Obama Instructs CDC to Research Links Between Violent Media and Real-Life Violence

And to think that people voted for him...

I just found this: http://psycnet.apa.org/psycinfo/2001-17729-001

I cannot access to the pdf, sorry for that.

I'm just glad that it's at least NOT just games but other multimedia.

23 pages, this seems to be a sensible topic...

I haven't seen so many reactions to anything related to gore or sex, for instance.

This study has never really happen. So lets be glad it is and that the answer that we prob already know will be a fact.

I wonder what violent video games Obama plays when he sends unmanned drones throughout the Middle East and kills innocent civilians only to label it "collateral damage".

Let's not be gun nuts, except about video games. I welcome this.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this research IS going to be good for the video game industry. Due to the sheer size of the video game industry, I believe there would have been a lot more shootings if there actually was a link connecting the two.

@DrLove said:

@Blimble said:

This is just silly. It is this dam Rock and Roll that is causing violence and perversion. Someone needs to stop this Elvis Presley before he corrupts or children any further

this could be a good thing and put an end to this non sense once and for all.

You're delusional if you believe that.

The fact that this gets less attention than a Dead Island pre-order bonus is disgusting.

Wait we need to spend $10 million just to find out that 11 year olds gunning down everyone in COD is bad?! Better let every stupid parent know asap. This is the reason our country is financially broke.

I don't want to be that guy, but I can't help but feel that every one of you would fucking explode if a Republican President announced this.

Yay. More of our tax money going to useless government spending...

I for one love violence in my entertainment media. Not all of it of course, but it has it's place. And when I do fancy playing a violent game, the more realistic, over the top, despicable, deplorable, depraved, stylised, or whatever wrapping the violence comes in, the better. I have never once been in a fight, nor have I ever had the urge or inclination to behave violently, or even confrontationally towards people in real life.

I just like having the option to play the part of a violent sociopathic killer if I so desire, and any study that says the violent media I've been regularly consuming since I was a kid has affected me in any negative way is wrong. I am confident that any study done in good faith will support this conclusion, but I'm worried it may be more politically motivated, and will come out saying whatever those that commissioned it want it to say.

@Brodehouse said:

@sissylion said:

Man, it's going to be a real bummer for you guys when the research reveals that there's totally a connection between the consumption of violent media and the expression of violence.

I mean, except for the stuff that already exists. Of which there is a lot.

Because of course there is. Because if I'm a violent fuck who wants to kill people, why wouldn't I involve myself in media that involves killing people? In the same way if that I'm the type of person who kidnaps babies, I'm probably watching a lot of programming about parenting and babies. Neither justifies censorship.

As for studies that talk about desensitization or 'proper response' to violence, I find those studies to be intrinsically flawed and a little short-sighted. You become desensitized to anything upon experience, especially consecutive experience. What is 'proper emotional affect' as pertains violence? Hysteria? Fear? Detachment? Anger? There's a reason why most in the scientific communities look at the 'social sciences' with ... well, quotation marks.

^^^^ this and also personally I'm shocked at real life violence... there is a major diffrence between fantasy violence and real life physical violence. I'm sure any gameer would tell you they would get pretty shooken up at seeing someone run over by a car or shot. the only thing those studies point too is an increase in agression and that will happen with any type of competitve entertainment even chess and checkers. to say that a videogame desentizes me is just insulting.

Why are we even spending a remote amount of money into this? If they want research, then they can do it themselves. I hate having to see our money go to waste.

If anything, video games allow me to vent and do what I want in them (or at least to the confines of the game programming).

@WinterSnowblind said:

@Brodehouse said:

And here is where an entire nation gives up their right to free speech with triumphant applause.

Who's giving up free speech and why would you quote that movie?

I think that the idea here is that we're limiting first amendment rights in favor of the second amendment. If the nation arrives at a point where we are legally limiting or censoring the expression of artists, we are regulating the right to free speech. We already do this with libel and slander laws.

I can't say that this study angers me. The US needs to do everything possible to figure out why our nation has so much gun violence. Ultimately, I think we should regulate guns before artistic expression. In spite of what so many gun advocates say guns DO kill people. A virtual gun will never directly cause a person's death.

I agree, to be honest.

No one should be worried about these tests because they have been done countless times before and it always ends the same way. This time should be no different.

I can't wait to see how they find that video games serve as means to release some frustration and aggressiveness in a virtual environment that doesn't hurt anybody IRL, and preventing this from happening IRL.

Hopefully that will suggest they should do the same study with sex, according to rape statistics in the "perverted" Japan rape is not as common as in other countries. Maybe a more natural perspective onto nudity and sex would be better than a supernatural perspective that considers some parts as forbidden or sinful (or the whole body in the case of a burka).

Now that and thus changing the age rating system for games and other media would be interesting.

@Sgoast said:

Let's not be gun nuts, except about video games. I welcome this.

Not a bad way to put it.

Everything I've seen seems to suggest that no one was witch hunting here, and we're long past the days of Joe Lieberman and Jack Thompson.

@SmithCommaJohn said:

What's wrong with doing research on this subject? We should investigate as many possible causes of violence as we can, and let the facts take us where they may.

Interestingly, the gun lobby has pushed through laws that effectively ban the CDC from conducting a wide range of research into the causes of gun violence, and the links between gun ownership and crime rates. Those aren't the actions of people who are confident that their position (essentially that guns have absolutely nothing to do with crime) is true.

Anyway, the Supreme Court has already ruled that video games are a form of speech, and therefore covered by the First Amendment, so there's very little that the government could do to censor video games, or even restrict their sale, no matter what any research ultimately proves.

But if some conclusive link between violent media and violent behavior exists - which I doubt, but concede that it's possible - we should know. If nothing else, it would enable parents and retailers to make better decisions.

Well, if this study SOMEHOW goes against every single study out there and give the government what it wants, we could see another hearing to see whether restrictions serve a compelling state interest. However, the Court was extremely cynical about the studies the anti-game side presented, and they'll be sure to sniff out any flaws motivated by trying to get that grant money. If the CDC doesn't interject opinion, most likely the only result will be reduced gaming industry donations to Democratic election funds.

In short, nothing more to see here.

Honestly? I expect this fervor to fade, just like every single one that happens after one of these shootings. Just more government grandstanding to hide the fact they can't get anything done.

What's wrong with doing research on this subject? We should investigate as many possible causes of violence as we can, and let the facts take us where they may.

Interestingly, the gun lobby has pushed through laws that effectively ban the CDC from conducting a wide range of research into the causes of gun violence, and the links between gun ownership and crime rates. Those aren't the actions of people who are confident that their position (essentially that guns have absolutely nothing to do with crime) is true.

Anyway, the Supreme Court has already ruled that video games are a form of speech, and therefore covered by the First Amendment, so there's very little that the government could do to censor video games, or even restrict their sale, no matter what any research ultimately proves.

But if some conclusive link between violent media and violent behavior exists - which I doubt, but concede that it's possible - we should know. If nothing else, it would enable parents and retailers to make better decisions.

Let's not be gun nuts, except about video games. I welcome this.

@Gamer_152 said:

Some of these comments are very worrying, I never thought I'd see so many gamers turn against scientific enquiry and rational questioning. This is not you being robbed of your freedom, and this is not an anti-video game action. Surely if you believe that there is no link between video games and real-world violence, and you want that message spread, then new research into it, approved by the President of your country, can only be a good thing.

absolutely. it's easy to have a knee-jerk reaction to this from the perspective of "oh no they're taking away our video games" but it's pretty naïve to think there's no link at all between modern video games and real world violence, or that it doesn't at least deserve a discussion. it was easy to dismiss the argument in the GTA 3 era, but in games like far cry 3 the violence is super realistic and often gratuitous. to be so fervent in defending video games that you place it over research that could potentially help to understand why these tragic shootings occur seems bizarre. and why do people care so much about keeping the violence in video games anyway? it's over the top as it is and for me doesn't make me like a game any more than if there's no violence at all. seems to be coming from the angle of the age old american right-wing rhetoric of "our precious constitution, that was written by slave owners!!!" and a lot of the time it sounds like they're weaponising freedom to get exactly what they want. maybe you have to sacrifice some degree of "freedom" to save lives, and that's fine by me, especially if it only affects violence in video games

@darkdragonmage99 said:

@Gamer_152: And a waste of money. They are raising taxes and cutting spending on things like healthcare for the poor and elderly and schools. But they have the money to spend on something that's already been researched at-least 5 times I know of let alone all the research done before video games even existed.

My objection isn't because I'm closed minded it's not because rational questioning is something I don't like. But please tell me how is it rational to keep asking the same question after it's been answer repeatedly ? How is it a good idea to waste money on doing research that's already been done when the country is falling apart?

I believe this is just one more thing to keep our minds off the fact we are living in a failing empire. By the way it very well could be us being robbed of our freedom in the last few years we've lost many of them.

I'm not saying those that have an issue with these studies being a poor allocation of resources are being irrational, but that's not what we're seeing from a worrying number of the responses here. There are people attacking this research within itself. I don't really know what you mean by this being a distraction from the U.S. being a "falling empire", but rational inquiry into the connections between video games and violence just does not represent freedom being taken from you. You can say that the results of this research could be used as fodder to restrict your freedoms, although if you want to start saying this research alone could consist of any more than a small part of the reasoning for the government starting to ban games, then I think you'd have to make a hell of an argument. I don't think it's realistic to assume that if these studies suggest a link between games and violence that the government are just going to start scooping up everyone's games.

You're also misrepresenting how scientific inquiry works. It's not as if one piece of research can be done into something and then scientists can check off a box for that thing and proclaim that they have a conclusive answer to the question/s that study asked. Scientific consensus on something is only formed after many different independently conducted, peer reviewed studies reach the same conclusion on something. There are things that science has been incredibly sure about in the past, which entire fields of thinking have been built around, but their ideas have proved to be wrong because the proper research has been done and the proper theories have been created.

With media and violence specifically, one problem that's been repeatedly faced is that studies have been inconclusive, and that research has arguably been very flawed. I think there are questions as to whether studies at this point can even produce entirely conclusive proof about this kind of thing, but given the history of the field, and the history of science I think more research is a very important thing to do. It will be important for shaping political opinion on violence in the United States and can only stand to expand the knowledge of scientists, something that throughout our history has shown to bring us overall very positive things.

@Nethlem: I would direct you to Pascal's Wager before making religious commentary. But besides that, how is banning all gun ownership an appropriate response to gun violence? Switzerland and Israel have some of the highest per capita gun ownership but the lowest rates of domestic gun violence. The problem is when people who have no business having a gun (say a mentally unstable individual) who obtains a gun illegally (say his mom's personal gun locker) and uses it to shoot other individuals. The aforementioned nations seem to suggest that greater gun ownership discourages violence with guns. But besides that, the United States has is terribly hypocritical when it comes to firearms. It is OK for the United States government (as per Mr. Obama's orders) to sell untraceable guns to drug cartels so said drugs can be used against border patrolmen, but a person within America who uses a gun against American citizens is unacceptable? I understand this was a tragedy, but a country that willfully breeds violence is going to suffer violence.

Maybe if game reviewers weren't telling readers to buy a game, were I don't know, a game were a "good guy" murders a pregnant woman in a way that kills the baby first before killing her, then later the player character tells her husband how awesome seeing said child turn into chucks. We wouldn't be having this problem.

@Gamer_152: And a waste of money. They are raising taxes and cutting spending on things like healthcare for the poor and elderly and schools. But they have the money to spend on something that's already been researched at-least 5 times I know of let alone all the research done before video games even existed.

My objection isn't because I'm closed minded it's not because rational questioning is something I don't like. But please tell me how is it rational to keep asking the same question after it's been answer repeatedly ? How is it a good idea to waste money on doing research that's already been done when the country is falling apart?

I believe this is just one more thing to keep our minds off the fact we are living in a failing empire. By the way it very well could be us being robbed of our freedom in the last few years we've lost many of them.

if anything, i hope the result of all this is just better parental controls on consoles and tvs, just stuff that is easier to use and works. Then it means people have the tools to protect their children, etc, etc. You dont need $10 million in research to know that. 

Some of these comments are very worrying, I never thought I'd see so many gamers turn against scientific enquiry and rational questioning. This is not you being robbed of your freedom, and this is not an anti-video game action. Surely if you believe that there is no link between video games and real-world violence, and you want that message spread, then new research into it, approved by the President of your country, can only be a good thing.

@WhoopAssRambo3 said:

Oh, it's time for the annual video games are dangerous- debate.

I'd start with not selling fucking guns to people.

"guns don't kill people, but I bet they help!" -Eddie Izzard.

Because if law abiding citizens don't have access to guns, NOBODY has access to guns. That's great logic.

Recently read an interesting article about the history of gun violence in the US on schools. It's actually apparently more then a hunderd years old now that kids are shooting other kids and teachers in the US. It's just getting worse as guns become easier to get by and more effective at killing massive amounts of people. In any case proving the problem has little to do with violent media with gun violence as it's older then these media...

@Hashbrowns said:

Rights come from God, and governments are insituted to protect and preserve those rights.

Sure... and Christmas presents come from Santa Claus! Chocolate eggs? Of course the Easter Bunny is making those! Pasta Bologna? That's clearly in the realm of the flying spaghetti monster!

Sorry, but religious people crack me up... it's like listening to people who still live in the dark ages.

Seriously even in the very remote chance that there is something like an "God", it's pretty much obvious that he/she/it is not very interested in the well being of humanity as a whole. So why should we care about something that obviously is not caring about us (Assuming that it actually exists)?

@MikkaQ said:

"The fact is more people die from street violence than from angry teens massacring people, and even more die from car accidents, cigarettes and alcohol. I would worry about the stuff that's actually killing us en masse instead of the occasional massacre that is more or less unavoidable. Yes it's tragic, but as they say one death is a tragedy, thousands are a statistic. We need a better sense of perspective as a society."

I was really hoping somebody would make this point, because I think there is a bigger issue here. I agree, that larger occurrences of preventable deaths, unhealthy living, and criminal violence need to cause concern, instead of mass shootings, which, I think I saw a statistic on this, are on the decline overall.

@Hashbrowns said:

@Darkstorn said:

@deadrody said:

@chrissedoff said:

@NinjaTard: There's a lot wrong with Barack Obama's presidency, but using executive orders to enact sensible restrictions on the second amendment

Let that part sink in for a bit. Then change it to "sensible restrictions on the first amendment" and see how you feel about that.

The US constitution is sacrosanct. If you want to change it, there is a process for that. Get on with it. Otherwise, there ARE no "sensible restrictions" to my god given rights. And if you dispute that "god given" part, maybe you ought to go re-read the Declaration of Independence.

Rights are given by governments, not 'God.' Otherwise we wouldn't need a historical government document to come to that conclusion. Also, there was debate among the founders on whether or not the Constitution was static or if it would change and grow with time. Strict constructionism vs. loose constructionism wasn't invented by Constitutional scholars by any means.

If there isn't an authority beyond civil government, there are no rights. Rights come from God, and governments are insituted to protect and preserve those rights. Without that, we are left with either mob rule or authoritarian dictatorships. Not all the founders were completely sound, theologically speaking, but they were able to agree on the premise of "the Law of Nature and Nature's God" as the standard from which they based all their complaints against the Crown. In one of the singular moments in human history, the architects of a new government acknowledged that they themselves (government) were the greatest threat to liberty, and codified limits to their own power in both the Articles of Confederation and the Constitution.

The secular-humanist view, either from statists (Marxism, National-socialism) or anarchists (Ayn Rand adherants) both put all their stock in the nature of man, either collectively or individually. If one thinks that an invisible Creator-God is a foolish idea, how can you put faith in the historically obvious evil nature of man?

Is... is this serious? You don't exist right? This is just the internet fucking with me.

Obamacare? Moar likez OBAMA DONT CARE!

ps games are kewl

@Orange_Pork said:

@Manatassi: Holy shit dude, relax. It's just a study. This is no cause for tossing out paragraph breaks.

aww yeh the site edits out all formatting when you post from a phone/iPad etc

here

now

i can

put

lots

in :P

@Maurdakar said:

@Manatassi: 2/10 troll post too obvious mate.

Also

>Rights are given by God.

All of Human history called America, it would like to have a word with you.

lol hey i wasn't trolling simply adding my own pointless comments to the masses.

methinks if I was trolling I would have made something objectionable rather than smartass, there is a difference :)

It is impossible and rather pointless to have a serious discussion on topics like Gun Control and Religion etc etc in a gaming forum. I'm pretty sure its been tried a few times and to date hasn't solved the problem. So I cant see the need to take the topic seriously here, thus I don't, hence Smartassery :)

Trolling is much easier if you simply state a volatile topic simply and not overly aggressively but without room for negotiation or the possibility of changing your mind. Far more infuriating to the people you are trying to troll. :) but also a little boring and humourless so meh I will stick to my Smartass comments with caveats to diffuse annoyance thanks :P

Oh, it's time for the annual video games are dangerous- debate.

I'd start with not selling fucking guns to people.

"guns don't kill people, but I bet they help!" -Eddie Izzard.

@chrissedoff said:

@Snail said:

@Brodehouse said:

@tacticalfatty said:

@Brodehouse: What free speech are we giving up? It's the announcement of a study.

Wait for it.

Games have been defended by the first amendment before. I think that, if anything, measures will be put in place to make it harder for children to play M-rated games or something or the sort - which I'd be totally in favor of.

I don't know about that. Think of how hard it is for filmmakers to get a big budget to make an R-rated movie nowadays. If it suddenly becomes too hard to sell M-rated games, they won't get made anymore and the scope of what material we can see in games gets narrower. Don't get me wrong. I don't want kids to be able to play games rated for adults without their parents' permission, but any measures taken to prevent that might have unintended consequences that negatively affect everyone else's ability to easily get access to M-rated games. Until I see a series of serious studies connecting violent video games to violent behavior in a convincing fashion, I am not on board with experimenting with censoring or restricting video games. We wouldn't want to subject ourselves to the same nuisances and hassles that German gamers have to deal with, right?

The only M-rated games that would see significantly less revenue if they couldn't be played by minors would be the likes of Call of Duty and Halo. I don't think those games would have a hard time getting a budget.

@Snail said:

@Brodehouse said:

@tacticalfatty said:

@Brodehouse: What free speech are we giving up? It's the announcement of a study.

Wait for it.

Games have been defended by the first amendment before. I think that, if anything, measures will be put in place to make it harder for children to play M-rated games or something or the sort - which I'd be totally in favor of.

I don't know about that. Think of how hard it is for filmmakers to get a big budget to make an R-rated movie nowadays. If it suddenly becomes too hard to sell M-rated games, they won't get made anymore and the scope of what material we can see in games gets narrower. Don't get me wrong. I don't want kids to be able to play games rated for adults without their parents' permission, but any measures taken to prevent that might have unintended consequences that negatively affect everyone else's ability to easily get access to M-rated games. Until I see a series of serious studies connecting violent video games to violent behavior in a convincing fashion, I am not on board with experimenting with censoring or restricting video games. We wouldn't want to subject ourselves to the same nuisances and hassles that German gamers have to deal with, right?

Even though similar studies have already been done, the argument for doing this is the same as all the ultraspecific tests on how birth control would affect people at different ages from the 60s to the 90s; When it's a social issue the science needs to be absolutely impenetrable to the kinds of claims and stunts that anti-BC groups, or in this case the NRA, would make. The only reason the NRA could mention a random NES game and flash game as being causes of violence is that a lot of influential people don't understand or care about video games and this research is the best substitute for that.

Having said that, it's probably going to be about as enlightening as researching the effects of violent comics and penny dreadfuls and wrestling and adult bookstores.

The only thing I dislike is that professional research can be taken out of context and due to the state of libel and slander laws in this country the NRA can keep on making differently worded claims to people who don't care about research, which is really only painful because they have a lot of lobbying power.

@Hashbrowns: I don't personally believe in the existence of a god and I have never struggled to abide by or understand the law or why it ought to exist. There's nothing about being religious that makes people inherently more civilized or more able to recognize mankind as a family who regard each other with respect and compassion. History has shown us that even deeply religious people of all faiths run the gamut from the utterly vile to the heroic, and the same can be said about non-religious people. The fact that God is mentioned in any of the founders' documents can mostly be attributed to it being the parlance of the times. I don't think the founders literally thought of themselves as having the force of God behind their philosophy. They had a little bit more humility than that.

Also, approximately 100% of people who call themselves anarchists would be aghast at being associated with Ayn Rand. Anarchists existed long before Rand ever wrote anything, and Rand's philosophy actually tends toward encouraging tyranny more than it resembles any anarchist ideal that I've ever heard of.

@Brodehouse said:

@tacticalfatty said:

@Brodehouse: What free speech are we giving up? It's the announcement of a study.

Wait for it.

Games have been defended by the first amendment before. I think that, if anything, measures will be put in place to make it harder for children to play M-rated games or something or the sort - which I'd be totally in favor of.

@deadrody said:

@chrissedoff said:

@NinjaTard: There's a lot wrong with Barack Obama's presidency, but using executive orders to enact sensible restrictions on the second amendment

Let that part sink in for a bit. Then change it to "sensible restrictions on the first amendment" and see how you feel about that.

The US constitution is sacrosanct. If you want to change it, there is a process for that. Get on with it. Otherwise, there ARE no "sensible restrictions" to my god given rights. And if you dispute that "god given" part, maybe you ought to go re-read the Declaration of Independence.

There are and always have been sensible restrictions on people's first amendment rights. Civil action can be taken against people who commit libel or slander. Leaking classified information to the country's enemies is against the law. Verbal or written threats against a person's life are crimes. Then there's that old example of yelling fire in a crowded theater. An absolutist interpretation of the first amendment would make society a mess. The Supreme Court has always held that it is within the government's purview to have some legal restrictions on second amendment rights.

Also, the Declaration of Independence is not the Constitution of the United States, nor is it legally binding in any way, not that that fact is relevant to the discussion at all.

@Manatassi: 2/10 troll post too obvious mate.

Also

>Rights are given by God.

All of Human history called America, it would like to have a word with you.

@TheHT said:

Doing things already done before to appease the minds of the people?

pretty much. the ignorant reactionaries have a lot of clout.

@Manatassi: Holy shit dude, relax. It's just a study. This is no cause for tossing out paragraph breaks.