Psychologist: Gaming is worse than second hand smoke

[castlezelda]

According to psychologist Craig Anderson, playing a video game is more dangerous than cancer-inducing smoke.

"Facts: Meta-analyses reveal that violent video game effect sizes are larger than the effect of second hand tobacco smoke on lung cancer, the effect of lead exposure to I.Q. scores in children, and calcium intake on bone mass," Anderson said in his study. "Furthermore, the fact that so many youths are exposed to such high levels of video game violence further increases the societal costs of this risk factor."

• Anderson used a number of references for his study, which mostly consisted of himself and a colleague:
• Anderson, C.A. (in press). An Update on the Effects of Violent Video Games. Journal of Adolescence.
• Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (1997). External validity of "trivial" experiments: The case of laboratory aggression. Review of General Psychology, 1, 19-41.
• Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2001). Effects of violent video games on aggressive behavior, aggressive cognition, aggressive affect, physiological arousal, and prosocial behavior: A meta-analytic review of the scientific literature. Psychological Science, 12, 353-359.
• Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2002a). The effects of media violence on society. Science, 295, 2377-2378.
• Anderson, C.A., & Bushman, B.J. (2002b). Human Aggression. Annual Review of Psychology, 53, 27-51.
• Anderson, C.A., & Carnagey, N.L. (in press). Violent evil and the general aggression model. Chapter to appear in A. Miller (Ed.) The Social Psychology of Good and Evil. New York: Guilford Publications.
• Anderson, C.A., & Huesmann, L.R. (in press). Human Aggression: A Social-Cognitive View. Chapter to appear in M.A. Hogg & J. Cooper (Eds.), Handbook of Social Psychology. London: Sage Publications.
• Bushman, B.J., & Anderson, C.A. (2001). Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts versus media misinformation. American Psychologist, 56, 477-489.
• Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2000). Effects of televised violence on aggression. In D. Singer & J. Singer (Eds.). Handbook of children and the media (pp. 223-254). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.
• Rosenthal, R. (1986). Media violence, antisocial behavior, and the social consequences of small effects. Journal of Social Issues, 42, 141-154.

His colleague, B.J. Bushman, helped Anderson write a work in the past that the APA gave the following critique to: "Comments on an article by Bushman and Anderson (see record 2001-17729-001). We are concerned that Bushman and Anderson's article on media violence contains data that are incorrect or irreproducible."

We reported last month that a doctor found no link between violent video games and aggression -- it looks like Anderson didn't read that study.

Check out Anderson's study by following this link.

via Spong

 

[Volcarona]