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> I don't know, but it's worth thinking about probably. No, it's not—at least not for more than a few moments. This is really obviously not a useful red flag

> I don't know, but it's worth thinking about probably. No, it's not—at least not for more than a few moments. This is really obviously not a useful red flag to worry about. Violent video games are very widely popular, and have been for many years now. It's still quite rare for their users to turn into criminals. Highlighting things like playing violent video games is merely shining a spotlight on something we already know won't help anyone identify future criminals. That spotlight should instead be focused on traits and behaviors that aren't very common in the general population. A lot of the critics of the general category of violent video games are people who wish to censor them, without any real evidence that a social good would result. These parents—or at least the journalist reporting on them—have lumped themselves in with the would-be censors by presuming that the son's video game preferences were a warning sign they should have been paying attention to.

deleted 5y ago
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jjeaff 5y ago
I don't think it's necessarily predictive of anything, but I think it's clear that certain types of violent video games, especially first person shooter games , do serve to desensitize people to committing violence. In fact, the military found long ago that changes as small as using a human silhouette rather than a round target helped soldiers to hesitate less when they were confronted with having to shoot someone on the battlefield. Now, the military uses first person shooters for this same reason and I can't imagine that it isn't quite a bit more effective than a silhouette on a paper target.
- wtallis 5y ago
  The problem with this kind of excuse is that "desensitize people to committing violence" has absolutely nothing to do with a kid becoming a criminal but non-violent hacker. If there is a good reason to be concerned about the prevalence of violent video games, it doesn't apply here. So I won't bother to debate whether there's any evidence to support your implicit suggestion that violent video games contribute to actual criminal violence.
- strken 5y ago
  I've read very little actual evidence for any link between playing video games and violence. You can say that you think it desensitises players, but surely that should be measurable, right?
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    The Pentagon disagrees and has spent tens of millions on video games as well as other methods to desensitize soldiers to violence. https://www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-KILLERS-Human-2514123.php https://www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-K...
    - strken 5y ago
      That's a random article written by a journalist, not a scientific paper published by a researcher. DARPA has, among other things, spent a lot of money on a glove to help blind people drive. That's not evidence that blind people are good drivers, or that wearing gloves will make you a good driver.
- jandrewrogers 5y ago
  The military uses human silhouette targets so that you learn to estimate ballistic compensation from the sight picture geometry. It is part of basic training. A target that is round does not provide useful visual cues for estimating ballistic compensation as might be seen on a battlefield. You only have a second or two to estimate range and make appropriate ballistic compensations based on what you see in the sight picture. The US military stopped having people punch holes in paper targets a very long time ago. In the 1990s, you trained on a field of varying silhouettes that randomly pop up for only a few seconds at ranges anywhere from 50 meters to 300-400 meters. You were expected to detect the target pop up in a busy field of view, estimate range from silhouette geometry, compensate for ballistics based on the range estimate, smoothly pull the trigger, and still hit the target most of the time before the target disappeared again. It becomes muscle memory but it is all based on silhouette geometry in the sight picture.
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    That may be one reason, but it has been widely reported that the military has long been working to decrease hesitation to kill another human using more lifelike targets, video games, etc "The Pentagon improved firing rates. Research suggests that 55 percent of U.S. soldiers fired on the enemy in the Korean War. By Vietnam that rate had climbed to more than 90 percent. Police studies document similar changes in recent decades. One of the key changes was to get rid of the old firing ranges, where shooters took target practice in an open field aiming at a bull's-eye. This failed miserably at preparing shooters for real-world confrontations." https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-KILLERS-Human-2514123.php https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-...

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

jjeaff 5y ago

I don't think it's necessarily predictive of anything, but I think it's clear that certain types of violent video games, especially first person shooter games , do serve to desensitize people to committing violence. In fact, the military found long ago that changes as small as using a human silhouette rather than a round target helped soldiers to hesitate less when they were confronted with having to shoot someone on the battlefield. Now, the military uses first person shooters for this same reason and I can't imagine that it isn't quite a bit more effective than a silhouette on a paper target.

wtallis 5y ago
The problem with this kind of excuse is that "desensitize people to committing violence" has absolutely nothing to do with a kid becoming a criminal but non-violent hacker. If there is a good reason to be concerned about the prevalence of violent video games, it doesn't apply here. So I won't bother to debate whether there's any evidence to support your implicit suggestion that violent video games contribute to actual criminal violence.
strken 5y ago
I've read very little actual evidence for any link between playing video games and violence. You can say that you think it desensitises players, but surely that should be measurable, right?
- jjeaff 5y ago
  The Pentagon disagrees and has spent tens of millions on video games as well as other methods to desensitize soldiers to violence. https://www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-KILLERS-Human-2514123.php https://www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-K...
  - strken 5y ago
    That's a random article written by a journalist, not a scientific paper published by a researcher. DARPA has, among other things, spent a lot of money on a glove to help blind people drive. That's not evidence that blind people are good drivers, or that wearing gloves will make you a good driver.
jandrewrogers 5y ago
The military uses human silhouette targets so that you learn to estimate ballistic compensation from the sight picture geometry. It is part of basic training. A target that is round does not provide useful visual cues for estimating ballistic compensation as might be seen on a battlefield. You only have a second or two to estimate range and make appropriate ballistic compensations based on what you see in the sight picture. The US military stopped having people punch holes in paper targets a very long time ago. In the 1990s, you trained on a field of varying silhouettes that randomly pop up for only a few seconds at ranges anywhere from 50 meters to 300-400 meters. You were expected to detect the target pop up in a busy field of view, estimate range from silhouette geometry, compensate for ballistics based on the range estimate, smoothly pull the trigger, and still hit the target most of the time before the target disappeared again. It becomes muscle memory but it is all based on silhouette geometry in the sight picture.
- jjeaff 5y ago
  That may be one reason, but it has been widely reported that the military has long been working to decrease hesitation to kill another human using more lifelike targets, video games, etc "The Pentagon improved firing rates. Research suggests that 55 percent of U.S. soldiers fired on the enemy in the Korean War. By Vietnam that rate had climbed to more than 90 percent. Police studies document similar changes in recent decades. One of the key changes was to get rid of the old firing ranges, where shooters took target practice in an open field aiming at a bull's-eye. This failed miserably at preparing shooters for real-world confrontations." https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-SCIENCE-OF-CREATING-KILLERS-Human-2514123.php https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sfgate.com/science/amp/THE-...