Study: Games do not unequivocally correlate to violence

[jayfish]

http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20050815-5205.html

<SNIP>
The debate over the role video games play in promoting violence reached a more dignified level with the publication of a new study that poses problems for those who want to make facile correlations between video games and violence. Internet Fantasy Violence: A Test of Aggression in an Online Game (Williams, D. & Skoric, M.) is the first first long-term study of the affects of a video game on players' aggressiveness, measured according to sociological standards (particularly, the Normative Beliefs in Aggression scale, or NOBAGS). The study saw "no strong effects associated with aggression," and even provided the basis for questioning just who it is that is most affected by so-called "violent video games." The method of analysis precluded the detection of "small effects."
</SNIP>

Just some info for any future arguments we gamers are bound to get into.

Jay

[democracyindanger]

1. I just use the time-tested

"What were the video games the Nazis played before invading Poland? And the guy who went up into the bell tower at UT with a rifle--was the video game he played on Xbox or PlayStation?"

[DanCa]

2. You know it's a false correlation

It's the temperament of the gamer not the game itself. I have watched hours upon hours of boxing and I have never been in a real fight.