re: Do video games cause violence? This says YES...

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A lot of truth in this. As society's morals decay, mental illness is accepted as normal, and leads to more and more of this type of behavior.

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Oh brother..

I wonder if they would call it cookie violence if the children were fighting over the last cookie. And I like how they lead with video games despite the problem being that a loaded gun was within reach of children.

How about actual research?

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In a series of experiments, with more than 3,000 participants, the team demonstrated that video game concepts do not 'prime' players to behave in certain ways and that increasing the realism of violent video games does not necessarily increase aggression in game players.

The dominant model of learning in games is built on the idea that exposing players to concepts, such as violence in a game, makes those concepts easier to use in 'real life'.

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In one study, participants played a game where they had to either be a car avoiding collisions with trucks or a mouse avoiding being caught by a cat. Following the game, the players were shown various images, such as a bus or a dog, and asked to label them as either a vehicle or an animal.

Dr David Zendle, from the University's Department of Computer Science, said: "If players are 'primed' through immersing themselves in the concepts of the game, they should be able to categorise the objects associated with this game more quickly in the real world once the game had concluded.

"Across the two games we didn't find this to be the case. Participants who played a car-themed game were no quicker at categorising vehicle images, and indeed in some cases their reaction time was significantly slower."

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Or also the fact that school shootings have been down since the early 90s post columbine times.