Things I wish would go away: studies about violent video games
By Slag 14 Comments
yet another one of these really dumb studies about whether video games cause violence, this one claims that they do.
one of these days I'd really like for someone to teach these psychologists that correlation does not equal causation, so they can stop wasting our time with these pointless studies that prove nothing.
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2011-10-uq-dangers-violent-video-games.html
New research by Dr. Brock Bastian from UQ's School of Psychology has found evidence that playing violent video games leads players to see themselves, and their opponents, as lacking in core human qualities such as warmth, open-mindedness, and intelligence...
Study participants were opponents engaged in violent behaviour against each other in the popular game, Mortal Kombat.
Dr. Bastian says he believes the findings of this study point to the potential long-term effects of violent video game play and suggest that repeated exposure to these dehumanising experiences may result in chronic changes in self-perception.
How many hundreds of these studies have been conducted in the past twenty years? And how many of them have directly contradictory results?
I'm sure one will come out next week, coming to the exact opposite conclusion.
I think all we have really learned is that scientists don't know at all if violent video game make people more violent or not.