Open Challenge - 4 Topics

Thanks for accepting.DefinitionsThe definition of Children is fine as the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child defines under 18 as the standard for being a child.With the ESRB scale, I don't think that's a great definition for violent video games for a couple reasons.1) It's not very universal. For instance I'm not from a country that uses the ESRB system.2) It's not a great definition. Other scales on ESRB (Notably AO and T contain differing amounts of violence to M but still contain violence.3) It seems to miss the point. While T might contain less graphic or more cartoony violence, frankly if I show than even less intense violence has negative social impacts then that just makes my argument all the more powerful.I think we will be fine without having a hard and fast definition of violent videogames, but at the same time I don't want to limit my options out the gate with a definition that I don't think works. if you feel they are necessary, I'd suggest the dictionary definitions of "Violent" and "Videogames".The ArgumentI will argue that Violent videogames have a negative social outcome on children.To some, they might make the argument of free will. That there is no way videogames can force people to commit acts of violence or act in any way they don't want. This is true. People still have agency and make their own choices.However it doesn't need to control their actions, it merely needs to influence them and this is something that we know can happen to people. People have their own free choice in what religion they pick (in most countries) and yet most people growing up in a Christian family in a Christian country will be Christian, most people growing up in a Hindu family in a Hindu country will be Hindu, etc, etc. Despite their free will to make a choice, people are quite obviously influenced by what's around them. Not only that but Classical Conditioning is a fairly well known example of the ability to manipulate people through rewarding or punishing behaviour [1]. Based on the famous example of Pavlov's dogs, we have even been able to (for example) train men to get erections to the sound of musical chimes [2]!That people can be influenced by the culture around them including media is fairly indisputable - and if not someone should notify every advertising agency in the world. That leaves the question - do video games in particular cause negative social outcomes in children?The EvidenceThe answer is an overwhelming yes. It doesn't turn people into homicidal maniacs. I play games myself and have since I was a child don't consider myself violent. The same is hopefully true with you. This isn't about anyone on an individual level. This is about people who play video games - as a collective, being on average more susceptible to negative social outcomes like violence.http://journals.sagepub.com......The above is a meta-analysis of violence in video games.This is very important because a meta-analysis is a study of studies [3], combining the results of a mass of studies to give an overall view of the status of the scientific evidence. This avoids the problem with singular studies where it is possible to cherry pick the exceptions and present them as as the norm, or where there is a mixture of competing evidence and it is hard to say where the overall consensus lies.In this case the peer reviewed scientific meta-analysis finds: "Data from 98 independent studies with 36,965 participants revealed that for both violent video games and prosocial video games, there was a significant association with social outcomes. Whereas violent video games increase aggression and aggression-related variables and decrease prosocial outcomes, prosocial video games have the opposite effects. These effects were reliable across experimental, correlational, and longitudinal studies, indicating that video game exposure causally affects social outcomes and that there are both short- and long-term effects"To me, this is exactly what I would expect to see. People play violent videogames. There is a reward and sense of accomplishment when you absolutely smash the other team in Call of Duty and manage to win. It fits the logic of classical conditioning perfectly. People are trained to commit (virtual) violence and get rewarded. This primes them to act violently. ConclusionThis is not to condemn videogames. I believe that there are likely a host of similar results from other media - from watching a violent movie to watching one of the more violent sports (Even American Football perhaps). It simply means that the risks must be acknowledged and thought given to how this is dealt with. Perhaps the current model of game classification is perfectly fine.Regardless the fact of videogames increasing violence is a indisputable fact that is backed up by several dozen studies of tens of thousands of participants. These results are solid and whether we like it or not (I don't), we can't pretend they don't exist.On this basis I feel voters must vote Pro[1] https://en.wikipedia.org...[2] http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com...[3] https://www.meta-analysis.com...