A joint study conducted by researchers in Texas working with the Centre for European Economic Research has turned up some interesting results on the effects of violent video games.
The researchers found two opposing effects through their investigation on the relationship between violent video games and violent crimes. Firstly, they found that their research supports behavioural psychology studies that find a correlation between violent video games and aggressive behaviour.
Secondly, the study suggests that video games (either violent or non-violent) offer a ‘voluntary incapacitation effect’ or ‘time use effect’ that keeps violent people who might otherwise engage in criminal activities occupied with violently tea-bagging their latest Halo victim.
Aaah, you keep them busy with something violent to stop them from being violent on the streets?“These analyses are suggestive of the hypothesis that violent video games, like all video games, paradoxically may reduce violence while increasing the aggressiveness of individuals by simply shifting these individuals out of alternative activities where crime is more likely to occur. Insofar as our findings suggest that the operating mechanism by which violent gameplay causes crime to fall is the gameplay itself, and not the violence, then regulations should be carefully designed so as to avoid inadvertently reducing the time intensity, or the appeal, of video games.”
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