Room With A View

A study commissioned by the US Department of Justice is discussed on CBC’s May 1st episode of Search Engine. Some people may be surprised by the study’s findings. It’s well worth a listen but here are a few key points:

• there is not a simple relationship between violent video games and violent behaviour
• boys that don’t play games are more likely to get into trouble at school
• kids like the complexity of games not the violence. It just happens that the violent games tend to be the complex ones.
• kids are acutley aware of the difference between fantasy and reality. They know that games are not real. That’s why they like them.
• youth violence has gone down in the past 15 to 20 years. The reporting of violence has gone up.

Here’s a link to the study’s homepage.