Violent Video Games Numb Players to Real-Life Brutality

By Leslie Sabbagh
HealthDay Reporter Wed Aug 9, 7:02 PM ET

WEDNESDAY, Aug. 9 (HealthDay News) -- Playing violent video games, even for only 20 minutes, desensitizes people to real-world violence, new research contends.

"We found that the subjects who played violent video games for 20 minutes had lower physiologic responses when they watched videos of real-life violence," said Nicholas Carnagey, who conducted the research while a psychology instructor at Iowa State University in Ames.

He explained that these lowered physical responses meant the person felt less emotional upset when viewing real-life brutality.

Prior studies have reported a correlation between exposure to violent video games and desensitization to real violence. But Carnagey's team say theirs is the first to expose subjects to video games and then measure their physiologic reactions to real-life violence through heart rate and galvanic skin response, which evaluates perspiration.

As heart rate and perspiration increase, so does emotional arousal, said Carnagey, who is now a professor of psychology at the University of Michigan and the Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam.

Released online ahead of print in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the study included 257 college students (124 men and 133 women) who were tested before and after playing violent or non-violent video games for 20 minutes. Violent games included Carmageddon, Duke Nukem, Mortal Kombat and Future Cop. Non-violent games included Glider Pro, 3D Pinball, 3D Munch Man and Tetra Madness.

All of the participants had similar heart rates and other signs of arousal before exposure to real-life violence, which included videotaped shootings, prison fights and police confrontations.

"The only time we saw physiologic differences [among participants] was while they were watching real-life violence," Carnagey said.

The people who played violent video games for 20 minutes had lower galvanic skin responses (lower perspiration) and heart rates while watching the real-life footage. "A lot of other studies on exposure to violent video games indicated that we would find this [desensitization], but it surprised us that only 20 minutes of exposure was enough to show this effect," Carnagey said.

Translated to the real world, these signs of lower emotional upset may mean a person is more desensitized to violence. He or she may also be less able to identify violence and less likely to help victims of violence, Carnagey explained.

The findings could raise a red flag for parents.

Even though the study targeted college students, "there's no doubt that these results apply to younger children, and there's every reason to be concerned that the effects be may even greater in those under the age of 7 because these children don't distinguish very well between fantasy and reality," said pediatrician Dimitri A. Christakis, director of the Child Health Institute at the University of Washington, Seattle, and author of the book The Elephant in the Living Room: Make TV Work for Your Kids.

Researchers already know that exposure to violent media in many different forms leads to violence and aggression in the real world, but the mechanism for how this occurs is less well-known. The study suggests that desensitization -- defined by researchers as a reduction in emotion-related physical reaction to real violence -- may be a critical factor in that pathway.

The caution for parents is real, Christakis said. "Children are much more media-savvy at a much younger age than their parents were," he noted.

Many parents believe that violent games won't make their children more violent, but they might not be witnessing any increase in aggressive behaviors first-hand, he noted. The negative effects of video game exposure often infiltrate children's real-life games, Christakis said. "This increasing violence is mutually enhancing in a negative way," he warned, because "it reinforces violence in their own lives."

Much of the media children watch is laden with violence, Carnagey added. In G-rated movies and games, violence is often packaged in a "cute and friendly manner," the Iowa researcher noted.

And "as children grow older, they're exposed to ever more realistic and gory scenes," he said. "Parents might say, 'My child is not ready to see that yet,' but what does that comment mean? When would children be ready to see someone beheaded?"

This unintended desensitization from exposure to very violent media can have a real impact on children's development, according to the researchers.

"In real life, were not talking about a simple 20-minute exposure, were talking about exposure that's hours on end, day after day," Carnagey said. "Parents should be aware and active in their child's exposure to media. They should really think about what messages they're exposing their children to."

The study also raises some important questions for future research, including whether the effects of short-term exposure to violent games lingers, and what the cumulative effect might be of playing violent video games over days, weeks, and years.

More information

For more on media violence and its effects on children, visit the American Academy of Pediatrics.

What the Devil? Prince of Darkness Is Misunderstood, Says UCLA Professor  Discussion at PhysOrgForum
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He's not the enemy of God, his name really isn't Lucifer and he isn't even evil. And as far as leading Adam and Eve astray, that was a bad rap stemming from a case of mistaken identity.

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"There's little or no evidence in the Bible for most of the characteristics and deeds commonly attributed to Satan," insists a UCLA professor with four decades in what he describes as "the devil business."

In "Satan: A Biography" (Cambridge Press), Henry Ansgar Kelly puts forth the most comprehensive case ever made for sympathy for the devil, arguing that the Bible actually provides a kinder, gentler version of the infamous antagonist than typically thought.

"A strict reading of the Bible shows Satan to be less like Darth Vader and more and more like an overzealous prosecutor," said Kelly, a UCLA professor emeritus of English and the former director of the university's Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies. "He's not so much the proud and angry figure who turns away from God as [he is] a Joseph McCarthy or J. Edgar Hoover. Satan's basic intention is to uncover wrongdoing and treachery, however overzealous and unscrupulous the means. But he's still part of God's administration."

The view runs in opposition to the beliefs held by many Christians and others about key religious concepts like original sin and the nature of good and evil.

"If Satan isn't really in opposition to God and he isn't really evil, then that means the fight between good and evil isn't an authentic part of Christianity," Kelly said. "What I'm saying will be scandalous to some people."

But what would you expect of someone's whose 72nd birthday fell this year on June 6 (06-06-06) and who felt disappointed when nothing momentous occurred that day? Actually, Kelly is no stranger to bubble-bursting. After digging deep into the history of Valentine's Day, he pronounced 20 years ago that he had not only uncovered the holiday's origins but that it should be celebrated in May, not February.

Still, if Kelly could be considered scandalous, it's not because he doesn't know any better. Kelly started his academic career at a Jesuit seminary and was ordained in four of the seven holy orders on the way to the priesthood, including the order of exorcist.

"It was at that time that I started my campaign to rehabilitate the devil — to deliver him from evil, as it were," Kelly said.

"Satan: A Biography" is the culmination of more than 40 years of research into the devil and religious and cultural traditions that have grown up around him. The book is Kelly's third on the topic.

When it comes to the Old Testament, Kelly insists that Satan's profile is considerably lower than commonly thought and significantly less menacing. By Kelly's count, Satan only appears three times in the 45 books that make up the pre-Christian scriptures, the best known being in the Book of Job. On each occasion, Satan is still firmly part of what Kelly calls "God's administration," and his activities are done at the behest of "the Big Guy." But his actions aren't evil so much as consistent with the translation of "devil" and "satan," which literally mean "adversary" in Greek and Hebrew, respectively.

"His job is to test people's virtue and to report their failures," Kelly said.

Perhaps most surprising is not the figure Satan cuts, but his notable absences in the Old Testament. In the Bible's first reference to Lucifer, for instance, Satan doesn't appear — even by implication, Kelly points out. "'Lucifer' is Latin for light-bearer," he said, and was the name given to the morning star, or the planet Venus. Originally written in ancient Hebrew, the passage, on face value, refers to the tyrannical Babylonian king who boasts of his conquests but who is "about to be cast to the ground." Kelly insists there's nothing more to the reference than an apt use of metaphor, but the third-century Christian philosopher Origen of Alexandria argued in his best known work, "On First Things," that the reference applied to Satan.

"Origen says, 'Lucifer is said to have fallen from Heaven,'" Kelly explained. "'This can't refer to a human being, so it must refer to Satan.' Subsequent church fathers found this reasoning persuasive, and so did everyone who followed them."

Ironically, the only mentions of Lucifer in the New Testament — and there are three of them — refer to Jesus, Kelly said. "Jesus is called 'Lucifer' or 'the morning star' because he represents a new beginning."

Another prominent omission in the Old Testament, Kelly said, can be found in Genesis. "Nobody in the Old Testament — or, for that matter, in the New Testament either — ever identifies the serpent of Eden with Satan," Kelly said. "The serpent is just the smartest animal, and he's motivated by envy after being jilted by Adam for Eve."

Kelly traces the correlation of Satan and the serpent to not long after the New Testament was completed. In his "Dialogue With Trypho," the second-century Christian martyr Justin of Samaria first argued that Satan appeared as a serpent to tempt Adam and Eve to disobey God, according to Kelly.

"This is what I call 'The New Biography,'" Kelly said. "It starts with Justin Martyr, who implicates Satan in the fall of Adam and Eve. By causing Adam and Eve to fall, Satan caused his own fall.

"The second step in this new and phony biography comes with Origen, who said, 'No, Satan's first sin was not deceiving Adam and Eve or refusing to go along with God's plan of creating Adam in his own image,'" Kelly said. "'It was to sin out of pride like the morning star, like Lucifer in the passage from Isaiah.' Turning Satan into God's enemy is a two-step process."

Meanwhile, in passages in Luke, Matthew, Corinthians and elsewhere in the New Testament, Satan continues to act as a tester, enforcer and prosecutor but not as God's enemy, Kelly points out.

"Everyone else has said that by the time Satan gets to the New Testament, he is evil, he's an enemy of God, but that's not so," Kelly said. "The whole biblical picture of Satan is that of a bad cop to Yaweh's good cop in the Old Testament, and to Jesus' good cop in the New Testament. Throughout, Satan is someone who works for God."

A scene in the New Testament's Book of Revelation is often cited today as evidence that Satan was the deceiver of Adam and Eve, but the interpretation stems from a fundamental misunderstanding, Kelly argues.

"'That ancient serpent' refers to the giant sea serpent Leviathan, not the garden snake of Eden," he said. "In Revelation, Leviathan has morphed into a dragon, or large serpent, with the seven heads and 10 horns, which is still further removed from the seductive serpent who deceived Eve."

In addition to linking Satan with the Garden of Eden, the passage from Revelation also has been used to prove that Satan fell early on in the Bible, but Kelly insists that is not accurate.

"Satan's ouster from heaven in Revelation is explained as taking place in the future," Kelly said. "In Revelation 12:10, a voice says that 'the accuser of our brothers is cast out, overcome by the testimony of martyrs.' Since there were no martyrs until Christ died, that has to be in the future."

Similarly, a passage in the Gospel of Luke, when Jesus reports having seen "Satan fall like lightning," has been misinterpreted, according to Kelly. "Jesus saw the fall in the past because he had the vision the day before he describes it to the apostles," Kelly said. "But Jesus is referring to a future fall [of Satan] from his position as God's attorney general."

This is not to say, however, that Kelly contends that Satan is likeable.

"Jesus doesn't like him, and Paul doesn't like him," Kelly explained. "He represents the old guard in the heavenly bureaucracy, and everyone longs for him to be disbarred as the chief accuser of humankind."

Source: UCLA

Rap music blamed for teen pregnancy
22:00pm 21st August 2006

Rap stars are encouraging early sexual activity among teenagers by promoting a degrading view of women, research shows.

Psychologists said their findings from a three-year study presented a worrying picture of how popular music affected the attitudes of boys and girls to sex.

Rap music and hip hop, with their particular emphasis on sex and demeaning depictions of women, were blamed for encouraging early sexual behaviour, leading to the spread of disease and underage pregnancies.

Dr Steven Martino, who led the US study published in the latest edition of the journal 'Pediatrics', said that "sexually degrading lyrics" - many graphic and filled with obscenities - caused changes in adolescents' sexual behaviour.

He said, "These lyrics depict men as sexually insatiable, women as sexual objects, and sexual intercourse as inconsequential. Other songs about sex don't appear to influence youth the same way.

"These portrayals objectify and degrade women in ways that are clear but they do the same to men by depicting them as sex-driven studs. Musicians who use this type of sexual imagery are communicating something very specific about what sexual roles are appropriate, and teenage listeners may act on these messages.

"These lyrics are likely to promote the acceptance of women as sexual objects and men as pursuers of sexual conquest. Despite the fact that degrading sexual lyrics are particularly demeaning for women, they affect adolescent boys and girls similarly."

The same disturbing messages were contained in videos which endorse the portrayal of women as sexual objects, the report said. The research team surveyed 1,461 children aged from 12 to 17 from across the US, asking them about their sexual behaviour and how often they listened to music by various artists including rock, country, rap, blues and pop.

They found that the youngsters listened to an average of 1.5 to 2.5 hours of music a day - not including what they saw on television or videos - but that 40 per cent of the songs referred to sex or romance.

Adolescents who listened to a lot of music containing "objectifying and limiting characterisations of sexuality progressed more quickly in their sexual behaviour" than teenagers who preferred different kinds of music. This was regardless of race or gender, the report said.

The study, called "Exposure to Degrading Versus Non-Degrading Music Lyrics and Sexual Behaviour among Youth," was carried out by the RAND Corporation - a leading healthcare research organisation in the US. It also said that there was a danger that children's opinions about the opposite sex would be affected for the long-term by constant exposure to the lyrics.

Dr Martino added, "It may be that girls who are repeatedly exposed to these messages expect to take a submissive role in their sexual relationships and to be treated with disrespect by their partners.

"These expectations may then have lasting effects on their relationship choices. Boys, on the other hand, may come to interpret reckless male sexual behaviour as 'boys being boys' and dismiss their partners' feelings and welfare as unimportant."

He said that the findings were worrying for teenagers who have more unplanned pregnancies and are more likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases. Increasing rates of sexual activity have serious public health implications. In the US, about 750,000 teenagers become pregnant each year, and an estimated four million contract sexually transmitted diseases.

The study recommended that parents set limits on what music their children buy and listen to. "Censorship is not a solution. But talking to children about music's sexual content can give parents a chance to express their own views, and may prompt teens to think more deeply about the ways in which sex is portrayed - and perhaps distorted - in the music they listen to," Dr Martino said.

He would not name the artists whose lyrics had the worst impact although the stars L'il Kim and Ja Rule were referred to in the report.

He said, "We feel that, given how prevalent these types of portrayals are in popular music, it doesn't make sense for us to pinpoint individual artists."

He also said that the study distinguished between "raunchy" or "explicit" lyrics and degrading ones. "A lyric did not have to be either of these things to be judged degrading. Not all explicit and raunchy lyrics were degrading," he explained.

Among the sixteen artists studied, rap featured the greatest percentage of degrading content by a wide margin. R&B and "rap rock" came next in the table. The rock, pop and country performers had a zero percentage although they did sing about sex and romance.

Danyel Smith, the editor of Vibe magazine, said that she wanted African American males "to have a voice" in rap and hip hop. But she too expressed concern about the message they put across.

"There are a lot of degrading lyrics but I don't want to shut these guys down. I hope that parents can steer kids away from these kinds of things until they are old enough to understand them," she added.

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Police property: It’s finders keepers in NH

11 hours, 28 minutes ago

The state Supreme Court ruled on Tuesday that the government can keep and destroy more than 500 CDs taken from Michael Cohen, owner of Pitchfork Records in Concord, in 2003 even though the state failed to prove that a single disk was illegal.

Cohen was arrested for attempting to sell bootleg recordings. But the police case collapsed when it turned out that most of the recordings were made legally. Police dropped six of the seven charges, and Cohen went to trial on one charge. He beat it after the judge concluded that the recording was legal.

However, the police refused to return Cohen’s CDs. In the state Supreme Court’s Tuesday ruling, Chief Justice John Broderick, writing for the majority, reasoned so poorly that it appeared as if he’d made up his mind ahead of time.

Dissenting, Justice Linda Dalianis wrote, perceptively, that “the majority does not explain how statutes prohibiting the production, publication, or sale of certain works render possession of such works unlawful.”

Further, Dalianis concluded that “the state’s failure to establish in any way that the seized property constitutes contraband” made it impossible to justify keeping Cohen’s property.

Indeed, the majority’s reasoning is chilling. The majority concedes that no crime or illegal act was proven, but allows the confiscation anyway by concluding that a crime might have been committed. The majority used words such as “apparently,” “likely” and “would have” to describe the alleged illegal activity.

It should go without saying that speculation by a few judges that a crime might have been committed is a frightening basis for taking someone’s property.

Earlier this year, Nashua police confiscated video recordings of two officers being rude to a citizen at his own home. Though police dropped all charges against Michael Gannon and admitted they could not prove the recordings were illegal, they still kept the tapes.

If someone is found with cocaine or any other item clearly illegal to possess, confiscation is easily justified. But the illegality of these items was never proven, and mere possession was not itself illegal.

If the government can seize and keep a citizen’s property by simply asserting that it is contraband, even when the assertion is unsupported by the facts, then we have entered into dangerous territory.

Mayor Nagin Takes Swipe at NYC Sept.11 Rebuilding
Friday, August 25, 2006

NEW YORK — New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin criticized efforts to redevelop the World Trade Center site when confronted in a television interview about delays in rebuilding his city after Hurricane Katrina.

During the "60 minutes" interview, a correspondent pointed out flood-damaged cars still on the streets of New Orleans' devastated Ninth Ward. Nagin replied, "You guys in New York can't get a hole in the ground fixed, and it's five years later. So let's be fair," according to CBS.

The program is scheduled to air Sunday night. Text and a video clip from the Nagin piece were posted on CBS' Web site Thursday.

The chairman of the Lower Manhattan Development Corp., the agency created to oversee the rebuilding of the World Trade Center site and downtown Manhattan, said that tremendous progress has been made in lower Manhattan, with the Freedom Tower, a transportation hub and a memorial to the nearly 3,000 attack victims under construction.

"We understand how difficult rebuilding a city after such destruction can be," chairman Kevin Rampe said in a statement.

Nagin, known for his blunt style, is not the first to compare the two cities. New Orleans residents frequently complain that the federal government's response after Katrina has been far more sluggish than it was after the Sept. 11 attacks.