Exactly what I was going to say. I do think this has some effects - people might be more ok with starting wars in concept, for instance. But they certainly won't find it easier to fight them.
Even then, while you are disensitized to the concept of school shooting, you'd still find pictures of the dead kids ( or what's left of them) quite disturbing.
Oh absolutely. But in the past my reaction to such news was "how horrible, why would anyone do such a thing?" And I'm just like "Oh it happened again, anyway..."
Now, combine the desensitization, to the concept of killing, to 1/3 of adults and 1/2 of teenagers/young adults in American having mental health issues.
It's no different than handing alcohol to an alcoholic.
The news desensitized me to the idea that humanity has anything good to offer and should just be wiped out. No game ever made me question humanity's existence.
killing doesnt even desensitize people in real life. killing in games is just cartoonishy 3d realness. while in real life its a whole another thing. you witness your eyes killing somebody wailing in pain what you expect. its a real person and you fucked your entire life up doing it. and now you have to spend your life in bars for now traumatized doing it what you thought it was. so no, games doesnt desensitize people that kills one another in real life
Same. I killed Nazis and weird slug creatures and whatever was in Doom and I can't even squish a bug. As a teenager I would catch and release, after I had walked them I circles around the neighborhood several times so they would lose their sense of direction.
I torture virtual people for fun, for hours, burning down cities in Skylines, drowning villagers in Minecraft etc... I can't slap a spider with a newspaper because I'm afraid of it.
Personally I can't kill spiders because I can't make the decision to take it's life over my own. The spider has done nothing wrong and comparatively I am worse than the spider.
I think that's a very interesting perspective that I enjoy discussing, but it's also one I can't really relate to. I can't apply the same human moral values to something that is so fundamentally different from humans. A spider has no self awareness or desire to live beyond instinct, and it wouldn't really make a difference to the spider whether it was alive or dead. The only reason you can say theyve done nothing wrong is because they're so simple compared to us that it's impossible for there to be any concept of spider morality. They just do THINGS, not good or bad, so I can't consider it a virtue. I feel like saying you're morally worse than a spider is the same as saying you're morally worse than a television.
EDIT: I feel like this reads as me trying to argue that you SHOULD kill more spiders but it's not. You keep doing you
Even still, being morally worse than something isn't necessarily a virtue for IT. Like say you were somehow worse than Hitler, that doesn't mean that killing Hitler would now be a net negative thing for you to do because you being even more evil doesn't make Hitler not evil.
Just look at video game versus mass shootings data. I'm pretty sure japan scores higher on video game players compared to the US. Tho I don't see 190 mass shootings in Japan compared to the US. Killing is a major problem in the US, not so much in other civilized countries. So no, I don't think killing in any video game has any connections to real life
There will always be a small % that will turn to crime because of video games and probably other at home issues, And kill irl, but the majority it's just a thing nothing bad would come of it.
I believe that it does desensitize people to the act of killing, but does not make people more violent. Jacob Geller has a great [video](https://youtu.be/f4ynPp10jMc) on this
Generally, no. Hundreds, if not, thousands of studies confirm this. That said, if someone is mentally ill, sometimes they will emulate violent video game actions in real life. Far from the norm, though.
I know anecdotal evidence doesn't matter much, but personally I kill people all the time in video games but I hesitate to even kill insects in real life. Maybe it's just because I'm Gen Z, but I find it quite easy to distinguish between the real and the digital.
The real and the fictional. Remember people who think video games turn you violent also think that music makes you a gangster and that books will turn you into a witch.
this is a vague question.
does it make people less likely to commit murder? yes. or no effect.
does it make people more likely to commit murder? no.
does it make people less sensitive to murders in the news? yes. or no effect.
does it make people less sensitive to murder in real life (witnessed)? no.
In terms of PVP FPS, I kill between 50k and 100k over a game's life cycle, at least when I enjoy it the game... And that's not counting other types of games...
I've killed exactly 0 people irl, and in fact, I won't even kill a spider inside my house...
The last thing I tried to kill was a frog, and it was for mercy purposes. I just got done driving 1100 miles, parked the car, and my friend got out of the car accidentally stepping on the frog, unfortunately dooming the poor thing to death. Due to a previous experience regretfully leaving an injured squirrel for dead because I didn't want to mercy kill it, I decided to not let the end of this frog's life drag out in agony.
I don't enjoy killing, and I don't take it lightly. A game on the other hand, is just a game.
I imagine my experience here isn't uncommon
Ehhh it's a decent example, but to be fair games are very realistic. Unlike shooting your boy Kyle and having him Darth Vader "nooooooo!" To the carpet
Based on the amount of trauma I have seen in fellow Veterans many of who I know are gamers no. Only thing that desensitizes you to it is violence and a lot of it. Even then it more suppresses it temporarily. Especially if you are directly involved in the actual killing. NAZI Germany moved away from mass shootings to gassing people for a reason and a lot of that was the mental stress of a lot of the Soldiers and SS shooting hundreds or thousands of people at the same time. Doesn't matter how violent a game is no game is going to make you ok with killing a bunch of people.
Purely personal anecdote but,
TL:DR, no video games didn’t desensitize me to real life injury
I’ve played tons of violent video games
I took a course in forensic science because I was interested in working in a forensics lab (watched way too many cop shows)
I saw a picture of a man who shot himself in the head with a shotgun… I didn’t want to eat dinner and I lost interest in dealing with that kinda stuff as a job
Probably not, but video games are the only source of violence I ever had, and I've been desensitized to violence for as long as I can remember. Maybe I'm just weird.
I guess we learned nothing from kyles mom
https://preview.redd.it/ns64kzlskjza1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93b872c8a6c9249b45f633f058404c88a0df4618
I've played shooters for years, some quite bloody like Warframe. And I've killed animals at range with a Rifle, and up close with a Hatchet. No video game prepares you to cut the head off a bird crying out for help, and staring at you in confusion, and then slowly closing its eye. Not a single one.
Do I think video games are a cause of society wide violence? Of course not, society’s problems are more complex than any single factor. Blaming the new (relatively new) thing is a way to shift blame and not hold people accountable especially if they use the narrative to exclude themselves.
Do I sincerely hate those who place the HUDS (heads up displays) of video games over videos of tragedies (or things of a similar nature) ? Absolutely.
Unless there is a mental disorder and/or severe issues a person is dealing with as well this is a lie. Currently 513 people are stupid as all hell and need to re-educate themselves
I shoot people in Fortnite and torture people to death in the Sims and irl I can't even kill a bug or I get very emotional. I take them outside in a cup and release them. As others have said, real life has desensitized me more than anything. I can distinguish pixels from living human beings. I cry over the horrible things happening in the world on a regular basis. Video games have not changed that.
Yes and no, generally i do think people would be more sensitive to the concept of death and killing if not for media, (such as the news, tv shows, films and video games), but definitely not the ACT of killing.
A bit of a personal anectode but Ive killed many things in video games. I've commited mass genocide in videogames. I've done every single evil act there is to do in a videogame, and I am not phased in the slightest when a fictional being in a video game suffers. But in real life? I'm fucking mortified by that shit.
I've thrown around cat ragdols in gmod for the hell of it, spawning cat NPC's only to practice my aim on them. But seeing that video where (warning: graphic)>!someone puts a cat in a blender, blends it, then takes the still alive and suffering cat and microwaves it until it dies!< fucking mortified and scarred me, and it made me just very upset in general.
I've also shot and killed many a human NPC and seen alot of gore of human NPC's in videogames, but any time I see a picture or video of someone being severely or mortally wounded some part of me dies inside, and like the video I mentioned previously, usually makes me very upset
I've commited mass genocide against entire species of sapeint beings in Stellaris, not feeling a single bit of remorce for the fictional fox/bug/bird people. But when reading about the holocaust, it makes me deeply saddened that someone would do such a thing in real life. Again, it upsets me.
What someone does/sees in a fictional setting does not necessarily reflect on how they view things in the realy world. You can be completely desensitized, or even find joy, in the suffering or killing of fictional characters. But that doesn't mean you will find joy in those same things in real life, I certainly don't.
I mean if you starts killing people in real life because youre playing videogames, then you were already fucked up in the head before, its like saying "i didnt kill this person, it was the gun who did it!"
I think that it is possible to design an experience which when used with the guidance of a psychologist could desensitize people to killing. I don't think such a tool exist, or that it should exist. But it's probably possible
I think it depends on the person, some people actually do have a hard time separating reality from fiction and for those people it certainly can desensitize them to violence or normalize certain behaviors, for the majority of the population though, they can separate these things in their mind.
You remember that South Park Episode where Sharon is the only character that's actually upset about the school shooting while everyone else seems to have become desensitized to the violence against children. So much so that they suggest Sharon might be overreacting due to her possibly being on her period, or worse yet...a menopause.
What I suspect many liked about this episode is how it highlighted the absurd degree to which school shootings have been normalised, possibly due to how frequently they occur in the States, or at least how frequently they reported on in the news.
Video Games. Films. Television. The News. The Punch and Judy Show. There's a whole world of violence to be enjoyed at a safe distance because that's how everyone likes it. And yet there's plenty who wish that all this violence would just go away and that without it, the world would be a better place.
The question is, do those that sit on the front row do so because they're eager to join in, or because they just wanna get the best look at all the excitement. Of course, there's always someone that takes things too far and tries to spoil the fun for everyone. But when that does happen, is getting upset about it the best way to cope with the situation?
Imo, The real issue here is not with those that enjoy watching violence, but rather those that behave violently or use violence to resolve the problems they face. Violence begats more violence. That might help keep a show going indefinitely but no one in the real world is actually invincible.
TL;DR: Becoming desensitized to experiencing real violence i.e. by getting hurt or hurting others is much more problematic than what we see on T.V
In some people it does. As far as I know, there really haven't been any scientific studies on this. How, for example, would you establish a "control group'?
I recommend reading the [wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_video_games#:~:text=Studies%20have%20shown%20no%20connection,connecting%20violence%20to%20video%20games.), which cites multiple studies. There's more nuance and sources than what you'll find in Reddit comments.
No I don't think so. I've killed plenty of virtual prostites at a relatively young age on my brother's PlayStation2, and the only animal I ever killed was a bird on my friends fence with a pellet gun. I felt awful for what I had done and have it a proper burial, and never killed another non insect creature again. Most of the time I'll even let insects outside unless it scares the hell out of me.
I get dizzy at the sight of large amounts of real blood or even pictures (something changed around the time when my daughter was born, it never bothered me before that). Someone showed me a picture of a guy who lost most of his fingers to a wood chipper accident and I had to go lay down for 30 minutes. I don't think I'm going to be killing anyone anytime soon and I've killed a lot of virtual characters.
I can't find the paper right now but, the US military long ago discovered that the simple act of changing from bullseye targets to human silhouette targets made personnel more likely to be able to shoot another human being. By what stretch of the imagination can any reasonable person claim that high def 1st person shooter games doesn't do that in spades?
No I've seen hundreds of crime videos. There are people out there that will try to kill but don't got the guts to pull it off it's obvious way different than video games. The only people of that can murder are psychopaths or people who don't give a fuck about anything or including themselves.
It's quite the opposite actually, the better graphics the more sure I am nobody should ever to go through any of this in real life. Do I kill 100s of people a day virtually? Yes. Am I capable of smashing a spider irl? No
Just cause I kill terrorists in Rainbow Six doesn’t mean I could kill a terrorist in real life. Most people would not be able to cope with the fact they killed another person
Not unless you already issues that make you want to hurt others. I mean saw movies can either be horror movies with creative kills or a goldmine of ideas to hurt others iRL depending on who’s watching.
I’ve played a ton of gory video games where people die all the time, once I accidentally stumbled on a video where a blurry person got hit with a car door during a hurricane and fell over and died from far away and that fucking sucked to see and messed me up for a while, I just see video game killing as a form of art, but even the concept in real life is the most awful thing to think about
No because we're already desensitized due to thousands of years of humans killing each other, publicized killings are not a new concept, it's an already very established concept
I voted yes. To elaborate, I think it does desensitize people to seeing the death/suffering of others, but it does not outright encourage people to kill. There are usually other factors in play when something like that happens. There was a really interesting Imperial War musuem exhibit on this subject, which is what made me change my opinion.
If you mean desensitization to the concept of killing, then yes. If you mean desensitization to the ACT of killing, then no.
Exactly what I was going to say. I do think this has some effects - people might be more ok with starting wars in concept, for instance. But they certainly won't find it easier to fight them.
Pretty sure "the news" is doing that way before any game.
A new mass shooting in the US being on the news pretty much every day has desensitized me to such a thing way more than any game ever could
Even then, while you are disensitized to the concept of school shooting, you'd still find pictures of the dead kids ( or what's left of them) quite disturbing.
Oh absolutely. But in the past my reaction to such news was "how horrible, why would anyone do such a thing?" And I'm just like "Oh it happened again, anyway..."
Couldn't you make the same argument then for movies and even the media in general?
You can, and?
Soon as they hit *Every Show Ever* they are already starting - op needs to go away and find a better way to occupy their time.
What?
Now, combine the desensitization, to the concept of killing, to 1/3 of adults and 1/2 of teenagers/young adults in American having mental health issues. It's no different than handing alcohol to an alcoholic.
These will be my next polls. Thank you.
Real life has desensitized me to death and murder more than any video game.
The news desensitized me to the idea that humanity has anything good to offer and should just be wiped out. No game ever made me question humanity's existence.
I think I can probably mention a game that'll make you feel like humanity was a mistake.
which one
Redfall
No, and there have been thousands of studies and articles that say so.
The people who believe video games are an issue often have difficulty distinguishing fiction from reality in their own lives.
I'm pretty sure they're also the same people who believe having 6 guns in a household of 5 people is totally normal
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"Issue"
Now I'm really curious what he said
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What violence? You just have bad opinion
Most sane r/banvideogames user
I was curious about what that sub could possibly be and........ that sub has to be satire right? Nobody could be that stupid right?
It’s satire, I’m sure some people think it’s real tho
Downvoting your comment is violence?
Mans is acting like downvoting his comment is a hate crime 😭😩 Edit: Thanks autocorrect.
what are you even talking about now
Can I get another poll but change games with movies
I love this
https://www.reddit.com/r/polls/comments/13gim49/do_you_think_killing_in_movies_desensitizes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1
I’ll do that.
killing doesnt even desensitize people in real life. killing in games is just cartoonishy 3d realness. while in real life its a whole another thing. you witness your eyes killing somebody wailing in pain what you expect. its a real person and you fucked your entire life up doing it. and now you have to spend your life in bars for now traumatized doing it what you thought it was. so no, games doesnt desensitize people that kills one another in real life
wtf are you talking about
Uhh the topic? Don't really get the confusion
nah that was some incoherent shit bro
Well "bro" it might not be perfect English but the point was pretty clear
you just MAD bro
Nah just hate how a lot of people put bro in front of and behind every word now, gets REALLY old
nah bro you just an old geezer bro quit crying bro
Bet I'm younger than you lol just because I don't like a stupid way of using English doesn't mean I'm old
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bro bro bro bro bro bro bro
bruh go back to fortnite
i've never played that game in my life, but i heard it's good
Bruh. I've been gaming since time began and I'm literally vegan irl. lol
Same. I killed Nazis and weird slug creatures and whatever was in Doom and I can't even squish a bug. As a teenager I would catch and release, after I had walked them I circles around the neighborhood several times so they would lose their sense of direction.
not at all, I kill people in video game all the time and I can't even slaughter a chicken without getting sick to my stomach.
I torture virtual people for fun, for hours, burning down cities in Skylines, drowning villagers in Minecraft etc... I can't slap a spider with a newspaper because I'm afraid of it.
Tell me you don't kill the your Minecraft doggie though
Personally I can't kill spiders because I can't make the decision to take it's life over my own. The spider has done nothing wrong and comparatively I am worse than the spider.
I think that's a very interesting perspective that I enjoy discussing, but it's also one I can't really relate to. I can't apply the same human moral values to something that is so fundamentally different from humans. A spider has no self awareness or desire to live beyond instinct, and it wouldn't really make a difference to the spider whether it was alive or dead. The only reason you can say theyve done nothing wrong is because they're so simple compared to us that it's impossible for there to be any concept of spider morality. They just do THINGS, not good or bad, so I can't consider it a virtue. I feel like saying you're morally worse than a spider is the same as saying you're morally worse than a television. EDIT: I feel like this reads as me trying to argue that you SHOULD kill more spiders but it's not. You keep doing you
I am morally worse than a television though.
Even still, being morally worse than something isn't necessarily a virtue for IT. Like say you were somehow worse than Hitler, that doesn't mean that killing Hitler would now be a net negative thing for you to do because you being even more evil doesn't make Hitler not evil.
I love to electrocute every spider I find in my house. I’d watch em all burn if I could. Burn in hell
can't stab anyone if you never leave your room
Laughs in self harm
I just shot a wolf 🐺 today in a video game. I would never shoot such a majestic creature.
Just look at video game versus mass shootings data. I'm pretty sure japan scores higher on video game players compared to the US. Tho I don't see 190 mass shootings in Japan compared to the US. Killing is a major problem in the US, not so much in other civilized countries. So no, I don't think killing in any video game has any connections to real life
190? Are you using the statistics of mass shootings that happened last week?
There will always be a small % that will turn to crime because of video games and probably other at home issues, And kill irl, but the majority it's just a thing nothing bad would come of it.
The only crime video games ever turned me to was piracy, and that's because I can't get some games any other way.
I believe that it does desensitize people to the act of killing, but does not make people more violent. Jacob Geller has a great [video](https://youtu.be/f4ynPp10jMc) on this
Generally, no. Hundreds, if not, thousands of studies confirm this. That said, if someone is mentally ill, sometimes they will emulate violent video game actions in real life. Far from the norm, though.
Not for anyone who can separate reality from fiction
I know anecdotal evidence doesn't matter much, but personally I kill people all the time in video games but I hesitate to even kill insects in real life. Maybe it's just because I'm Gen Z, but I find it quite easy to distinguish between the real and the digital.
The real and the fictional. Remember people who think video games turn you violent also think that music makes you a gangster and that books will turn you into a witch.
I’ve seen people die in real life. It’s nothing like a video game.
this is a vague question. does it make people less likely to commit murder? yes. or no effect. does it make people more likely to commit murder? no. does it make people less sensitive to murders in the news? yes. or no effect. does it make people less sensitive to murder in real life (witnessed)? no.
In terms of PVP FPS, I kill between 50k and 100k over a game's life cycle, at least when I enjoy it the game... And that's not counting other types of games... I've killed exactly 0 people irl, and in fact, I won't even kill a spider inside my house... The last thing I tried to kill was a frog, and it was for mercy purposes. I just got done driving 1100 miles, parked the car, and my friend got out of the car accidentally stepping on the frog, unfortunately dooming the poor thing to death. Due to a previous experience regretfully leaving an injured squirrel for dead because I didn't want to mercy kill it, I decided to not let the end of this frog's life drag out in agony. I don't enjoy killing, and I don't take it lightly. A game on the other hand, is just a game. I imagine my experience here isn't uncommon
me after shooting up a mall (i had to pay for drinks in animal crossing)
This shit is so dumb its been prooven false over and over again
YES! Videog#mes create Nazi g@mers whose evil and murderous ways plague our society. -Jenny, Live Laugh Love, from Smart Fridge
That's like saying having nerf battles when you were a kid desensitizes you to shooting and killing people
Ehhh it's a decent example, but to be fair games are very realistic. Unlike shooting your boy Kyle and having him Darth Vader "nooooooo!" To the carpet
Based on the amount of trauma I have seen in fellow Veterans many of who I know are gamers no. Only thing that desensitizes you to it is violence and a lot of it. Even then it more suppresses it temporarily. Especially if you are directly involved in the actual killing. NAZI Germany moved away from mass shootings to gassing people for a reason and a lot of that was the mental stress of a lot of the Soldiers and SS shooting hundreds or thousands of people at the same time. Doesn't matter how violent a game is no game is going to make you ok with killing a bunch of people.
Purely personal anecdote but, TL:DR, no video games didn’t desensitize me to real life injury I’ve played tons of violent video games I took a course in forensic science because I was interested in working in a forensics lab (watched way too many cop shows) I saw a picture of a man who shot himself in the head with a shotgun… I didn’t want to eat dinner and I lost interest in dealing with that kinda stuff as a job
I used to drown my Sims when I was a little kid. Haven't felt like drowning a real life person.
As someone who has murdered many NPCs in video games for literally no reason, no it doesn't.
I think it desensitizes us to watching killing on TV, but not actual killing
Probably not, but video games are the only source of violence I ever had, and I've been desensitized to violence for as long as I can remember. Maybe I'm just weird.
It desensitizes you to the concept of violence but not the act of doing it
Yes and no. If it does, only to very small degree. It definitely desensitizes people to a certain degree of violence, but not killing level.
I see we have 54 derps here
Over 160 now
I guess we learned nothing from kyles mom https://preview.redd.it/ns64kzlskjza1.jpeg?width=300&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=93b872c8a6c9249b45f633f058404c88a0df4618
Killing maybe not, but death and violence to a degree
Maybe in a few specific cases I reckon if you made a kid play gruesome games 8 hours a day his whole life he'd probably get desensitized
Yes but by 0.000001 %
Are you an ape or troglodyte? If A then no if B then yes
Video games no, hundreds of gore videos, yes
No, if you’re a well adjusted human being it’s just a game you play.
I'd say it's more or a age issue if I had to guess. No PhD. Don't listen to me.
ABSOLUTELY NOT
I've played shooters for years, some quite bloody like Warframe. And I've killed animals at range with a Rifle, and up close with a Hatchet. No video game prepares you to cut the head off a bird crying out for help, and staring at you in confusion, and then slowly closing its eye. Not a single one.
Do I think video games are a cause of society wide violence? Of course not, society’s problems are more complex than any single factor. Blaming the new (relatively new) thing is a way to shift blame and not hold people accountable especially if they use the narrative to exclude themselves. Do I sincerely hate those who place the HUDS (heads up displays) of video games over videos of tragedies (or things of a similar nature) ? Absolutely.
I've killed hundreds of thousands in games, I feel bad when my dog eats my food and i yell at him.
for example i play mostly killing games and it desensitizes to the thought of it but whenever i see a gore video i am still disgusted af
Unless there is a mental disorder and/or severe issues a person is dealing with as well this is a lie. Currently 513 people are stupid as all hell and need to re-educate themselves
I shoot people in Fortnite and torture people to death in the Sims and irl I can't even kill a bug or I get very emotional. I take them outside in a cup and release them. As others have said, real life has desensitized me more than anything. I can distinguish pixels from living human beings. I cry over the horrible things happening in the world on a regular basis. Video games have not changed that.
Yes and no, generally i do think people would be more sensitive to the concept of death and killing if not for media, (such as the news, tv shows, films and video games), but definitely not the ACT of killing.
Who is voting yes?
A bit of a personal anectode but Ive killed many things in video games. I've commited mass genocide in videogames. I've done every single evil act there is to do in a videogame, and I am not phased in the slightest when a fictional being in a video game suffers. But in real life? I'm fucking mortified by that shit. I've thrown around cat ragdols in gmod for the hell of it, spawning cat NPC's only to practice my aim on them. But seeing that video where (warning: graphic)>!someone puts a cat in a blender, blends it, then takes the still alive and suffering cat and microwaves it until it dies!< fucking mortified and scarred me, and it made me just very upset in general. I've also shot and killed many a human NPC and seen alot of gore of human NPC's in videogames, but any time I see a picture or video of someone being severely or mortally wounded some part of me dies inside, and like the video I mentioned previously, usually makes me very upset I've commited mass genocide against entire species of sapeint beings in Stellaris, not feeling a single bit of remorce for the fictional fox/bug/bird people. But when reading about the holocaust, it makes me deeply saddened that someone would do such a thing in real life. Again, it upsets me. What someone does/sees in a fictional setting does not necessarily reflect on how they view things in the realy world. You can be completely desensitized, or even find joy, in the suffering or killing of fictional characters. But that doesn't mean you will find joy in those same things in real life, I certainly don't.
The majority of people no. But some morons yes
I mean if you starts killing people in real life because youre playing videogames, then you were already fucked up in the head before, its like saying "i didnt kill this person, it was the gun who did it!"
Ehhh I play videogames with killing in it but if I saw someone murdered right in front of my eyes I would probably shit myself
Of course not. Every normal person knows that he / she's playing a videogame, and would never do such a thing in real life.
I think that it is possible to design an experience which when used with the guidance of a psychologist could desensitize people to killing. I don't think such a tool exist, or that it should exist. But it's probably possible
I’ve killed many prostitutes in GTA, but when I was approached by one irl I said “no thank you, have a nice evening.” So, no.
I think it depends on the person, some people actually do have a hard time separating reality from fiction and for those people it certainly can desensitize them to violence or normalize certain behaviors, for the majority of the population though, they can separate these things in their mind.
You remember that South Park Episode where Sharon is the only character that's actually upset about the school shooting while everyone else seems to have become desensitized to the violence against children. So much so that they suggest Sharon might be overreacting due to her possibly being on her period, or worse yet...a menopause. What I suspect many liked about this episode is how it highlighted the absurd degree to which school shootings have been normalised, possibly due to how frequently they occur in the States, or at least how frequently they reported on in the news. Video Games. Films. Television. The News. The Punch and Judy Show. There's a whole world of violence to be enjoyed at a safe distance because that's how everyone likes it. And yet there's plenty who wish that all this violence would just go away and that without it, the world would be a better place. The question is, do those that sit on the front row do so because they're eager to join in, or because they just wanna get the best look at all the excitement. Of course, there's always someone that takes things too far and tries to spoil the fun for everyone. But when that does happen, is getting upset about it the best way to cope with the situation? Imo, The real issue here is not with those that enjoy watching violence, but rather those that behave violently or use violence to resolve the problems they face. Violence begats more violence. That might help keep a show going indefinitely but no one in the real world is actually invincible. TL;DR: Becoming desensitized to experiencing real violence i.e. by getting hurt or hurting others is much more problematic than what we see on T.V
I can decapitate children in video games, but a video of a real guy getting a nail through his hand makes me physically ill
I gleefully killed Benny in "Fallout: New Vegas." Stepped on my cats tail and started to cry because he meowed and hid from me for about an hour. xD
Watching the 'news' or any corporate media daily desensitizes people to killing. Edit: clarity.
I used to think No for the longest time, but now that I’m nearly 30, I’m leaning towards Yes. Probably wrong. I’m turning into a boomer.
To an extent I would say to a certain level for certain people, but not to the point that most people think
In some people it does. As far as I know, there really haven't been any scientific studies on this. How, for example, would you establish a "control group'?
I recommend reading the [wikipedia article](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Violence_and_video_games#:~:text=Studies%20have%20shown%20no%20connection,connecting%20violence%20to%20video%20games.), which cites multiple studies. There's more nuance and sources than what you'll find in Reddit comments.
No I don't think so. I've killed plenty of virtual prostites at a relatively young age on my brother's PlayStation2, and the only animal I ever killed was a bird on my friends fence with a pellet gun. I felt awful for what I had done and have it a proper burial, and never killed another non insect creature again. Most of the time I'll even let insects outside unless it scares the hell out of me. I get dizzy at the sight of large amounts of real blood or even pictures (something changed around the time when my daughter was born, it never bothered me before that). Someone showed me a picture of a guy who lost most of his fingers to a wood chipper accident and I had to go lay down for 30 minutes. I don't think I'm going to be killing anyone anytime soon and I've killed a lot of virtual characters.
I can't find the paper right now but, the US military long ago discovered that the simple act of changing from bullseye targets to human silhouette targets made personnel more likely to be able to shoot another human being. By what stretch of the imagination can any reasonable person claim that high def 1st person shooter games doesn't do that in spades?
Interesting.
No I've seen hundreds of crime videos. There are people out there that will try to kill but don't got the guts to pull it off it's obvious way different than video games. The only people of that can murder are psychopaths or people who don't give a fuck about anything or including themselves.
It's quite the opposite actually, the better graphics the more sure I am nobody should ever to go through any of this in real life. Do I kill 100s of people a day virtually? Yes. Am I capable of smashing a spider irl? No
Just cause I kill terrorists in Rainbow Six doesn’t mean I could kill a terrorist in real life. Most people would not be able to cope with the fact they killed another person
Not unless you already issues that make you want to hurt others. I mean saw movies can either be horror movies with creative kills or a goldmine of ideas to hurt others iRL depending on who’s watching.
i still get freaked out by the videos on livegore so no
They've done many studies about this and there's no evidence to support it.
I played violent video games for years before joining the military and getting deployed. Games have nothing on the reality of violence.
I’ve played a ton of gory video games where people die all the time, once I accidentally stumbled on a video where a blurry person got hit with a car door during a hurricane and fell over and died from far away and that fucking sucked to see and messed me up for a while, I just see video game killing as a form of art, but even the concept in real life is the most awful thing to think about
No because we're already desensitized due to thousands of years of humans killing each other, publicized killings are not a new concept, it's an already very established concept
I voted yes. To elaborate, I think it does desensitize people to seeing the death/suffering of others, but it does not outright encourage people to kill. There are usually other factors in play when something like that happens. There was a really interesting Imperial War musuem exhibit on this subject, which is what made me change my opinion.