Comments 1,019

Re: New Study Suggests That Playing Violent Video Games Leads To Increased Physical Aggression

AlexOlney

The evidence presented in this only shows a correlative effect, and not a causative one. From this data we could also conclude that playing violent video games is a symptom of a mind drawn to physical violence and not that playing them causes it.

A big red flag with any study or experiment of any kind is when the abstract fronts the outline in a positive or neutral way (e.g. 'We plan to show video games cause violence'/'We plan to quantify the influence of video games on violence'). If the researchers have already ascertained that they believe there to be a connection, they are immediately biased towards proving the subject matter to be true.

All studies should be fronted and structured as to disprove something, and then if all evidence and efforts prove it to be impossible to disprove, then you have your 'positive' result. This is a slap-dash effort at best.

I'm not trying to say definitively one way or another whether there is causation in playing violent video games leading to real-world violence, I've not done my own peer-reviewed research into that, but this study is meaningless waffle in its current state.

Re: Weirdness: Amazon UK Invites Switch Owners To Spend A Penny For Free Game Demos

AlexOlney