Study on Violent Gaming Proves Little

Are violent video games bad for you, your loved ones, and others? Many think so and allegedly many studies give evidence that they are. One recent study [link], reported by Time.com [link], gives evidence otherwise - very poorly. Here at Infunity Gaming News we're happy to see evidence that one of our favorite pastimes isn't socially corrosive, but less so when the study is so unconvincing.

Here is a really quick summary of the findings. A grand total of 160 participants were asked to play violent or nonviolent video games (randomly assigned) for 8 or 20 minutes (varies between experiments), and then observed to see whether they would tell a researcher when he dropped his pen. 49% of violent game players and 39% of nonviolent game players 'helped', which for these sample sizes is statistically insignificant. For reference, the violent games were GTA4, COD:Black Ops, and Lamers. The nonviolent games were World of Zoo, Portal 2, and Lemmings.

What did we learn? That what type of video game you play for a short period of time has a little to no effect on your behavior. This is being reported by Time? This is the best we've got? In the face of all of the accusations of the harms of video games, "failed to be bad in a small inconclusive lab test" is the best we can get? There are articles such as "Video Games Linked To Aggression" referencing very convincing-sounding meta studies.

Time and again, whichever media the press decides to target takes the blame for specific incidents of violence among young people, regardless of the causes. Whether it's Marilyn Manson getting blamed for violence caused by extreme fans of Natural Born Killers, or violent video games getting blamed for violence caused by someone who didn't play violent games.

It's possible that video games and media have an effect on the rate of violence by youths. Something particularly interesting to keep in mind, however, is a graph found here, and mentioned below:

Rate of serious violent crime by Juveniles, Ages 12-17, from 1980 to 2011

By the metric of major violent crimes, youths aren't getting more violent. All of the hype is nonsense. Some of the violence is spectacularly horrifying, its true, yet there is no reason to believe it is some kind of pandemic.

Heck, there's a little reason to believe that playing violent games is likely to make you more helpful, ridiculous as that sounds. Time for me to go blow up some pixels and help an old lady cross the street.