Experts: The Myth of Video Games Making Killers Is ‘Nuts’

Becky

Becky

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The link between video games and real life violence is often brought up by politicians and some media outlets, despite the lack of evidence to support it. Professor of psychology at Stetson University, Chris Ferguson, has been exclusively studying whether there is a link between violent games and violence in real life, as The Daily Beast reports:

To Ferguson, it goes to show that tying violent video games to behavior is a dangerous misconception. In 2015, Ferguson conducted one of the most thorough meta-analyses to date of the topic in Perspectives in Psychological Science, analyzing 101 studies that explored the effect of video games on children's violent tendencies.

Here’s what he found: Connections to violent video games to increased aggression, reduced prosocial behavior, reduced academic performance, depressive symptoms, and attention deficit issues were minimal to practically nonexistent. “There’s no conclusive evidence that video games impact even mild aggression,” Ferguson said.
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You can read more here.
 
He is certainly a man of many words and little action. Shame it's just an imaginary meeting, me might actually learn something if it took place.

My favourite bit of the Daily Beast article:

Ferguson said he’s seen this sort of talk ebb and flow in the aftermath of what’s sadly become regular mass shooting events in the United States. “We went through this with Sandy Hook [Elementary School],” he said, referring to the December 2012 mass shooting where Adam Lanza killed 20 children and six adults. Lanza’s behavior was described as anti-social and politicians pounced by blaming this antisociality on his playing video games like Grand Theft Auto. But in the report that came out 11 months after, Lanza’s favorite game based on screen shots and hours played seemed to be the much less violent, seemingly innocent Dance Dance Revolution.
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Better ban dance games too then eh? :rolleyes:
 
Tom and Jerry get pretty violent at times too. :nod:

Better ban them. :rolleyes:
 
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