Saturday, September 17, 2005

Games and aggression

No strong link seen between violent video games and aggression, according to the research of Dmitri Williams.

After years of arguing against badly designed studies confirming media panics, it's a relief to see somebody claim that their research does NOT show a strong connection to violence.

Thak you.

4 comments:

Licensure Exams said...

you are chosen
http://mostextraordinary.blogspot.com

Torill said...

Dr Hutch, whoever you are, spammer (with the authetication, I think you must at least do your spamming by hand, if that's what you do), serious blogger or what; to know I am the chosen one is always nice. Problem is: what am I chosen for? I am not opening or downloading any of the files behind the pictures on your blog, because I am really suspicious and if my lap-top now died under the weight of a virus while I am nowhere near a place where it can be maintained, I would be very unhappy.

That is a little sad though, because your concept is funny, if it is what I think it is. To have people tell their stories in a little film? It is almost like the 1 minute competition Jill Walker and Scott Rhettberg were involved with. And since I know who they are and what they do, I will rather ponder something along that line, than to contribute to a project I know nothing about.

Deacon said...

First time commenter on this blog. Like it a lot.

That being said, I'm not sure the problem in the past has been owing to the studies themselves, but rather idealogues that misinterpret and misrepresent the studies. They pay no attention at all to methodology or conflicting evidence. And of course their biggest mistake is not knowing the difference between correlation and causation.

All of the scientific papers I've read studying any link between game-playing and aggression have been even-handed and mostly point to other factors (social in many cases) as a larger influence. Of course, those points are ignored by the aforementioned idealogues.

Still, it is good to see studies being done that emphasize much more the case that no clear link between gaming and aggression exists.

Torill said...

I agree with you deacon, a lot of the research is quite good. Sadly though, fighting a general opinion and a cultural hegemony is not easy. This means that the studies that confirm the current prejudice will have a lot more power than studies that oppose it.