Actual research on actual videogames

[owlmoose]

Two psychologists do some research on kids who play violent video games, and the results are not what they expected. (Thanks to bottle_of_shine for pointing me at this article!)

http://www.openeducation.net/2008/03/17/author-reveals-the-surprising-truth-about-violent-video-games/

“Video game popularity and real-world youth violence have been moving in opposite directions. Violent juvenile crime in the United States reached a peak in 1993 and has been declining ever since. School violence has also gone down. Between1994 and 2001, arrests for murder, forcible rape, robbery and aggravated assaults fell 44 percent, resulting in the lowest juvenile arrest rate for violent crimes since 1983.”

Our survey of more than 1200 middle school students found that 29 percent of girls who played video games listed at least one M-rated game among the games they’d ‘played a lot’ during the previous six months. One in five specifically listed a Grand Theft Auto game. In fact, among these 12- to 14-year-old girls, the Grand Theft Auto series was second only to The Sims in popularity.”

They've written a book. I think I know what I'm ordering for the library when I get back.

Comments

[sirea1182.livejournal.com]

It's wonderful to hear of a study that doesn't make the video game industry a scapegoat. Maybe now parents will have a harder time blaming video games for their children's behavior rather then their own inadequacies as parents. It's about time people started taking accountability for how they raise their kids.

I've always said it's the other way around when it comes to violent video games; these games don't turn perfectly good children into hardened cold-blooded killers, rather it's people who already have these violent tendencies and would probably act on them sooner or later anyway that are attracted to those types of games. Adults give kids so little credit when they say that they can't possibly understand the difference between fantasy and reality. My son's only 4 and already I'm trying to instill in him what's "pretend" and what's "real."

Sorry I got a little long-winded there XD

[furitaurus.livejournal.com]

Finally a study i can appreciate. This is going on my favourites list.

[venefica-aura.livejournal.com]

Dude, I need to send this to my coworkers. Considering we've been debating how to put shooting into our game. XD

~Cendri

[regann]

Researchers found something similar when it came to rape and porn -- the incidence of rape in the US went down as accessibility to hardcore pornography went up. Coincidence? I think not.