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It's probably confirmation bias. Same reason a study with positive outcomes about coffee/alcohol/gay parenthood/gender reassignment/<insert issue> are not crit

by umvi 6y ago

It's probably confirmation bias. Same reason a study with positive outcomes about coffee/alcohol/gay parenthood/gender reassignment/<insert issue> are not criticized as much as a study on the same topic that had negative outcomes. We want certain things to be true so we (consciously or not) avoid criticizing studies bolstering what we want to be true and harshly criticize studies we want to be false. I like to think science always prevails in the end (like with tobacco), but it can take half a century or more to converge on the truth.

mywittyname 6y ago
I mean, part of this is probably also some degree of us intuitively knowing the answer. If you have a friend group of 10 people, 4 of which regularly work out. You will probably notice that those 4 friends have less body fat and are more toned than the other 6. At that point, if a study came out saying that working out had no impact on body physique, you'd reflexively question the results. That might sound ridiculous, but lots of people here grew up playing "violent" video games through the 90s-00s, and had large friend groups who did the same. And it's pretty likely that, for most of us, none of our friends ended up with violent or aggressive tendencies. Anecdotes are not scientifically rigorous, but they aren't completely useless either. If violent video games caused measurable increases in aggressive behavior, people who were around a large cohort of people playing these games would notice this fact in action. Just like they'd notice that friends who eat a lot of cake tend to be larger than the one who don't.
- umvi 6y ago
  There's some truth here, but it's important not to use anecdotes too much to guide intuition because the sample size is often too small and too biased. For example, I have a group of 10 friends. All 10 of them (including myself) got covid, and we all agree it is no worse than the flu. I mean, yeah, we couldn't smell or taste for a few days, but we all recovered within a week. Therefore... I should reflexively question covid studies saying how dangerous it is because in my own experience it's not even worth making a fuss over? Maybe to some degree, but the fallacy I committed by relying on my anecdote to guide my intuition is that me and all my friends are young, fit, healthy people. My group of friends didn't include the elderly or immunocompromised or morbidly obese, etc.
  - aidenn0 6y ago
    To put it a different way, the people who grew up to be violent individuals are probably not posting on HN, nor working at companies with people who post on HN, so the fact that everybody on HN isn't violent, despite playing violent video games is only weak evidence against there being a correlation. In fact, I would be surprised for there to be zero correlation (even assuming there is no causation), as it is a reasonable assumption that naturally violent people are more likely to play violent video games.
    - tomp 6y ago
      > as it is a reasonable assumption that naturally violent people are more likely to play violent video games. It's also a reasonable assumption that people who naturally want to avoid actual violence play violent video games instead. This paranoia against violent video games was obviously fake from the start, and such a typically American thing - in line with the American puritan view that blowing up people in films or broadcasting police car chases is a-OK but (female) nipples or saying "fuck" is a big NO NO.
      - skrebbel 6y ago
        > a typically American thing Not only. Eg in Germany there's long been an enormous stigma against violent video games. I haven't talked with German gamedevs for some years so maybe this loosened up since. But basically, if you worked in gamedev you preferred to tell your neighbours and acquaintances that you work "in IT". If they would find out you work on video games they'd pretty much fully cut you out of their lives. (Note, to my anecdotal experience this is a purely German thing. I don't know other European countries where the same stigma exists)
        jmchuster 6y ago
        FPSes are cool in the US because of how we glorify our victories in WW2 and the Persian Gulf. I'd imagine it might be opposite in Germany for the same reason.
- kiliancs 6y ago
  Intuitively, it's hard to believe that witnessing and using violence doesn't have any negative effect on a person, even if in videogames. I think that rather than asking ourselves "does this have a negative impact?" we should ask "what can I do that has a positive impact?". Personally, I would never work on a game with significant violence. From my point of view, there are so many other things a human being can contribute towards the well-being and progress of humanity, and I would not feel happy with myself if I limited my contribution and my creativity to making another shooter.
  - longdefeat 6y ago
    -we should ask "what can I do that has a positive impact?"- That's part of the point of this essay that was on HN last year: "Fortnite and the Good Life," which seems relevant here. https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-society-no-15 https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...
    - diarmuid 6y ago
      headshot === positive impact they are just games and most (non crazy) people understand that like hansel and gretel when they push the witch in the oven - its fiction and not intended to be a guide to life
      - kiliancs 6y ago
        I think you might be underestimating the fragility of the human being in so many aspects (2020 might be trying to teach us something in that regard). Consider how alcohol has a very negative (often disastrous) effect in so many lives, even though most people start drinking thinking they understand how alcohol is going to affect them and that they can keep it under control.
        OOPMan 6y ago
        Missing the point. Alcohol is real. Games are not.
- seangrogg 6y ago
  To take this even further, with the increasing popularity of games, if violent video games were linked to violence itself we should theoretically see pronounced numbers of streaming personalities (at least those involved in competitive games, which trend towards violence as a win condition) engaged in violent acts. Gaming communities such as Twitch, competitive game conferences such as Evo, events such as Riot's world finals, and establishments such as gaming bars should all have an outsized number of people ready to throw down moreso than their non-gaming cohorts. And yet gamers remain relatively docile on the whole. And while they may get heated their debates about PlayStation vs XBox are about as likely to result in fatalities as the programming community's vim vs emacs or tabs vs spaces debates.
  - adamredwoods 6y ago
    There is evidence of gaming personalities committing suicide. There is evidence of gamers doxxing, and even worse, swatting.
    - mkr-hn 6y ago
      There is evidence of astronauts who've walked on the moon punching people. Does walking on the moon make people violent?
    - mamon 6y ago
      But is gaming at fault here? Or maybe "gaming personalities" are simply people for which real life sucks, so they try to alleviate their pain by gaming a lot? Maybe gaming was the thing that delayed their suicide by months/years?
    - seangrogg 6y ago
      There's evidence of academic stress leading to suicide. Does that infer a causal link between academia and violence?
      - adamredwoods 6y ago
        It could, any studies? Going back to streamers and video games, Twitch has definitely had its share of toxicity: https://gamecrate.com/how-twitch-now-holding-streamers-responsible-their-audiences/18090 https://gamecrate.com/how-twitch-now-holding-streamers-respo...
- yters 6y ago
  I read a story in the recent past about a 30 some year old constant gamer who lived in his parents' house who shot and killed his mother for messing with his gaming console. There is some anecdata for you.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
Blikkentrekker 6y ago
H.N. is also a place where one will simply be downvoted for criticizing the methodology, even if the post reveal nothing about whether one support the conclusion or not. But any place with “votes” has such effects.

by umvi 6y ago

mywittyname 6y ago

I mean, part of this is probably also some degree of us intuitively knowing the answer. If you have a friend group of 10 people, 4 of which regularly work out. You will probably notice that those 4 friends have less body fat and are more toned than the other 6. At that point, if a study came out saying that working out had no impact on body physique, you'd reflexively question the results. That might sound ridiculous, but lots of people here grew up playing "violent" video games through the 90s-00s, and had large friend groups who did the same. And it's pretty likely that, for most of us, none of our friends ended up with violent or aggressive tendencies. Anecdotes are not scientifically rigorous, but they aren't completely useless either. If violent video games caused measurable increases in aggressive behavior, people who were around a large cohort of people playing these games would notice this fact in action. Just like they'd notice that friends who eat a lot of cake tend to be larger than the one who don't.

umvi 6y ago
There's some truth here, but it's important not to use anecdotes too much to guide intuition because the sample size is often too small and too biased. For example, I have a group of 10 friends. All 10 of them (including myself) got covid, and we all agree it is no worse than the flu. I mean, yeah, we couldn't smell or taste for a few days, but we all recovered within a week. Therefore... I should reflexively question covid studies saying how dangerous it is because in my own experience it's not even worth making a fuss over? Maybe to some degree, but the fallacy I committed by relying on my anecdote to guide my intuition is that me and all my friends are young, fit, healthy people. My group of friends didn't include the elderly or immunocompromised or morbidly obese, etc.
- aidenn0 6y ago
  To put it a different way, the people who grew up to be violent individuals are probably not posting on HN, nor working at companies with people who post on HN, so the fact that everybody on HN isn't violent, despite playing violent video games is only weak evidence against there being a correlation. In fact, I would be surprised for there to be zero correlation (even assuming there is no causation), as it is a reasonable assumption that naturally violent people are more likely to play violent video games.
  - tomp 6y ago
    > as it is a reasonable assumption that naturally violent people are more likely to play violent video games. It's also a reasonable assumption that people who naturally want to avoid actual violence play violent video games instead. This paranoia against violent video games was obviously fake from the start, and such a typically American thing - in line with the American puritan view that blowing up people in films or broadcasting police car chases is a-OK but (female) nipples or saying "fuck" is a big NO NO.
    - skrebbel 6y ago
      > a typically American thing Not only. Eg in Germany there's long been an enormous stigma against violent video games. I haven't talked with German gamedevs for some years so maybe this loosened up since. But basically, if you worked in gamedev you preferred to tell your neighbours and acquaintances that you work "in IT". If they would find out you work on video games they'd pretty much fully cut you out of their lives. (Note, to my anecdotal experience this is a purely German thing. I don't know other European countries where the same stigma exists)
      - jmchuster 6y ago
        FPSes are cool in the US because of how we glorify our victories in WW2 and the Persian Gulf. I'd imagine it might be opposite in Germany for the same reason.
kiliancs 6y ago
Intuitively, it's hard to believe that witnessing and using violence doesn't have any negative effect on a person, even if in videogames. I think that rather than asking ourselves "does this have a negative impact?" we should ask "what can I do that has a positive impact?". Personally, I would never work on a game with significant violence. From my point of view, there are so many other things a human being can contribute towards the well-being and progress of humanity, and I would not feel happy with myself if I limited my contribution and my creativity to making another shooter.
- longdefeat 6y ago
  -we should ask "what can I do that has a positive impact?"- That's part of the point of this essay that was on HN last year: "Fortnite and the Good Life," which seems relevant here. https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-society-no-15 https://theconvivialsociety.substack.com/p/the-convivial-soc...
  - diarmuid 6y ago
    headshot === positive impact they are just games and most (non crazy) people understand that like hansel and gretel when they push the witch in the oven - its fiction and not intended to be a guide to life
    - kiliancs 6y ago
      I think you might be underestimating the fragility of the human being in so many aspects (2020 might be trying to teach us something in that regard). Consider how alcohol has a very negative (often disastrous) effect in so many lives, even though most people start drinking thinking they understand how alcohol is going to affect them and that they can keep it under control.
      - OOPMan 6y ago
        Missing the point. Alcohol is real. Games are not.
seangrogg 6y ago
To take this even further, with the increasing popularity of games, if violent video games were linked to violence itself we should theoretically see pronounced numbers of streaming personalities (at least those involved in competitive games, which trend towards violence as a win condition) engaged in violent acts. Gaming communities such as Twitch, competitive game conferences such as Evo, events such as Riot's world finals, and establishments such as gaming bars should all have an outsized number of people ready to throw down moreso than their non-gaming cohorts. And yet gamers remain relatively docile on the whole. And while they may get heated their debates about PlayStation vs XBox are about as likely to result in fatalities as the programming community's vim vs emacs or tabs vs spaces debates.
- adamredwoods 6y ago
  There is evidence of gaming personalities committing suicide. There is evidence of gamers doxxing, and even worse, swatting.
  - mkr-hn 6y ago
    There is evidence of astronauts who've walked on the moon punching people. Does walking on the moon make people violent?
  - mamon 6y ago
    But is gaming at fault here? Or maybe "gaming personalities" are simply people for which real life sucks, so they try to alleviate their pain by gaming a lot? Maybe gaming was the thing that delayed their suicide by months/years?
  - seangrogg 6y ago
    There's evidence of academic stress leading to suicide. Does that infer a causal link between academia and violence?
    - adamredwoods 6y ago
      It could, any studies? Going back to streamers and video games, Twitch has definitely had its share of toxicity: https://gamecrate.com/how-twitch-now-holding-streamers-responsible-their-audiences/18090 https://gamecrate.com/how-twitch-now-holding-streamers-respo...
yters 6y ago
I read a story in the recent past about a 30 some year old constant gamer who lived in his parents' house who shot and killed his mother for messing with his gaming console. There is some anecdata for you.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

Blikkentrekker 6y ago

H.N. is also a place where one will simply be downvoted for criticizing the methodology, even if the post reveal nothing about whether one support the conclusion or not. But any place with “votes” has such effects.