Games Lead To Violence and Drugs?

A joint University of California, SFO/University of Pittsburgh study has been released which finds "playing violent videogames can lead young men to believe it is acceptable to smoke marijuana and drink alcohol", Gamasutra reports. Reuters is also carrying the story, with some information about methodology available in that piece. From the article: "Brady and Matthews had a group of 100 male undergraduates aged 18 to 21 play either Grand Theft Auto III or The Simpsons: Hit and Run. In the Simpsons game, players took the role of Homer Simpson and their task was to deliver daughter Lisa's science project to school before it could be marked late. In Grand Theft Auto III, players took the role of a criminal, and were instructed by the Mafia to beat up a drug dealer with a baseball bat."

Other way around?

[WilliamSChips]

I have a feeling that it's probably the other way around: people who don't like drinking and marijuana in real life probably will be less likely to play GTA.

A datum

[Kesch]

Ahem, I would like to testify that I have played GTA and other violent video games.

I do not believe it to be legal (in the US. This anwser is subject to change in other countries.) or responsible for teenagers (like me) to use marijuana or alcohol.

Finaly I would like to add that I understand a datum does not a study make and that correlation!=causation.

So, are these bad things?

[Oldsmobile]

Umm, so what I don't get is, how is this a bad thing? None of these things mentioned, alcohol use, marihuana or sex without a condom are a problem when used in an informed, smart way.

I don't get it.

That is like saying, reading href="http://www.intowine.com/">In to Wine causes people to want to use alcohol.

I mean come on!

Re:it bears repeating

[crabpeople]

I think what he was trying to get at was that this study is really fuckign stupid.

Did they ask them whether they thought it was ok for gays to marry? or whether pre marital sex is an ok choice?

i dont see why not since they seem to be linking all sorts of random shit together. this whole article is sensationalist nothing trying to be meaningful something. Its like asking people to play a game of basketball and then getting their opinion on the italian election. These things are so far removed from having anything to do with eachother that you wonder what the creators were smoking. Was the creator of this study really high? that usually makes you link together all sorts of random concepts so it seems quite likely...

It's about the (self-censored) blood pressure!

[Chmcginn]

It's actually really simple, and makes sense. The way they worded the abstract was a bit weird... but it was the thing about blood pressure that should stand out. I'd be pretty willing to bet that if you had a hundred people, and had half of them sit on a couch for twenty minutes, and the other half get on a treadmill for twenty minutes, you'd probably get the same result as comparing cartoon vs. realistic simulated violence.

So... umm... Exercise leads to violence and risky behavior?

Re:it bears repeating

[egomaniac]

You have completely and utterly misunderstood my argument.

You can indeed eliminate all external causes in this case. The two factors that are correlated are "student was in the experimental group" and "student experienced increased permissiveness of violence and drugs". Since the first factor (student was in the experimental group) was random, it by definition cannot have any influencing factors. It is therefore impossible for there to be a common cause of both "student was in the experimental group" and "student experienced increased permissiveness of violence and drugs".

The only possible conclusions are:

A) The experiment showed a genuine effect
B) The effect was introduced by randomness (a result of the small sample size)
or
C) The experiment was badly designed (the selection was not truly random, for instance)

Re:Mark article "redundant"

[Sierpinski]

I think that about covers the legitimacy of this study.

John Wayne Gacy and Ted Bundy were also Christians. Shouldn't that lead to the conclusion that Christians like to kill people?

I could provide a much longer list of "Christians" who have committed various violent crimes, but I don't really think that's necessary.

How many of you were in Middle/High school at the time of the Columbine shootings? How many of your schools outlawed trenchcoats after that? Because everyone knows that wearing a trenchcoat means you're a psychotic murderer, but if you don't wear it, you won't do any of those horrific things.

Re:Other way around?

[Jaysyn]

So what's wrong with smoking pot & drinking? If everyone did them to moderation American society would probably be much better off as a whole.

Jaysyn