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Violent crime rates are affected by literally hundreds of factors. There can be dozens of factors pushing the rate down and few dozen less pushing the rate up
by Ensorceled 11y ago
Violent crime rates are affected by literally hundreds of factors. There can be dozens of factors pushing the rate down and few dozen less pushing the rate up with the end result being we have an overall reduction.
- dahart 11y agoYes! You're right. This is true. So... if the trend is down, and somehow games are a force for increase in tendencies, then something else is pushing down even faster than games are pushing it up. What might that be? And what evidence do we have that games are pushing it up at all?
- Ensorceled 11y agoThis study? That's my point, an overall trend in a statistic with multiple confounding variables says nothing at all about any specific variable. The study is either correct or flawed. The overall crime rate is NOT evidence against nor for the study.
- dahart 11y agoYeah, you're right. Sorry I'm not being clear & maybe sounding argumentative too. I'm really responding not to the study itself, and not to the direct conclusions they make, but to the suggestions and implications they leave open. The study says one thing, but the presentation says something else, and it is implying that this is a stepping stone to showing that violent games do affect the crime rate, and "negative outcomes" in general for children who play violent video games. I'm responding to this speculation. You're right that the overall crime rate doesn't say anything about this study, but it does say something about the implication they're trying to make in this press release, and the future work and courses of action they suggest in this study's conclusions.
- Ensorceled 11y agoAh, got it. Yeah, I hate that section of papers; "I've shown small, isolated result X. Perhaps this implies large, wildly extraordinarily speculative claim Y."