Primed for aggression
p2pnet.net News:- A German study designed to find out happens in gamers’ brains as they encounter “violent situations” discovered their brains reacted as if they were treating the violence as real.
“Niels Birbaumer of the University of Tübingen in Germany, speculates that playing violent video games regularly would strengthen these circuits in the brain,” says New Scientist.
“A regular player confronted with a similar real-life situation, might be more primed for aggression, Birbaumer says.”
More than 90% of American children play video games every day, “and half of the top sellers contain extreme violence,” says the story, going on:
“There is now strong evidence that people who play violent games tend to be more aggressive. For example, in 2000, Craig Anderson and Karen Dill at Iowa State University in Ames reported data showing that violent-game players were more likely to report high levels of aggression and to have committed assaults or robberies. But finding out whether it is the games that make them violent or the violence that attracts them to the games has proved much harder.”
Klaus Mathiak at the University of Aachen in Germany asked recruited 13 men aged 18 to 26, who played video games for 2 hours every day on average, to play a violent game while having their brains scanned using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI).
Mathiak found that as violence became imminent, “the cognitive parts of the brain became more active,” says New Scientist.
But Colombia University violence expert Jeffrey Fagan is quoted as saying the link between brain activity and violence is complex and, ‘The frontal lobe functions associated with violence have more to do with restraint than the arousal to action’.”
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See:-
New Scientist – Do games prime brain for violence?, June 23, 2005
June 24th, 2005 at 4:38 am
How do they know they’re not just recording the “fight or flight” response in action?
I’m sure this story “getting out” is no more than part of the campaign for more funds for these ppl, who’ll eventually turn around and say something like “more recent studies show we were a little bit off with our early conclusions”.
Tho i guess it’s possible that the eventual conclusions will depend more on the attitudes of their sponsors or donors than anything else.
June 24th, 2005 at 7:43 am
Marvin Heemeyer of Granby Colorado built a home made tank and demolished the building of those he believed caused the closure of his business. City corruption must have gotten the better of him. He did make sure nobody got hurt. With the P.S.A. government usurping more and more of people’s rights and the local governments stealing property from people, is it any wonder that there are more “crazies” out there? Maybe if we had just 1 Heemeyer per square mile, the P.S.A. would once again respect people’s Constitutional rights. Maybe the P.S.A. would return to being the U.S.A.
June 25th, 2005 at 6:16 am
let’s see.. 40% of the “United States of America’s” troops in the next decade will be robotic fighters according to the pentagon.
With the inevitable military draft coming, and the planned PNAC invasions of Iran, Syria, and North Korea, is there any wonder as to whom will be controlling these robots?
June 26th, 2005 at 6:28 am
What the motherfuckin hell is this shit all about??!?! i play violent games all the time but i dont act violent!!!! (Picks up office chair and throws it out the window at some pedestrians on street)
Pedestrians start freaking out and I shoot them just like in GTA