Long-term Study Finds No Link Between Video Game Violence and Real Violence

Posted by Soulskill on Saturday November 8, 2014 @11:48AM from the but-don't-let-it-get-in-the-way-of-your-opinion dept.

SternisheFan sends news that a study has been completed on the long-term effects of violence in movies and video games on violence in real life. A researcher at Stetson University found no link between the consumption of violent media and an increase in societal violence. The study was published in the Journal of Communication. From the article: "Entertainment Software Ratings Board ratings were used to estimate the violent content of the most popular video games for the years 1996-2011. These estimates of societal video game violence consumption were correlated against federal data on youth violence rates during the same years. Violent video game consumption was strongly correlated with declines in youth violence. However, it was concluded that such a correlation is most likely due to chance and does not indicate video games caused the decline in youth violence. ... Previous studies have focused on laboratory experiments and aggression as a response to movie and videogame violence, but this does not match well with real-life exposure.

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wish I could believe that, experience disagrees by raymorris · 2014-11-08 12:18 · Score: 1, Offtopic

My strong support of free speech makes me wish that were true. However, I've seen that kids who grow up watching violence and vulgarity tend to be inclined to violence and vulgarity, while people like my wife who grew up on G-rated material tend to act in G-rated ways, and be uncomfortable around that which they haven't been exposed to.
When we were dating, my foul language was a major turnoff to my wife, who had grown up around more polite language and thus didn't cuss herself. I had to clean up my language if I wanted to be with her, which I did. Other kids of friends and family are exposed to, and desensitized to, stuff that makes my wife quite uncomfortable.
Common sense is that what we continuously feed into our minds will of course have an effect. That in no way implies that the GOVERNMENT should adopt any particular policy. It does mean that just as parents are mindful of not letting kids fill their bodies with junk food, we parents should be mindful of how much junk is fed to our kids' minds.