Violent games could be altering your brain

[skweh]

Bet you most violent people dont even play games

[shinobi667]

i dont believe a word of it! i love violent game but im one the most gentle people you will ever meet.

[kaytel]

Either this research is being misreported, which would hardly be a first, more like the sad norm, or the reported results don't seem to make logical sense.

I still wonder why neuroscience is a recognized field.

Because it is a valid area of study. It however rarely says what the popular press tend to report. Some researchers in the field should also get a share of blame because they read far too much into their results. I guess it's new and exciting. Governments seem to love this stuff, the perfect thing for justifying their nannying.

According to Wang, other studies have found that games may lead to increased levels of aggression.

I'd have to see how they determined these alleged increased levels. Typically they don't test for real aggression, but aggressive attitude which is certainly not the same thing. I recall some research I saw sometime ago where they found that children had a more aggressive attitude after watching something violent. Then they had the bright idea to see what would happen if they showed children something exciting, but totally non-violent. Same aggressive attitude afterwards. They then realised it had nothing to do with the content, but how excited the children got and that anything that gets them amped will have the same result.

I wonder if anybody has tested the affect of reading on people? Or the theatre? Certainly the theatre was once vilified by the so-called right-thinking folk and was considered to be a base thing that would bring down society if it were not stopped.

[Ichigo]

Don't beleive any of the tests since they always try make them fit what they want them to fit by adjusting results slightly or not adding the results which failed their conclusion from what I have seen with lots of different type of studies.

[jGLZA]

Its a two-sided coin. I've found that violent games do dull your acceptance of violence/horrific scenes. But it also increases your likelihood to respond to action with action.

But really I don't see how the way games influence us is any way different than growing up in a testing environment or watching violent movies?