New Study Dismisses Link Between Violence and Videogames

[lord.jeff]

I stopped caring what these studies said years ago, they are all bias to some extent and aren't going to change anything.

 

[Comocat]

I'm not sure how we would answer this question. We live in a society that loves violence. It doesn't take a rocket surgeon to see that a breast or saying "fuck" nets you an R rating, but a zombie apocalypse can pass with a PG-13 rating. I don't think watching a movie or playing a video game makes you want to kill, but it does create a society where violence is a norm rather than an exception.

It also doesn't make much since to link relatively rare mass killings to media violence. I think it makes more sense to look at domestic violence or child abuse, which are unfortunately more common. Are heavy consumers of violent media more likely to beat their wife? I don't know but it is an interesting hypothesis.

 

[Kargathia]

Pretty much. In the veritable avalanche of scientific studies it's rather easy to ignore one whenever it doesn't suit your agenda.

Although any scientist worth their salt would consider opposing opinions before even considering publishing to a peer-reviewed journal, even if they need to come up with it themselves or completely contradicts their own line of thinking. That's the beauty, and the fault, of science: there's no real way of knowing, 100% if something is right. Pretty sure that science has had their own problems yet they have, in the end, mostly corrected them, ie homosexuality being in the DSM III and there-after no longer considered a mental disorder. It's not perfect, and science still has a new set of problems to figure out, but science itself is not at fault.

OT: The study looks to be a decent read but I've read better metas on this subject five years ago than this one. They've been doing research on violence and video games since the early '90s (at least), which many studies also include violent TV, and most came up with no correlation.

Then again, try to teach politicians about correlation because I'm sure that brings in the money. Oops, I meant voters.

Any scientist that's even remotely interested in being taken seriously will indeed have his article properly peer reviewed. The problem, however, is that the people with the biggest microphones in front of them aren't scientists, and have no obligation whatsoever to the scientific method.

 

[Rainboq]

How long before this one gets debunked and over-reactive morons are banning games again?

Its a meta-analysis, as such, its a study of the studies, and its conclusions are pretty solid. That said, this is science, so things aren't guaranteed.

I know what a meta-analysis is, I've read Bad Science. Awesome book. What I mean is they'll come out with this, and there'll be a few people who go THEY'RE JUST GAMES or THAT WAS BIASED or TINC UF TEH CHELDRAAAAAANZ and everything will go back to normal. It will have been like this was never published.

As someone who debates creationists for giggles, its really easy to pin them down as to what makes it biased, and if they even understand the methodology. They will find their position indefensible.