20and%20forms%20of%20bullying%20among%20adolescents%20from%208%20countries.pdf

“Four-year-old children who watch more television than average are more likely to become bullies, research suggests.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/4408709.stm

“Indirect Aggression on Screen… They successfully spread rumours, damage relationships, distort reality, and destroy the reputations…”

https://docs.google.com/viewer?url=http://www.thepsychologist.org.uk/archive/archive_home.cfm/volumeID_17-editionID_113-ArticleID_783-getfile_getPDF/thepsychologist\1204coyn.pdf

“Exclusion, humiliation, gossiping, name-calling, and cutthroat alliances – we can’t get enough! We panic when these behaviors are directed at our own children and we express outrage when the consequences turn deadly, but over the past few years we, the adults, have turned cruelty into entertainment and sport.”

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ordinary-courage/201010/the-cruelty-crisis-bullying-isnt-school-problem-its-national-pastime

“Study Links Violent Video Games, Hostility: Research in U.S., Japan Shows Aggression Increased for Months After Play”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/02/AR2008110202392.html

“…their study shows that young men are more likely to see others’ attitudes toward them as hostile if they’ve just played a violent game.”

http://www.abc.net.au/science/articles/2006/04/10/1612435.htm

The evidence has been conclusive that playing violent video games increases the player’s level of aggression. The term aggression is used by scientists specifically to mean “willingness to harm others”.

http://scienceblogs.com/cognitivedaily/2005/04/the_influence_of_media_violenc.php

So if a violent video game player’s “willingness to harm others” increases, does that mean they’ll go out and commit a violent crime? No it doesn’t. It just means that whatever level of aggression a person already has, will be increased by playing violent video games. The more they play, the more their level of aggression is increased. So, someone who starts out very non-aggressive will (after playing violent video games) become less non-aggressive. And someone who starts out very aggressive will (after playing violent video games) become even more aggressive. So if someone is already so aggressive that they are teetering on the edge of committing a violent crime, it would make sense that hours of playing violent video games would push them over that edge, to the point of committing a violent crime. The result would be that most people who play lots of violent video games would not have their aggression level increased to the point of committing a violent crime, but that a minority of players would indeed have their level of aggressiveness increased to the point of committing a violent crime.

But is this what is actually happening? Has the enormous dedications of millions of players to violent video games actually lead to an increase in violent crime?

Apparently not.

According to FBI Uniform Crime Reports, the homicide rate has gone down dramatically since the early 1990s.

http://www.justice.gov/archive/mps/strategic2000_2005/appd.htm

And according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics violent crime rates have also gone down dramatically since the early 1990s.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States

It was during the 1990s that violent video games started to become popular, shouldn’t the homicide rate, and violent crime rate have gone up?

Patrick Kierkegaard, a doctoral student student at Essex University, argues that this dramatic reduction in violent crime during the same period when violent video games became popular, proves that violent video games actually reduce violent crime.

“Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s,” says Kierkegaard, “while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use. For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before. “With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence,” he says, “Instead, violence has declined.”

http://edugamesresearch.com/blog/tag/patrick-kierkegaard/

This is an argument that has been picked up by the violent video game industry and is now repeated over and over again in violent video game sites, forums and magazines. But is he correct? Do violent video games actually reduce violent crime?

The problem with this argument is that it ignores the enormous increase in the incarceration rate over the past 50 years. From 1970 to 2006 the incarceration rate has increased over 500 %. The United States now has the highest incarceration rate in the world.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._incarceration_rates_1925_onwards.png

The dramatic decline in violent crime since the 1990s has been quite a puzzle, but there are a number of other theories (increased incarceration, higher abortion rates, decreased lead exposure) to explain the decline. Violent video games are only one possible explanation, it could very well be violent video games are a factor in increasing violent crime, but they were counteracted by other powerful factors driving the violent crime rates down.

Another issue is demographics, was it really a reduction in violent crime by kids of higher socio-economic levels (with parents who could afford to be early adopters of computers and game consoles) which caused a wholesale reduction in violent crime?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_the_United_States#1990s_decline

Note: the 1960′s was the first time large number of people came of age after spending larger and larger portions of their childhood in front of the television. Could it be that exposure to violent television caused the original increase in violence starting in the 1960s? Perhaps, but it is not proof positive.

And the argument that the decrease in violent crime during the 1990s , which coincided with the introduction of violent video games, also during the 1990s, proves that violent video games do not cause real-life violence is also not proof-positive. Correlation does not equal causation, especially when there are a number of other very plausible explanations.

47% of violent television programs show the victim going unharmed, especially in cartoons.
The person in the cartoon or television show gets bowled over by another character and they get back up without being harmed. Children begin to believe that violence doesn’t really hurt others.

73% of individuals who commit crimes in cartoons and children’s shows go unpunished in violent scenes
Television shows that allow the character who commits the crime to receive no punishment, teaches children that it is alright to commit a crime because nothing will be done. Criminals and violent acts do not get punished.

Violence is a good way to solve problems
Television is a powerful teacher and if children are always viewing their favorite characters using violence or aggression to get what they want, children will do the same.

Television creates heroes out of the people who commit the crimes
Kids feel that if they copy the criminal they will be a hero, too. The hero that commits the crime is glamorized. There is nothing heroic about violence and it is wrong to show kids that it is. Children begin to think of criminals as powerful role models.

Television reduces the value of life
If Wiley Coyote gets killed, the other cartoon characters don’t care, and they may even laugh. TV makes violence and even death seem funny and unreal.

In addition, I would add: Desensitization Through Violent TV

And scientists have come up with a number of theories to explain how violent media increases aggression,

see: Human Aggression

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_%28psychology%29

Hardly anyone likes cockroaches, but there are some people who suffer from an irrational fear of these insects. Now researchers have developed software that simulates repeated exposure to virtual cockroaches.

“The results were a stunning: Study subjects went from a phobia so profound that it interfered with their lives to passing a “test” that involved walking into a room containing a cockroach in a tupperware container, removing its lid and placing their hand in it for at least a few seconds.”

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25411/

People with normal levels of empathy are distressed when exposed to violence and suffering. The question is does repeated exposure to violence and/or suffering reduce this distress reaction. In other words, does repeated exposure to violence and suffering make people more callous and less empathetic. According to the science, the answer is an emphatic yes:

“To understand the effects of repeated exposure to violence, researchers have suggested that viewers become comfortable with violence that is initially anxiety provoking, much as they would if they were undergoing exposure therapy.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_%28psychology%29

“After college freshmen watched three violent films over a five-day period, their sympathy for domestic violence victims plummeted. But five days later, their attitudes had pretty much returned to normal levels. Even so, there could be a cumulative effect to a steady diet of violent videos, researchers warn. Like a tennis ball that loses a bit of its bounce with every match, viewer attitudes might rebound less by the time they reach Friday the 13th, Part 23.”

http://www.psychologytoday.com/articles/199603/slasher-basher

“Cross-lagged panel analyses showed significant pathways from T1 media violence usage to higher physical aggression and lower empathy at T2.”

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0193397310000833

“Violent video games and movies make people numb to the pain and suffering of others, according to a research report published in the March 2009 issue of Psychological Science.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/02/090219202831.htm

Considering the huge amount of violent TV/movies that people are exposed to during the course of their childhood, it is no wonder that:

“Today’s college students are not as empathetic as college students of the 1980s and ’90s, a University of Michigan study shows.”

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/05/100528081434.htm

Note: “An average American child will see 200,000 violent acts and 16,000 murders on TV by age 18″

http://www.med.umich.edu/yourchild/topics/tv.htm#violence

_________

Note: an excellent overview is: Desensitization and Media Effects

According to The Free Dictionary:

Desensitization

1. To render insensitive or less sensitive.

2. Immunology To make (an individual) nonreactive or insensitive to an antigen.

3. To make emotionally insensitive or unresponsive, as by long exposure or repeated shocks: “This movie in effect may resensitize people who thought they were desensitized to violence” (Steven Spielberg).

4. To make (a photographic film or substance) less sensitive to light.

http://www.thefreedictionary.com/desensitization

Examples would be:

Autopsies:

When you confront your cadaver during the first week of school, you will begin to learn emotional aloofness. Prospective doctors become desensitized to death’s symbols -bones, blood, corpses, and stench- symbols that disturb most people. Some students become desensitized earlier during premed courses that required them to dissect or even kill living things. In any event, this phase of medical school can still be disturbing. A psychiatrist who interviewed students found that many of them had nightmares about their anatomy experiences.

No matter how great the initial shock, however, it apparently wears off for most students. Before long you become so desensitized that you can eat lunch around the corpse.

Surviving Medical School by Robert H. Coombs (page 137-138)

Deliberate desensitization for the treatment of phobias

Repeated exposure to the feared object or situation desensitizes the patient to the point where they lose their phobia (or it is greatly reduced).

In psychology, desensitization (also called inurement) is a process for mitigating the harmful effects of phobias or other disorders. It also occurs when an emotional response is repeatedly evoked in situations in which the action tendency that is associated with the emotion proves irrelevant or unnecessary. Agoraphobics, who fear open spaces and social gatherings outside their own home, may be gradually led to increase their interaction with the outside world by putting them in situations that are uncomfortable but not panic-provoking for them. Mastering their anxiety in very small doses can allow them to take greater steps to self-reliance. Desensitization can be an alternative or a supplement to anxiety-reducing medication.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desensitization_%28psychology%29

And now the repeated exposure is also being done virtually:

Virtual Reality & Cockroaches

http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/mimssbits/25411/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simulation_for_Therapy

Over-exposure to video pornography can also desensitization the viewer to point where the viewer loses sexual responsiveness.

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201010/how-i-recovered-porn-related-erectile-dysfunction

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow/201003/porn-goes-performance-goes-down

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/cupids-poisoned-arrow

Update: Study finds that violent video games help to desensitize soldiers to violence, making them less bothered by real-world violence.

http://www.newscientist.com/blogs/onepercent/2011/03/can-video-games-quell-nightmar.html

Enter the Academy

Originally uploaded by macropoulos

Way, way, way before TV was ever invented, philosophers were debating the effects of entertainment on society.  Today poetry has a marginal effect on American culture, but back before TV (and novels), poetry and rhetoric were major cultural forces.

Note: a fellow anti-TV person, “Dry Lips” who is much more conversant on Greek culture,  pointed out that:

“Poetry didn’t mean the same back then as today. “Poetry” did in fact include a whole number of different genres. Epic poetry, for instance, is a genre that has completely disappeared today, but was the historic forerunner of today’s novels. Theater was also in bound form, (dramatic poetry) and continued to bound until (I think) as late as the 1700′s. I think modern people who don’t know too much about literature, could misunderstand what you quoted in that wikipedia article… I think if you substitute “fiction” for “poetry”, you would probably be closer to the intention of Plato.”

Thanks Dry Lips! Also added to the end of the post are a couple of links delving further into what Plato and Aristotle meant, or at least what scholars believe they meant.

Plato

“Plato proposed to ban poets from his ideal republic because he feared that their aesthetic ability to construct attractive narratives about immoral behaviour would corrupt young minds. Plato’s writings refer to poetry as a kind of rhetoric, whose “…influence is pervasive and often harmful.” Plato believed that poetry that was “unregulated by philosophy is a danger to soul and community.” He warned that tragic poetry can produce “a disordered psychic regime or constitution” by inducing “a dream-like, uncritical state in which we lose ourselves in …sorrow, grief, anger, [and] resentment.” As such, Plato was in effect arguing that “What goes on in the theater, in your home, in your fantasy life, are connected” to what you do in real life.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticization_of_violence#Antiquity

And in a way Plato has been vindicated. If you think of modern media as a new, updated and more powerful form of poetry and rhetoric, then yes, the scientific evidence is pretty overwhelming, entertainment does have an effect, for good or for ill.

Aristotle

“Aristotle, though, advocated a useful role for music, drama, and tragedy: a way for people to purge their negative emotions. Aristotle mentions catharsis at the end of his Politics , where he notes that after people listen to music that elicits pity and fear, they “are liable to become possessed” by these negative emotions. However, afterwards, Aristotle points out that these people return to “a normal condition as if they had been medically treated and undergone a purge [catharsis]…All experience a certain purge [catharsis] and pleasant relief. In the same manner cathartic melodies give innocent joy to men”"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aestheticization_of_violence#Antiquity

Aristotle, on the other hand, argued for catharsis, the idea that drama or poetry that elicits strong emotions, helps to purge the audience of those same strong emotions, giving them a “pleasant relief”. Since then, the idea of catharsis has expanded to mean that expressing ones negative emotions will help to purge them from your system.

Does Catharsis work?

“Though pop psychology books and articles perpetuate the notion that “getting your anger out” is cathartic and can help dissipate hostility, the researchers have found just the opposite: Venting anger on inanimate objects — punching a pillow or hitting a punching bag, for example — increases rather than decreases aggressive behavior.”

http://www.nytimes.com/1999/03/09/health/letting-out-aggression-is-called-bad-advice.html

“What you don’t know can hurt you: Violence, catharsis, and video games – Believing in catharsis may lead to behavior that promotes anger.”

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/ulterior-motives/201007/what-you-don-t-know-can-hurt-you-violence-catharsis-and-video-games

“In her research, Rose has found that friendships that are overly focused on discussing problems may actually increase depression and other problems in girls.”

http://www.apa.org/topics/depress/support.aspx

Violent Media Industry

Fans (and shills) of the violent media industry frequently promote Catharsis as an effective way to release anger and aggression:

“Basically this is the kind of game you will want to play when you come home from school or work and have some free time and want to take out your anger and stress out on a poor virtual driver. Toss him up in the sky or release your anger on the AI cars.”

http://www.guru3d.com/article/flatout-game-review/2

The operations manager of Omaha video-game retailer Gamers said there’s no causal link between videogames and real violence. Ryan Miller said video games actually allow people to release aggression in a virtual world.

http://www.ketv.com/r/14942590/detail.html

Interestingly the violent video game reps keep pretty mum on the subject of whether violent video games release aggression or increase aggression (since there are plenty of players who are happy to make their arguments for them). But in the violent video game “The Postal Dude” the creators couldn’t resist naming the main town Catharsis.

“In Postal III, The Postal Dude emigrates to Paradise’s sister town of Catharsis as he previously blew up Paradise with a nuclear bomb.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_III

Note:  Two excellent overviews of Catharsis

http://youarenotsosmart.com/2010/08/11/catharsis/

http://encyclopedia.jrank.org/articles/pages/6455/Catharsis-Theory-and-Media-Effects.html

So what does work for reducing feelings of anger and aggression?

“What the results of the study suggest is that “exercise, even a single bout of it, can have a robust prophylactic effect” against the buildup of anger, said Nathaniel Thom, a stress physiologist who was the study’s lead researcher.”

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/phys-ed-can-exercise-moderate-anger/

Further Links on Plato and Aristotle:

“It is not easy to understand what Plato means by poetry, why it is an opponent, whether it is dangerous because of its form or content or both, and whether there is much of ongoing interest or relevance in his account. With respect to the third of these issues: would his critique apply to, say, Shakespeare’s tragedies? To E. E. Cummings’; or T. S. Eliot’s poetry? The questions are complicated by the fact that Plato was not (or, not primarily) thinking of poetry as a written text read in silence; he had in mind recitations or performances, often experienced in the context of theater. Still further, when Socrates and Plato conducted their inquiries, poetry was far more influential than what Plato calls “philosophy.” Given the resounding success of Plato’s advocacy of “philosophy,” it is very easy to forget that at the time he was advocating a (historically) new project in a context swirling with controversy about the relative value of such projects (and indeed about what “philosophy” means). By contrast, poetry seems relatively marginal in today’s large commercial and liberal societies, in spite of the energetic efforts of figures such as the recent American national Poet Laureate Robert Pinsky, whereas media of which Plato knew nothing — such as television, videos, and the cinema, literary forms such as the novel, and information systems such as the World Wide Web — exercise tremendous influence. Television and movie actors enjoy a degree of status and wealth in modern society that transcends anything known in the ancient world. Is Plato’s critique marginalized along with poetry?”

http://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2004/entries/plato-rhetoric/

“When it comes to Aristotle, it is not completely clear what he meant by catharsis. See this reference for a discussion of this”:
http://xtf.lib.virginia.edu/xtf/view?docId=DicHist/uvaBook/tei/DicHist1.xml;chunk.id=dv1-36