News
Gory games cut crime, says report
Christopher Dring May 15 2008, 10:05am
Comments (5)
New research suggests that violent attacks have declined as gaming popularity increases
The success of games such as GTA IV has coincided with a drop in violent crime, says a report in International Journal of Liability and Scientific Enquiry.
Patrick Kierkegaard of the University of Essex claims that violent games can actually reduce aggression, and that evidence linking games to violence is ‘flimsy’, reports Metro newspaper.
"Violent crime, particularly among the young, has decreased dramatically since the early 1990s, while video games have steadily increased in popularity and use,” said Kierkegaard.
“For example, in 2005, there were 1,360,088 violent crimes reported in the USA compared with 1,423,677 the year before. With millions of sales of violent games, the world should be seeing an epidemic of violence, instead violence has declined."
Comments
“Crime”
Posted by: sabs - May 15, 11:01am
Just becuase it aint reported doesn't mean it didn't happen!
“Re: Crime”
Posted by: Zildjian - May 15, 1:01pm
I'm not disagreeing with the research but it's pretty loose evidence. Where's the actual proof of a correlation between popularity in video games and decrease in crime.
Otherwise I could just state that the increase in popularity in male grooming also directly contributes to the decrease in crime.
- "What were you doing on Saturday 10th May at around 10pm"
- "Moisturising... innit!"
“Re: Crime”
Posted by: jim - May 15, 10:23pm
@ Zildjian: Exactly. What this study does is essentially the mirror image of previous studies. Instead of using flimsy evidence to support the thesis that games cause violence, it does the opposite. Both are cart before the horse scenarios.
Let's get real though.
If anyone really cared about the youth of the world, they'd not be focused on tenuous, non-threats like video games but on obvious, fact based ones like: child abuse, alcoholism, pedophilia in the clergy, poverty, malnutrition, drug abuse, availability of medical care, availability of educational opportunity, and availability of decent housing. It is preposterous to focus on virtual violence when this type of real violence goes on completely ignored.
“Re: Crime”
Posted: May 16, 10:40am
and lets not forget that in my opinion one of the BIGGEST influences is rap music....we can all say 'oh its just media' etc. but no...rap music is evil in my opinion...it gives nothing to society and on the whole creates gang culture and young men to knife up to make themseleves seem cool
“Re: Re: Crime”
Posted by: Magnus - Jul 10, 8:05pm
Too true and I'd like to see somebody defend this macho, posturing B.S. !