It's not anything new to hear about violent video games being the cause of some horrific event like a school shooting or some kind of random bullshit. It's a bullshit cop out. Any gamer knows that. I'll save that whole rant for another time. Let's get to the science! The British Medical Journal published a decade long study last week exploring the affects of video games on a child's psychosocial development. The study consisted of 11,000 kids in the UK starting at the age of 5. In all key areas the study showed that exposure to video games with kids as young as 5 had no real effect on behavior, attention, or emotional issues. TV was part of the study too and the results were basically the same. TV did score low in one area.
Watching more than three hours of TV a day at age 5 later lead to a small increase in behavioral problems in kids, male and female, between the ages of 5 and 7. Findings also showed that kids preferred TV over video games across the board. If anything researchers found that video games have a positive effect and are harmless. Make of it what you will. As long as there's violence in video games they'll always be blamed for something.
No comments:
Post a Comment