Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive

Question

Do violent video games make young people aggressive? This is an article made by New York Times.

Comments

The article titled "Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive" is misleading because, while it mentions temporary increases in hostility after playing such games, it ultimately concludes that these effects are short-lived and do not lead to long-term aggressive behavior. The title implies a lasting impact, which is not supported by the article's content. An Oxford University study also shows no long-term link between violent video games and aggression in young people, though it acknowledges that certain game mechanics can provoke brief feelings of anger or frustration (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-13-violent-video-games-found-not-be-associated-adolescent-aggression). These findings point only to short-term emotional responses, not any violent actions. Additionally, another study mentioned in the article concludes that violent video games have no lasting or permanent effects on aggressive behavior. The headline is misleading because the short-term effects it describes, such as increased cortisol or emotional reactions to intense gameplay, are not causes for concern. The article does not suggest a heightened risk of shootings or violence, making the study's findings relatively insignificant. The short-term emotional reactions from video games are comparable to the adrenaline rush from playing or watching sports.

---

This is a great factcheck, I really appreciate how you added in another source with a credible study in order to aid your explanation. I agree that the title is misleading, as it implies long-term affects and behavioral changes rather than the short-term feelings of frustration as a result of video games that the study you provided noted. I personally feel that the instances of longterm or extreme violence that could be a result of violent video games are due to a separate mental concern, not because of the video game itself. Overall great factcheck and explanation!

Answer 1

The title of the article, "Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive," is misleading because, although the content discusses temporary increases in hostility from playing such games, it ultimately concludes that these effects are short-lived and don't lead to long-term aggressive behavior. The title suggests a definitive and lasting impact, which the article itself does not support. An Oxford University study proves how there is no lasting impact of violent video games making young people aggressive but it does show that in some mechanics and situations of gaming it can provoke angry feelings and reactions from players. (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-13-violent-video-games-found-not-be-associated-adolescent-aggression)

Comments

I loved how you brought in another source that is credible to prove how the claim is misleading. The article you choose also happened to be a lot more recent, as the first article was written almost 20 years ago. Due to this, videogames have changed massively and almost look identical to real life now. Since that, the first article is outdated and your use of more recent studies show that the claim is misleading and outdated.

---

This fact-check does a great job pointing out the discrepancy between the article's title and its content. The title is definitely misleading because it implies a lasting impact that the article doesn't support. Nice call on mentioning the Oxford University study, which backs up your point with solid research.

---

I appreciate this answer, as it uncovers the clickbait title of the article. It is also important to note that when the article was published in 2005, violent video games were not at all the same as they are today. Even with hyper-realistic games,  more current findings prove this claim to be false.

---

You did well on your factcheck with bring in another source to help support your claim as well as analyzing the original source to state why it's misleading.

---

I appreciate you researching futher and finding another source to back up your claim. You do a really great job at explaning the diffrence between the claim (the title of the article) and the truth. Making it very clear that no study has found that violent video games have a long-term effect on someone making them more violent or agressive. All the reseach points to there being a short-term effect at the most.

Answer 2

In the article linked, Kevin M. Kieffer, a psychologist at St. Leo University, claimed that he found “children exposed to virtual bloodshed showed greater ‘short term’ increases in hostility towards peers and authority figures than those exposed to benign games”. This claim however only addresses short bursts of hostile behavior, but does not suggest any violent action as a result. This article also highlights the fact that in a separate study, it was concluded that “violent video games have no ‘long term’ or permanent, effects on aggressive behavior”. This headline is misleading because short term effects can be just high cortisol levels or emotion built up from high intense situations, but there is nothing to be concerned about with short term effects. This article does not imply more alarming series of events to occur like the increased likelihood of shootings or violence, therefore there is not much significance to this study. The short term effects of video games is about as equal to the intense feelings of adrenaline one would get from watching or playing sports.

Comments

I appreciate this answer because the conflicting studies but I would also add that it was more the title that was misleading, although the author included that it was a claim, not factual. The final conclusion of the article was that graphic video games have short term effects on violent behavior but not long term, in fact, the entire article was essentially a fact-check of the above claim, even if brief and dated. I also did not appreciate the difficulty it took to find the sources in the paper, you are correct that the studies listed don't show much clear evidence of the claims being made in the article about long term or short term effects. While I'm not sure I would classify this as exaggerated or misleading due to it's inclusion of Claim in the title, it's clear that this article is not a very credible source of information on this topic, especially as it's so old.

---

I appreciate the thoroughness of your fact-check regarding the effects of violent video games on aggression. You did a great job highlighting the distinction between short-term and long-term effects, which is crucial for understanding the broader implications of these studies. However, I have a few points to add and some questions about your sources and reasoning. You mentioned Kevin M. Kieffer’s study from St. Leo University. While it’s a valid source, it would strengthen your argument to include more recent studies or meta-analyses that either support or contradict his findings. Research in this field is continually evolving, and newer studies might provide additional insights. You rightly criticized the misleading nature of some headlines. It’s important to emphasize that while short-term increases in aggression might not be alarming, they shouldn’t be entirely dismissed either. Understanding the context and magnitude of these effects is key to forming a balanced view.

Answer 3

I believe this is a misleading argument. Studies and researchers claim that "In general, violence usually refers to physical harm or physical acts that hurt someone– like hitting, kicking, punching, and pushing. Aggression is a more broad term that refers to angry or hostile thoughts, feelings or behaviors. So everything that is violent is aggressive, but not everything that is aggressive is violent." They release this perspective on violence to the public to reach a better understanding and later on follow that up with examples of aggression but not violence, for example yelling, talking back, and getting frustrated are all signs of aggression but not violence. Video games, especially the violent ones, have relationships with certain violent behavior due to the competitiveness level, difficulty, and pace of simulation. Yet, certain real-life tragedies have happened do to the certain influence a video game has had on youth. For example, "Two teenagers in Tennessee who shot at passing cars and killed one driver told police they got the idea from playing Grand Theft Auto III." Although they claim it was influenced from Grand Theft Auto, I believe it takes a lot more out of someone to do that then to go do it because of a video game and researcher Patrick Markey, psychology professor at Villanova University, claims, “The general story is people who play video games right after might be a little hopped up and jerky but it doesn’t fundamentally alter who they are, explaining that they could've been troubled or just affiliated with other problems. Do Video Games Cause Violence? 9 Pros and Cons (procon.org)

Comments

I appreciate your response because you bring up the subjective defenition of violence. And you go in depth about different definitions of violence in different contexts. I like how you provided examples too.

---

How would you rate the claim? False? True? Misleading?

Answer 4

This New York Times article provides a misleading title, “Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive.” This is misleading because while the article explains the short term, temporary increases of hostility among some young people, it also goes on to contradict the original claim, stating, “But a separate study, also published this month, concluded that violent video games have no “long-term” or permanent, effects on aggressive behavior.” The claim implies lasting impacts of violent video games and generalizes all “young people” instead of perhaps, “Violent Video Games Have the Potential to Make Some Young People Exhibit Bursts of Anger.” A much more recent study done by Oxford University explains, “While no correlation was found between playing video games and aggressive behaviour in teenagers, the researchers emphasize that this does not mean that some mechanics and situations in gaming do not provoke angry feelings or reactions in players.” (https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-13-violent-video-games-found-not-be-associated-adolescent-aggression) The researchers go on to explain that there is no real cause for concern regarding aggression in relation to violent video games. 

Comments

I appreciate your inclusion of both sides of the original article's findings, because within the New York Times article cited in the claim, the claim is proved exaggerated, "Studies generally show that violent video games can have short-term, or momentary, effects on children, but there is little evidence of long-term changes". In including an external source, you backed up this evidence and proved the claim to be untrue.

Answer 5

Violent video games have not been shown to lead to violence long term. However, the claim that video games make young people aggressive could be substantiated if it was tempered- "Violent Video Games Can Make Young People Aggressive Temporarily", that would be acceptable. 

"Studies generally show that violent video games can have short-term, or momentary, effects on children, but there is little evidence of long-term changes." 

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/health/psychology/the-claim-violent-video-games-make-young-people.html

Comments

I agree, the title was exaggerated and missleading. I found a study from the University of Oxford, which rephrases the claim in their study to make it more realistic. "While no correlation was found between playing video games and aggressive behavior in teenagers, the researchers emphasize that this does not mean that some mechanics and situations in gaming do not provoke angry feelings or reactions in players" (Oxford, 2019). The New York Times article could have made a more realistic claim if they went with this approach as well.
https://www.ox.ac.uk/news/2019-02-13-violent-video-games-found-not-be-associated-adolescent-aggression

Answer 6

The article "Violent Video games make young people aggressive" is a confusing tittle that contradicts the reality. As the mentioned article starts talking about the government investing a big amount of money to investigate if video games make young people aggressive they also talk about the believes of people but that is not a study or information that gives an answer but at the end of this article the conclude saying the opposite of claim of this article. According to the article "no strong link seen between violent video games and aggression" there is no connection between playing violent video games and being aggressive. The tittle of this article is misleading people since the article proves the opposite.  (https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207216)

Answer 7

This New York Times articles title and initial main claim is that violent video games make young people aggressive. This claim is exaggerated and misleading, as the article goes on to claim that this hostility is only short-term/momentary and video games have not been shown to have any longterm or permanent effects on aggression levels. The article supports this using a study conducted by the University of Illinois, I was able to locate the study on their website (https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207216) and it is consistent in saying that there is no evidence supporting long term aggression in adolescents who play violent video games, but adds the fact that there hasn't been enough long term research conducted to make a definitive claim. It is important to note that both the New York Times article and the University of Illinois study are outdated, both being published in 2005, and current research by the National Center for Health Research (https://www.center4research.org/violent-video-games-can-increase-aggression/) shows that violent video games actually can increase aggressive thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the short and long term. So the New York Times article in itself in exaggerated, misleading, and outdated, but some of the information has turned out to be true.

Comments

I like how you pointed out how outdated the article is and it was too soon to tell the effects  tnat violent video games had on young people. do you think we are still in a gray aresa of being able to tell if video games cause violence?

Answer 8

According to the New York Times article "The Claim: Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive", psychologist Kevin M. Kieffer from St. Leo University claims that "children exposed to virtual bloodshot showed grater "short term" increases in hostility towards peers and authority figures than those exposed to more benign games". Due to the randomization of the test subjects in his study, it was also confirmed that violent video games can have negative implications on any individual, not only individuals that have previous violent behavior.

Although violent video games can have negative and violent impacts in the short term, "video games have no "long-term", or permanent, effects on aggressive behavior. Ultimately, this claim is extreme because it is largely based on public opinion. It is possible for it to be true that violent video games lead to violent effects, but this is more likely to be seen through specific actions rather than alter the entire character of those who partake in the aggressive video games on a long-term scale.

Additionally, according to Harvard Health, although violent video games might correlate to violent actions, many mediums "rely on measures to access aggression that don't correlate to real-world violence". Additionally, violent youth crimes have decreased since 1996 despite the rise in video game sales. This additional research shows that although violent video games can have the potential to alter youth interactions, this does not distinctly mean that those who play video games have an aggressive youth.

https://www.nytimes.com/2005/08/30/health/psychology/the-claim-violent-video-games-make-young-people.html

https://www.health.harvard.edu/newsletter_article/violent-video-games-and-young-people.

Answer 9

The title "Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive" is misleading and contradicts the article's content. While it begins by discussing government funding for research into the effects of video games, it also highlights public beliefs, which do not constitute empirical evidence. Ultimately, the article concludes that there is "no strong link seen between violent video games and aggression." This finding undermines the title's claim, suggesting that it misrepresents the article's conclusions.  

 

The Claim: Violent Video Games Make Young People ...

The New York Times

https://www.nytimes.com › health › psychology › the-c...

 

Answer 10

The article brings to light the debate about whether violent video games cause young people to become aggressive. The title "The Claim: Violent Video Games Make Young People Aggressive" is a bold and broad statement about the effects of violent video game usage; while the article does reference studies showing an increase in short term hostility, it lacks in evidence for the long-term effects. Despite there being evidence of short-term increased aggression, the evidence provided does not prove the title to be true, leaving the reader to question whether video games have a lasting impact on adolescent behavior. In a study completed in the same year by Dimitri Williams at the University of Illinois, found no significant long-term effects, in fact researchers argue that the relationship between video games and aggression is more complicated than previously thought and needs further study before making strong conclusions.

https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/207216#:~:text=CHAMPAIGN%2C%20Ill.,any%20substantial%20real%2Dworld%20aggression.