Videogames more dangerous than smoking?
According to
Cancer Research UK, cigarette smoking is responsible for 30 per cent of cancer deaths per year in the developed world. In Britain in 2005, that would have equated to 46,000 deaths. What's the next most dangerous societal ill? Researchers from the University of Michigan say violent videogames and films.
According to
Reuters, a new University of Michigan concludes that exposure to violence as depicted in TV, film and videogames "raises the risk of aggressive behaviour in adults and young viewers and poses a serious threat to public health."
This is the latest research in a string of work that looks into the impact of violent video games on the impressionable young minds of gamers. Last year, the University of Missouri-Columbia
published research saying there is a causal link between computer games and violence, not merely a simple association.
In the most recent bit of research,
L. Rowell Huesmann and his colleague Brad Bushman point out that this exposure -- what they call "virtual violence" from either in shoot-em-up video games or slasher films -- leads to aggressive tendencies, particularly on children and teens. The researchers looked at more than 50 years of violent films, TV shows and video games.
For society's benefit, we can only hope Huesmann and Bushman will be taken off the streets and locked up now that they've concluded their studies.
Fellow users of DCEmu, what do you think? Do videogames cause people to commit crimes? Or is this all just a bunch of hogswash?
via Times Online
