New Book Cuts Through Violent Video Game Myths

Terry Bosky suggests a recent interview from Game Couch with one of the authors of an upcoming book which fights the "myths and hysteria" surrounding violent video games. Dr. Cheryl K. Olson explains how many of the studies linking aggression with video games were flawed or misguided, and she discusses some of her own findings. Quoting: "Until now, the most-publicized studies came from a small group of experimental psychologists, studying college students playing nonviolent or violent games for 15 minutes. It's debatable whether those studies are relevant to real children, playing self-selected games for their own reasons (not for cash or extra credit!), in social settings, over many years. But media reports and political rhetoric often ignore that distinction. Also, the most-published researchers have built their careers around media violence. Their studies were designed under the assumption that violent video games are harmful, which dictated the questions they asked and how they framed their results. Media violence is just a small part of what we do, so we could look at the issue with fresh eyes and no agenda."

Comments

Re:who cares?

[cobaltnova]

It terrifies me that this was modded informative.

Re:An accurate sampling?

[zzsmirkzz]

many psychological experiments are done with a much smaller number of subjects (50 or so)

And that's why they say; "There are lies, damn lies, and then there are statistics". Seriously, I'll never buy into the whole idea of surveying of 50 people and extrapolating the results to a population in the millions, that's just logically ludicrous.