Techdirt:Stopping Crime By Getting Kids To Play More Video Games
Stopping Crime By Getting Kids To Play More Video Games
Culture Contributed by Mike on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 @ 04:23PM
from the gives-them-something-to-do dept.
We've discussed how little evidence there really is about video games leading to youth violence. While studies have been spun to show both sides, there's no actual link being shown. In some cases there are correlations, but it's usually easy to explain -- during a game, of course people are going to get excited and involved in the game play. However, for many it appears to be a way to let out aggression, not build up new aggression that gets let out on real people. This is clearly supported in the fact that youth violence has continued to drop significantly as video games have become ever more popular. Despite the efforts of some who want to blame video games for anything a child ever does wrong, it appears that some police officers are recognizing the good side of video games. Boing Boing points us to a story about police in Edinburgh who are organizing video game tournaments with troubled youths. The result? Youth crime in the area has dropped by half. Seems to take a lot of the sting out of the claims of those who like to blame the video games.
Stopping Crime By Getting Kids To Play More Video Games
Culture Contributed by Mike on Wednesday, January 18th, 2006 @ 04:23PM
from the gives-them-something-to-do dept.
We've discussed how little evidence there really is about video games leading to youth violence. While studies have been spun to show both sides, there's no actual link being shown. In some cases there are correlations, but it's usually easy to explain -- during a game, of course people are going to get excited and involved in the game play. However, for many it appears to be a way to let out aggression, not build up new aggression that gets let out on real people. This is clearly supported in the fact that youth violence has continued to drop significantly as video games have become ever more popular. Despite the efforts of some who want to blame video games for anything a child ever does wrong, it appears that some police officers are recognizing the good side of video games. Boing Boing points us to a story about police in Edinburgh who are organizing video game tournaments with troubled youths. The result? Youth crime in the area has dropped by half. Seems to take a lot of the sting out of the claims of those who like to blame the video games.
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