
I agree that the question of the effect videogames have on kids is complicate
d. And my opinions have changes over the last 15 years as well. Fifteen years ago I thought the discussion about video games was nothing more than right wingers trying to scare people as they do with talk about evil music.
What has changed my opinion has been seeing how incredibly addicted some of the children I know get to videogamse and the incredible violence that so many video games (especially the most popular ones) have.
Correlation does not equal causation but the researchers that analyze these games know that and attempt to control for it. Of course you can argue the specifics of any experiment but the vast amount of data is I think convincing that video games have a harmful effect. What is more just intuitively when I see the graphic gore of games that glorify decapitation, gun play, and fighting all with state of the art bloody graphics, intuitively it seems obvious to me that spending hours every day "playing" like this is harmful.
Finally, I think its worth considering the author's own motives. Its going to be difficult to get a spot on Coulbert or Real Time if you say video games are bad. We've heard that a million times. But say they are good and you are controversial and you also stand to benefit from all the people who market these games.
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