Remember that Supreme Court case regarding California’s law banning the sale of violent video games to minors? This morning, 5 out of 9 justices confirmed that California should shut the hell up, even though WHAT ABOUT THE CHILDRENS? (Two more concurred, but left room for future restrictions.) Hilarious old crankypants Antonin Scalia wrote the majority decision, reminding us that profitable speech will always be protected speech: “California has singled out the purveyors of video games for disfavored treatment—at least when compared to booksellers, cartoonists and movie producers—and has given no persuasive reason why.”
But of course what-about-the-children-ism is a long-standing and profitable industry (far less profitable than the industries it exploits, but still comfortable), so get ready for the backlash. A couple of hours after the announcement of this decision that basically everyone saw coming, we got an insane press release from Dr. Gregory Jantz touting his availability for mongering scares (all bolds are sic, sic, sic):
- Are video games a gateway drug to a life of delinquency, blurred boundaries, and twisted conceptions of right and wrong?
- Do they have similar psychological effects on the mind like drugs do?
- Are these images dangerous to the development of teenagers?
- What about their younger siblings?
- Can these images actually create future criminals?
- Should kids have unrestricted access to these violent, potentially dangerous, video games?
- If the courts can’t regulate these games, what can parents do?
(Answer key: No, most don’t, all evidence points to no, they are awesome, seems unlikely, probably not, relax and learn from history)
The Stranger Testing Department is Rob Lightner and Paul Hughes.
Why won’t some soulless corporate citizen like Philip Morris take these rulings to heart and start marketing Marlborough Tie Dye cigarettes (joints) and DARE the DEA to get in their way?
It’s worth noting that the MPAA film ratings (PG13, R, NC17), carry no legal authority in any state or city. The agreement is between the theater and the community.
Of course, with video games, there’s no locality– they can be sold to US consumers directly from offshore companies. But that would require a credit card or something similar.
A nation of money grubbing con men.
Yah, except that, you know, you’re completely wrong. The science is clear as can be that violent video games DO cause violence in children, and potentially a LOT of violence. The EMA and libertarian groups throw out one or two bad studies that show no effect on violence (just like similar groups did to say that smoking didn’t cause lung cancer), but that’s not how science works.
http://www.law.northwestern.edu/lawrevie…
And yet raku, crime rates continue to fall even though violent video games have existed for at least a few decades now. Where are the armies of delinquent 30 year olds ripping people’s spines out because of Mortal Kombat?
i know dennis miller has gone completely off the rails, but what he said with regard to similar concerns over music way back when is still perfect: “if your child is capable of being pushed over the edge by anything gene simmons has to say, you’re NOT DOING YOUR JOB AS A FUCKING PARENT.” if your kid starts thinking it’s okay to kill things and people because he saw it/did it in a video game, you have bigger problems than the game itself.
and it’s not the job of the game creator or distributor or retailer or the government or anyone else to keep these games away from my kids, it’s MY job. (and yes, i do keep them away from them.)
@4 – that was Breyer’s dissent.
But look at the other justices in the majority – Kennedy and the female justices rarely are teaming up with Scalia. I think this came down as a more 1st amend issue and less a corporate thumbs up (though the court in general has a decidedly pro-corporate slant) – the decision on the Arizona political fundraising law was the more telling ideological split.
@4, how were the studies that disagree with you “bad studies?”
If video games cause violent behavior, why, during the explosive growth in popularity of video games, is youth violence steadily decreasing?
This topic isn’t like evolution or global warming, where a consensus exists. Saying that the “science is as clear as can be” when there are so many scientists who disagree on this topic indicates a lack of understanding of what science is.
#7- I don’t know how I feel about the law… I doubt it would have been very effective and would have been a nuisance, for starters.
I just took issue with “all evidence points to no” and “probably not” when the truth is “almost all good evidence points to yes” and “almost certainly yes.” Violent video games are a social problem… the discussion should be how best to mitigate the problem, not to pretend that it doesn’t exist.
Here are some pesky facts from a professor at MIT.
http://www.pbs.org/kcts/videogamerevolut…
Claims like this (“violent game play is linked to youth violence”) are based on the work of researchers who represent one relatively narrow school of research, “media effects.” This research includes some 300 studies of media violence. But most of those studies are inconclusive and many have been criticized on methodological grounds. In these studies, media images are removed from any narrative context. Subjects are asked to engage with content that they would not normally consume and may not understand. Finally, the laboratory context is radically different from the environments where games would normally be played. Most studies found a correlation, not a causal relationship, which means the research could simply show that aggressive people like aggressive entertainment. That’s why the vague term “links” is used here. If there is a consensus emerging around this research, it is that violent video games may be one risk factor – when coupled with other more immediate, real-world influences — which can contribute to anti-social behavior. But no research has found that video games are a primary factor or that violent video game play could turn an otherwise normal person into a killer.
Violent video games are a social problem…
Again, considering that all forms of violent crime have been steadily decreasing as violent video game popularity has been increasing, in what way, exactly, are violent video games a social problem?
8- There are always studies that find “no correlation” or “no causation” between two variables, that’s the nature of science based around probability, especially social science with lots of confounding variables. There are literally hundreds, if not thousands, of studies that found no link between smoking and cancer, for example. You need to have an eye for scientific detail, read good metareviews, or listen to scientific organizations whose job it is to wade through all the garbage.
Nobody is saying that violent video games are the only cause of violence.
@12, I agree with all of that. But none of it addresses your assertions. It doesn’t follow that because there were studies that found no link between smoking and cancer that the studies that find no link between violent video games and violent behavior are therefore flawed. If that was the case, then it would follow that studies finding no link between vaccines and autism were flawed or studies finding no link between cell phones and cancer are flawed.
You’ve said that “Violent video games are a social problem…”, but you haven’t said in what way. In what way are violent video games a social problem?
#13: I didn’t say they were “flawed”, I said they were “bad studies” as shorthand for being scientific noise.
You expect studies not to show correlation or causation between variables because that’s how science works – it’s based on probability and it’s difficult to remove all uncontrolled variables. If a tiny minority of studies show no link between two variables, that’s expected and they can be ignored unless they’re designed to show something different. If the vast majority or all studies show no link or very little link – vaccines/autism, or cell phones/cancer – then that’s meaningful.
You can read this link, it addresses everything. It’s a few years old and the science is even stronger now.
http://www.apa.org/science/about/psa/200…
For one time in pretty much ever, I agree almost completely with Scalia. Video games absolutely are singled out for this extraordinarily hypocritical treatment. All of our popular media is saturated with violence. Fuck your neophobia for pointing the finger at the newest medium and deciding it’s to blame for a completely ingrained cultural phenomenon.
If violent video games are part of a social problem, it’s as a symptom, an expression, not any kind of causal vector.
Both “sides” of this issue have their favorite sets of studies to cherry-pick, but the literature as a whole 1) finds no compelling reason violence in this medium is or should be any more causative of violence than any other, and 2) demonstrates the irregular, noisy patterns of studies of varying quality that are zeroing in on no effect.
@14, okay that’s 8 years old, first of all. Second, the author states that violent crime rates among youth isn’t decreasing, and that is flatly false.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canad…
Again, to say that “the science is as clear as can be” is demonstrably false.
http://www.science20.com/news_releases/v…
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010…
I’d really like to know in what way, exactly, are “violent video games a social problem?” How, exactly, are problems being caused by violent video games?
(And I don’t need to remind you that similar claims have been made by psychologists about movies, television, comics, and rock and roll.) (But I guess I did, anyway.)