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Professor, ECA Dispute Video Game Aggression Study

Posted by Soulskill on from the correlation-is-not-something-something dept.

Earlier this week, we discussed research which linked aggression in children with video games. The Entertainment Consumer Association responded with a statement criticizing the research, as did Christopher Ferguson, a professor at Texas A&M. PCWorld sat down with Ferguson for a more in-depth discussion of the flaws with the study. In addition to bringing up the correlation vs. causation fallacy, he notes: "Even if you took it at face value, which I don't, video game violence overlaps somewhere between, based on their own statistics, a half a percent to two percent, with a variance in aggression. If you woke up tomorrow and you were half a percent more aggressive than you were today, would you notice that? It's just not much of an effect. If the author said look, there's a little effect here, maybe video games increase aggression a tiny bit, but it's not going to make anyone into a serial murderer, yeah, alright, we may argue a little bit over the methodology, though I'd still say they should've controlled for other stuff. "

5 of 78 comments (clear)

  1. Isn't it obvious? by Aphoxema · · Score: 5, Funny

    Of course violent video games cause violence. I played GTA the other day, then I went out and stole a car, then I ran some people over, then I did some missions, got a rocket launcher and blew some stuff up, then I had 4 stars above my head and I knew I had some problems. The police came and killed me even though I totally loaded up an armor and life and all the weapons.

    Fortunately I came back to life and appeared in front of the hospital, yet my sins felt strangely unforgiven.

    --
    "Most people, I think, don't even know what a rootkit is, so why should they care about it?"
    1. Re:Isn't it obvious? by RuBLed · · Score: 3, Funny

      I think you missed some very important stuff. While you are thinking about it, I gonna get myself some coffee...

    2. Re:Isn't it obvious? by philspear · · Score: 2, Funny

      Of course violent video games cause violence. I played GTA the other day, then I went out and stole a car, then I ran some people over, then I did some missions, got a rocket launcher and blew some stuff up, then I had 4 stars above my head and I knew I had some problems.

      Ah, but I have to point out everyone's favorite logical fallacy: correlation does not equal causation!!! Maybe you were going to do that anyway? Have not enough stories been tagged with it? I mean, any story in which two things happen gets tagged "correlationisnotcausation."

  2. Super Mario by coren2000 · · Score: 4, Funny

    I dont like what you say... Dont make me take mushrooms and jump on your head motherF#cker!

  3. Re:Been playing violent games since I was 3... by Thiez · · Score: 3, Funny

    > Starting with Wolfenstein on my 386, and the usual collection of shooters from then on. I've never even broken my own nose before, let alone performed any act of aggression against any person.

    Same for me, but that is irrelevant. Maybe you feel the need to speak up because the link videogames-violence does not apply to you (thus making you think it is bullshit), and the 1000 people who turned into crazy murderers after playing tetris are to embarrassed to speak up.

    We're all biased :(