Actually current studies show that seeing and acting out violance increases the chance of experiencing agressive feelings. Not to mention that with games becoming more and more realistic they are becoming training engines for anyone who ever wishes to know how to kill someone.
I'd like to see the studies, its been my experience most such studies are looking for a particular answer and aren't designed too well, and never look beyond the answer they are trying to find. I'll take real world large scale and historical examples over some poorly designed study of a 1000 people any day. Not saying they're wrong, but history seems to fly in the face of what they are saying and they make no attempt to take it into account or explain it away.
Another fact is that playing violent video games is corelated with later violent behavior and delinquency.
first off, correlation does not equate to cause and effect. And its spelled with 2 r's.
Secondly, I seriously disbelieve this statement. I'm willing to gamble that the number of players of violent video games that are non-violent exponentially outnumber those that are. Violent behavior also correlates to breathing air. I'm sure, in just eh same way, the number of non violent people who breathe air exponentially outnumber the amount of violent people who breathe air. *Probably by the same percentage!*
Of course those who do commit violence in the U.S. comprise of a surprisingly large percentage of gamers. I don't doubt this. And that percentage is probably growing rapidly. But you know what else is growing just as rapidly? The number of gamers amongst non-violent people. As the number of people in general who play video games increases, you'd expect both these other numbers to increase correspondingly.
I'm also willing to gamble that all sorts of things have *stronger* correlations to violence than video games, much stronger. Abusive parents. Restrictive religions. Alcoholism. Being poor. Living in neighborhoods and going to schools that already have a lot of crime. But when we're trying to ban video games, we do a study on video games, then stop conducting any further studies on anything else, because the last thing we want when we announce our findings is a comparison of how much more other things correlate to violent behavior.
1 study, conducted in a vacuum, out of context of all the other variables that affect the people involved, is of no worth. It might still be right, by coincidence, but it isn't real science. No effort is made to identify, rule out, and compare to the other variables.
Although games will probably not be banned here in the US, seeing as it will violate several parts of the constitutio, games and gaming companies will start to experience a lot more stringent rules as to the design of their games.
You're probably right, unfortunately. I'm an adult, however, and I should retain the right to decide for myself what I want to play, even if it does correlate w/violent behavior. I retain the right to become a religious extremist, I retain the right to be poor, to move to a crime-ridden neigborhood, to go to crime ridden schools, to do drugs, to become an alcoholic, but if we ban doom 3 then despite all that, I'll be mr. happy. Ridiculous.
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