Christopher Ferguson Releases Results of a Video Game Study

Though this article for today does not directly involve any particular news announcement for a video game, there has been some interesting information released relating to the long-lasting debate of, "Do violent video games cause or enhance violent behaviors in people?"

New research shows that there is no significant correlation whatsoever between long-term violence and violent video games. This study has recently been published by the Journal of Communication. The magazine article has also questioned the link between earlier studies of short-term violent behavior and violent video games. Christopher Ferguson, a psychologist at Stetson University of Florida, conducted two studies related to media violence, one of which used data between 1920 and 2005 in relation to violence and film (results: until 1950 there seemed to be moderate correlation, but the data reversed in the latter half of the century, where real life violence did not correlate to violent films).

The second study, which focused on the link between video games and long-term violence, were the opposite of expectations - between the 12 - 17 age group, there was a fall of violent crime that coincided with violent video games. It would make sense, after all. Lately, there have even been some therapists that have recommended video games (even violent ones) to patients in order to relieve stress and ease depressive symptoms. The correlation between violent video games and real life violence has been controversial over the years, with past horrific events raising the fear that there is a direct connection between the two.

So in the end, no definite links have been found between real world violence and video game violence. Of course, there will be other studies that attempt to disprove or support this statistical study in the future, but currently this research pushes the answer toward no correlation.